Qoph

This article is about the Semitic letter. For the band, see Qoph (band).

"Kuf" redirects here. For other uses, see KUF (disambiguation).

Qoph is the nineteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician qōp 𐤒, Hebrew qūp̄ ק‎, Aramaic qop 𐡒, Syriac qōp̄ ܩ, and Arabic qāf ق‎.

← Tsade Qoph Resh →
Phoenician	𐤒‎
Hebrew	ק‎
Aramaic	𐡒‎
Syriac	ܩ‎
Arabic	ق‎
Phonemic representation	q, g, ʔ, k
Position in alphabet	19
Numerical value	100
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician
Greek	Ϙ, Φ
Latin	Q
Cyrillic	Ҁ, Ф, Ԛ

Its original sound value was a West Semitic emphatic stop, presumably [kʼ]. In Hebrew numerals, it has the numerical value of 100.

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Origins

Needle from Ancient Egypt, 13th–10th century BC

The origin of the glyph shape of qōp () is uncertain. It is usually suggested to have originally depicted either a sewing needle, specifically the eye of a needle (Hebrew קוף quf and Aramaic קופא qopɑʔ both refer to the eye of a needle), or the back of a head and neck (qāf in Arabic meant "nape").^[1] According to an older suggestion, it may also have been a picture of a monkey and its tail (the Hebrew קוף means "monkey").^[2]

Besides Aramaic Qop, which gave rise to the letter in the Semitic abjads used in classical antiquity, Phoenician qōp is also the origin of the Latin letter Q and Greek Ϙ (qoppa) and Φ (phi).^[3]

Arabic qāf

The Arabic letter ق is named قاف qāf. It is written in several ways depending in its position in the word:

Position in word	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	ق‎	ـق‎	ـقـ‎	قـ‎

Traditionally in the scripts of the Maghreb it is written with a single dot, similarly to how the letter fā ف is written in Mashreqi scripts:^[4]

Position in word	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	ڧ‎	ـڧ‎	ـڧـ‎	ڧـ‎

It is usually transliterated into Latin script as q, though some scholarly works use ḳ.^[5]

Pronunciation

According to Sibawayh, author of the first book on Arabic grammar, the letter is pronounced voiced (maǧhūr),^[6] although some scholars argue, that Sibawayh's term maǧhūr implies lack of aspiration rather than voice.^[7] As noted above, Modern Standard Arabic has the voiceless uvular plosive /q/ as its standard pronunciation of the letter, but dialectal pronunciations vary as follows:

The three main pronunciations:

• [q]: in most of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, Southern and Western Yemen and parts of Oman, Northern Iraq, parts of the Levant (especially the Alawite and Druze dialects). In fact, it is so characteristic of the Alawites and the Druze that Levantines invented a verb "yqaqi" /jqæqi/ that means "speaking with a /q/".^[8] However, most other dialects of Arabic will use this pronunciation in learned words that are borrowed from Standard Arabic into the respective dialect or when Arabs speak Modern Standard Arabic.
• [ɡ]: in most of the Arabian Peninsula, Northern and Eastern Yemen and parts of Oman, Southern Iraq, some parts within Jordan, eastern Syria and southern Palestine, Upper Egypt (Ṣaʿīd), Sudan, Libya, Mauritania and to lesser extent in some parts of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco but it is also used partially across those countries in some words.^[9]
• [ʔ]: in most of the Levant and Egypt, as well as some North African towns such as Tlemcen and Fez.

Other pronunciations:

• [ɢ]: In Sudanese and some forms of Yemeni, even in loanwords from Modern Standard Arabic or when speaking Modern Standard Arabic.
• [k]: In rural Palestinian it is often pronounced as a voiceless velar plosive [k], even in loanwords from Modern Standard Arabic or when speaking Modern Standard Arabic.

Marginal pronunciations:

• [d͡z]: In some positions in Najdi, though this pronunciation is fading in favor of [ɡ].^[10][11]
• [d͡ʒ]: Optionally in Iraqi and in Gulf Arabic, it is sometimes pronounced as a voiced postalveolar affricate [d͡ʒ], even in loanwords from Modern Standard Arabic or when speaking Modern Standard Arabic.
• [ɣ] ~ [ʁ]: in Sudanese and some Yemeni dialects (Yafi'i), and sometimes in Gulf Arabic by Persian influence, even in loanwords from Modern Standard Arabic or when speaking Modern Standard Arabic.

Velar gāf

It is not well known when the pronunciation of qāf ⟨ق⟩ as a velar [ɡ] occurred or the probability of it being connected to the pronunciation of jīm ⟨ج⟩ as an affricate [d͡ʒ], but the Arabian peninsula which is the homeland of the Arabic language, there are two sets of pronunciations, either the ⟨ج⟩ represents a [d͡ʒ] and ⟨ق⟩ represents a [ɡ]^[12] which is the main pronunciation in most of the peninsula except for western and southern Yemen and parts of Oman where ⟨ج⟩ represents a [ɡ] and ⟨ق⟩ represents a [q].

The Standard Arabic (MSA) combination of ⟨ج⟩ as a [d͡ʒ] and ⟨ق⟩ as a [q] does not occur in any natural modern dialect in the Arabian peninsula, which shows a strong correlation between the palatalization of ⟨ج⟩ to [d͡ʒ] and the pronunciation of the ⟨ق⟩ as a [ɡ] as shown in the table below:

Languages - Dialects	Pronunciation of the letters
	ج	ق
Proto-Semitic	[ɡ]	[kʼ]
Dialects in parts of Oman and Yemen1		[q]
Modern Standard Arabic2	[d͡ʒ]
Dialects in most of the Arabian Peninsula		[ɡ]

Notes:

1. Western and southern Yemen: Taʽizzi, Adeni and Tihamiyya dialects (coastal Yemen), in addition to southwestern (Salalah region) and eastern Oman, including Muscat, the capital.
2. As used in the Arabian Peninsula: in Sanaa; ق is [ɡ] in Sanʽani dialect and also in the literary standard (local MSA), whereas the literary standard pronunciation in Sudan is [ɢ] or [ɡ]. For the pronunciation of ج in Modern Standard Arabic, check Jīm.

Pronunciation across other languages

Language	Dialect(s) / Script(s)	Pronunciation (IPA)
Azeri	Arabic alphabet	/g/
Kurdish	Sorani	/q/
Malay	Jawi	/q/ or /k/
Pashto		/q/ or /k/
Persian	Dari	/q/
	Iranian	/ɢ/~/ɣ/ or /q/
Punjabi	Shahmukhi	/q/ or /k/
Urdu		/q/ or /k/
Uyghur		/q/

The Maghribi text renders qāf and fāʼ differently than elsewhere would

Maghrebi variant

Not to be confused with ف, a letter with the same initial and medial forms in other languages.

The Maghrebi style of writing qāf is different: having only a single point (dot) above; when the letter is isolated or word-final, it may sometimes become unpointed.^[13]

The Maghrebi qāf

Position in word:	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Form of letter:	ڧ‎ ࢼ‎	ـڧ‎ ـࢼ‎	ـڧـ‎	ڧـ‎

The earliest Arabic manuscripts show qāf in several variants: pointed (above or below) or unpointed.^[14] Then the prevalent convention was having a point above for qāf and a point below for fāʼ; this practice is now only preserved in manuscripts from the Maghribi,^[15] with the exception of Libya and Algeria, where the Mashriqi form (two dots above: ق) prevails.

Within Maghribi texts, there is no possibility of confusing it with the letter fāʼ, as it is instead written with a dot underneath (ڢ‎) in the Maghribi script.^[16]

Hebrew qof

The Oxford Hebrew-English Dictionary transliterates the letter Qoph (קוֹף‎) as q or k; and, when word-final, it may be transliterated as ck.^{[citation needed]} The English spellings of Biblical names (as derived via Latin from Biblical Greek) containing this letter may represent it as c or k, e.g. Cain for Hebrew Qayin, or Kenan for Qenan (Genesis 4:1, 5:9).

Orthographic variants
Various print fonts			Cursive Hebrew	Rashi script
Serif	Sans-serif	Monospaced
ק	ק	ק

Pronunciation

In modern Israeli Hebrew the letter is also called kuf. The letter represents /k/; i.e., no distinction is made between the pronunciations of Qof and Kaph with Dagesh (in modern Hebrew).

However, many historical groups have made that distinction, with Qof being pronounced [q] by Iraqi Jews and other Mizrahim, or even as [ɡ] by Yemenite Jews influenced by Yemeni Arabic.

Qoph is consistently transliterated into classical Greek with the unaspirated〈κ〉/k/, while Kaph (both its allophones) is transliterated with the aspirated〈χ〉/kʰ/. Thus Qoph was unaspirated /k/ where Kaph was /kʰ/, this distinction is no longer present. Further we know that Qoph is one of the emphatic consonants through comparison with other Semitic languages, and most likely was ejective /kʼ/. In Arabic the emphatics are pharyngealised and this causes a preference for back vowels, this is not shown in Hebrew orthography. Though the gutturals show a preference for certain vowels, Hebrew emphatics do not in Tiberian Hebrew (the Hebrew dialect recorded with vowels) and therefore were most likely not pharyngealised, but ejective, pharyngealisation being a result of Arabisation.^{[citation needed]}

Numeral

Qof in Hebrew numerals represents the number 100. Sarah is described in Genesis Rabba as בת ק' כבת כ' שנה לחטא‎, literally "At Qof years of age, she was like Kaph years of age in sin", meaning that when she was 100 years old, she was as sinless as when she was 20.^[17]

Unicode

Character information

Preview	ק		ق		ڧ		ࢼ		ܩ		ࠒ
Unicode name	HEBREW LETTER QOF		ARABIC LETTER QAF		ARABIC LETTER QAF WITH DOT ABOVE		ARABIC LETTER AFRICAN QAF		SYRIAC LETTER QAPH		SAMARITAN LETTER QUF
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	1511	U+05E7	1602	U+0642	1703	U+06A7	2236	U+08BC	1833	U+0729	2066	U+0812
UTF-8	215 167	D7 A7	217 130	D9 82	218 167	DA A7	224 162 188	E0 A2 BC	220 169	DC A9	224 160 146	E0 A0 92
Numeric character reference	ק	ק	ق	ق	ڧ	ڧ	ࢼ	ࢼ	ܩ	ܩ	ࠒ	ࠒ

Character information

Preview	𐎖		𐡒		𐤒
Unicode name	UGARITIC LETTER QOPA		IMPERIAL ARAMAIC LETTER QOPH		PHOENICIAN LETTER QOF
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	66454	U+10396	67666	U+10852	67858	U+10912
UTF-8	240 144 142 150	F0 90 8E 96	240 144 161 146	F0 90 A1 92	240 144 164 146	F0 90 A4 92
UTF-16	55296 57238	D800 DF96	55298 56402	D802 DC52	55298 56594	D802 DD12
Numeric character reference	𐎖	𐎖	𐡒	𐡒	𐤒	𐤒

References

1. Travers Wood, Henry Craven Ord Lanchester, A Hebrew Grammar, 1913, p. 7. A. B. Davidson, Hebrew Primer and Grammar, 2000, p. 4. The meaning is doubtful. "Eye of a needle" has been suggested, and also "knot" Harvard Studies in Classical Philology vol. 45.
2. Isaac Taylor, History of the Alphabet: Semitic Alphabets, Part 1, 2003, p. 174: "The old explanation, which has again been revived by Halévy, is that it denotes an 'ape,' the character Q being taken to represent an ape with its tail hanging down. It may also be referred to a Talmudic root which would signify an 'aperture' of some kind, as the 'eye of a needle,' ... Lenormant adopts the more usual explanation that the word means a 'knot'.
3. Qop may have been assigned the sound value /kʷʰ/ in early Greek; as this was allophonic with /pʰ/ in certain contexts and certain dialects, the letter qoppa continued as the letter phi. C. Brixhe, "History of the Alpbabet", in Christidēs, Arapopoulou, & Chritē, eds., 2007, A History of Ancient Greek.
4. al-Banduri, Muhammad (2018-11-16). "الخطاط المغربي عبد العزيز مجيب بين التقييد الخطي والترنح الحروفي" [Moroccan calligrapher Abd al-Aziz Mujib: between calligraphic restriction and alphabetic staggering]. Al-Quds (in Arabic). Retrieved 2019-12-17.
5. e.g., The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition
6. Kees Versteegh, The Arabic Language, pg. 131. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001. Paperback edition. ISBN 9780748614363
7. Al-Jallad, Ahmad (2020). A Manual of the Historical Grammar of Arabic (Draft). p. 47.
8. Samy Swayd (10 March 2015). Historical Dictionary of the Druzes (2 ed.). Rowman & Littlefield. p. 50. ISBN 978-1-4422-4617-1.
9. This variance has led to the confusion over the spelling of Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi's name in Latin letters. In Western Arabic dialects the sound [q] is more preserved but can also be sometimes pronounced [ɡ] or as a simple [k] under Berber and French influence.
10. Bruce Ingham (1 January 1994). Najdi Arabic: Central Arabian. John Benjamins Publishing. p. 14. ISBN 90-272-3801-4.
11. Lewis, Robert Jr. (2013). Complementizer Agreement in Najdi Arabic (PDF) (MA thesis). University of Kansas. p. 5. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 19, 2018.
12. al Nassir, Abdulmunʿim Abdulamir (1985). Sibawayh the Phonologist (PDF) (in Arabic). University of New York. p. 80. Retrieved 23 April 2024.
13. van den Boogert, N. (1989). "Some notes on Maghrebi script" (PDF). Manuscript of the Middle East. 4. p. 38 shows qāf with a superscript point in all four positions.
14. Gacek, Adam (2008). The Arabic Manuscript Tradition. Brill. p. 61. ISBN 978-90-04-16540-3.
15. Gacek, Adam (2009). Arabic Manuscripts: A Vademecum for Readers. Brill. p. 145. ISBN 978-90-04-17036-0.
16. Muhammad Ghoniem, M S M Saifullah, ^cAbd ar-Rahmân Robert Squires & ^cAbdus Samad, Are There Scribal Errors In The Qur'ân?, see qif on a traffic sign written ڧڢ‎ which is written elsewhere as قف, Retrieved 2011-August-27
17. Rabbi Ari Kahn (20 October 2013). "A deeper look at the life of Sarah". aish.com. Retrieved May 9, 2020.

External links