G, is the seventh letter of the alphabet. The history of this letter begins with the Latin alphabet. The Greek alphabet derived from the Etruscan, represented the voiced velar stop by its third letter gamma (Γ). This passed to the Latin alphabet and was used in the rounded form C to represent the same sound as in the word recei (probably the early dative form rex, “king”), appearing in the early Latin inscription. The letter, however, began to represent an unvoiced velar stop, thus ousting K. This was probably due to the influence of the Etruscan people. To avoid confusion, the new letter G was different from C and was used to represent vowel voices, whereas C was now only for an unknown velar. The new letter was placed in the alphabet instead of the Greek zeta (Ζ), which was not required in the Latin alphabet.

The uncial form of the letter in the 6th and 7th centuries was a transitional form between C and G. The round head form, from which modern minuscule g originates, occurs first in a Latin letter at the beginning of the 7th century, replacing earlier forms. The small flat form was adopted by the Irish letter of the 6th and 7th centuries, and this form was used in Latin from the 5th to the 8th centuries. The form appears in the Merovingians (pre-Carolingian French), written in the 8th century, and its descendant was adopted in the Carolingian hand.

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