It’s basically the same with English always using a hard G for native English words. The complication comes from the fact that English preserves the pronunciation and spelling of loan words and loan words make up something like half of all words in English. The vast majority of words in English that use a soft G are French or Latin loan words, with a few Greek words that had their pronunciation latinized.
English preserves the pronunciation and spelling of loan words
English doesn’t preserve the pronunciation. It approximates the pronunciation while keeping the spelling, and that pronunciation drifts over time and changes in different places. See: Lieutenant, a word that has two wildly different pronunciations in English, neither of which sound anything like the original French word.
It’s basically the same with English always using a hard G for native English words. The complication comes from the fact that English preserves the pronunciation and spelling of loan words and loan words make up something like half of all words in English. The vast majority of words in English that use a soft G are French or Latin loan words, with a few Greek words that had their pronunciation latinized.
English doesn’t preserve the pronunciation. It approximates the pronunciation while keeping the spelling, and that pronunciation drifts over time and changes in different places. See: Lieutenant, a word that has two wildly different pronunciations in English, neither of which sound anything like the original French word.