Q

This article is about the letter. For other uses, see Q (disambiguation) and Queue (disambiguation).

For technical reasons, "Q#" redirects here. For the programming language, see Q Sharp.

Q, or q, is the seventeenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is pronounced /ˈkjuː/, most commonly spelled cue, but also kew, kue, and que.^[1]

Q
Q q
Usage
Writing system	Latin script
Type	Alphabetic and logographic
Language of origin	Greek language Latin language
Sound values	(Table) /ˈkjuː/
In Unicode	U+0051, U+0071
Alphabetical position	17
History
Development	𐌒 Q q
Time period	Unknown to present
Descendants	• Ƣ  • Ɋ  • ℺  • Ԛ
Sisters	Φ Ф ק ق ܩ ࠒ 𐎖 ቀ Փ փ Ֆ ֆ
Other
Associated graphs	q(x)
Writing direction	Left-to-right
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

History

Egyptian hieroglyph wḏ	Phoenician Qoph	Western Greek Koppa	Etruscan Q	Latin Q

The Semitic sound value of Qôp was /q/ (voiceless uvular stop), and the form of the letter could have been based on the eye of a needle, a knot, or even a monkey with its tail hanging down.^[2][3][4] /q/ is a sound common to Semitic languages, but not found in many European languages.^[a] In common with other glyphs derived from the Proto-Sinaitic script, the letter has been suggested to have its roots in Egyptian hieroglyphs.^[5][6]

In an early form of Ancient Greek, qoppa (Ϙ) probably came to represent several labialized velar stops, among them /kʷ/ and /kʷʰ/.^[7] As a result of later sound shifts, these sounds in Greek changed to /p/ and /pʰ/ respectively.^[8] Therefore, qoppa was transformed into two letters: qoppa, which stood for the number 90,^[9] and phi (Φ), which stood for the aspirated sound /pʰ/ that came to be pronounced /f/ in Modern Greek.^[10][11]

The Etruscans used Q in conjunction with V to represent /kʷ/, and this usage was copied by the Romans with the rest of their alphabet.^[4] In the earliest Latin inscriptions, the letters C, K and Q were all used to represent the two sounds /k/ and /ɡ/, which were not differentiated in writing. Of these, Q was used before a rounded vowel (e.g. ⟨EQO⟩ 'ego'), K before /a/ (e.g. ⟨KALENDIS⟩ 'calendis'), and C elsewhere.^[12] Later, the use of C (and its variant G) replaced most usages of K and Q: Q survived only to represent /k/ when immediately followed by a /w/ sound.^[13]

In Turkey between 1928 and 2013 the use of the letter Q, alongside X and W, was banned from official government documents, such as street signs and brochures. The letter forms part of the Kurdish alphabet but is not present in Turkish.^[14]

Typographic variants

The five most common typographic presentations of the capital letter Q

A long-tailed Q as drawn by French typographer Geoffroy Tory in his 1529 book, Champfleury

The printed long-tailed Q was inspired by ancient Roman square capitals: this long-tailed Q, used here in the Latin word "POPVLVSQVE", was carved into Trajan's column c. AD 113.

A short trilingual text showing the proper use of the long- and short-tailed Q. The short-tailed Q is only used when the word is shorter than the tail; the long-tailed Q is even used in all-capitals text.^[15]: 77

Uppercase "Q"

Depending on the typeface used to typeset the letter Q, the letter's tail may either bisect its bowl as in Helvetica,^[16] meet the bowl as in Univers, or lie completely outside the bowl as in PT Sans. In writing block letters, bisecting tails are the fastest to write, as they require less precision. All three styles are considered equally valid, with most serif typefaces having a Q with a tail that meets the circle, while sans-serif typefaces are more equally split between those with bisecting tails and those without.^[17] Typefaces with a disconnected Q tail, while uncommon, have existed since at least 1529.^[18] A common method among type designers to create the shape of the Q is by simply adding a tail to the letter O.^[17][19][20]

Old-style serif fonts, such as Garamond, may contain two uppercase Qs: one with a short tail to be used in short words, and another with a long tail to be used in long words.^[18] Some early metal type fonts included up to 3 different Qs: a short-tailed Q, a long-tailed Q, and a long-tailed Q-u ligature.^[15] This print tradition was alive and well until the 19th century, when long-tailed Qs fell out of favor; even recreations of classic typefaces such as Caslon began being distributed with only short Q tails.^[21][15] American typographer D. B. Updike, who was known to disapprove of the long-tailed Q, celebrated their demise in his 1922 book Printing Types, claiming that Renaissance printers made their Q tails longer and longer simply to "outdo each other".^[15] Latin-language words, which are much more likely than English words to contain "Q" as their first letter, have also been cited as the reason for their existence.^[15] The long-tailed Q had fallen out of use with the advent of early digital typography, as many early digital fonts could not choose different glyphs based on the word that the glyph was in, but it has seen something of a comeback with the advent of OpenType fonts and LaTeX, both of which can automatically typeset the long-tailed Q when it is called for and the short-tailed Q when it is not.^[22][23]

Owing to the allowable variation between letters, Q,^[17][24] like &, is often cited as a letter that gives type designers a greater opportunity for self-expression.^[4] Identifont is an automatic typeface identification service that identifies typefaces by asking questions about their appearance and later asks about the Q tail if the "sans-serif" option is chosen.^[25] In the Identifont database, the distribution of Q tails is:^[26]

Q tail type	Serif	Sans-serif
Bisecting	1461	2719
Meets bowl	3363	4521
Outside bowl	271	397
"2" shape (${\displaystyle {\mathcal {Q}}}$)	304	428
Inside bowl	129	220
Total	5528	8285

Some type designers prefer one "Q" design over another: Adrian Frutiger, famous for the airport typeface that bears his name, remarked that most of his typefaces feature a Q tail that meets the bowl and then extends horizontally.^[20] Frutiger considered such Qs to make for more "harmonious" and "gentle" typefaces.^[20] "Q" often makes the list of their favorite letters; for example, Sophie Elinor Brown, designer of Strato,^[27] has listed "Q" as being her favorite letter.^[28][29]

Lowercase "q"

A comparison of the glyphs of ⟨q⟩ and ⟨g⟩

The lowercase "q" is usually seen as a lowercase "o" or "c" with a descender (i.e., downward vertical tail) extending from the right side of the bowl, with or without a swash (i.e., flourish), or even a reversed lowercase p. The "q"'s descender is usually typed without a swash due to the major style difference typically seen between the descenders of the "g" (a loop) and "q" (vertical). When handwritten, or as part of a handwriting font, the descender of the "q" sometimes finishes with a rightward swash to distinguish it from the letter "g" (or, particularly in mathematics, from the digit "9").

Use in writing systems

Pronunciation of ⟨q⟩ or ⟨qu⟩ by language

Orthography	Spelling	Phonemes
Afar	⟨q⟩	/ʕ/
Albanian	⟨q⟩	/cç/
Azeri	⟨q⟩	/ɡ/
Standard Chinese (Pinyin)	⟨q⟩	/t͡ɕʰ/
English	⟨qu⟩	/kw/
Fijian	⟨q⟩	/ᵑɡ/
French	⟨qu⟩	/k/
Galician	⟨qu⟩	/k/
German	⟨qu⟩	/kv/
Hadza	⟨q⟩	/!/
Indonesian	⟨q⟩	/q/~/k/
Italian	⟨qu⟩	/kw/
K'iche	⟨q⟩	/qʰ/
Kiowa	⟨q⟩	/kʼ/
Kurdish	⟨q⟩	/q/
Maltese	⟨q⟩	/ʔ/
Menominee	⟨q⟩	/ʔ/
Mi'kmaq	⟨q⟩	/x/
Mohegan-Pequot	⟨q⟩	/kʷ/
Nuxalk	⟨q⟩	/qʰ/
Portuguese	⟨qu⟩	/kw/ or /k/
Sasak	⟨q⟩	/ʔ/
Somali	⟨q⟩	/q/~/ɢ/
Sotho	⟨q⟩	/!kʼ/
Spanish	⟨qu⟩	/k/
Swedish	⟨qv⟩	/kv/ (pre-1900 spelling, still survives in proper names)
Uzbek	⟨q⟩	/q/
Vietnamese	⟨qu⟩	/kw/
Võro	⟨q⟩	/ʔ/
Wolof	⟨q⟩	/qː/
Xhosa	⟨q⟩	/!/
Zulu	⟨q⟩	/!/

English

In English, the digraph ⟨qu⟩ most often denotes the cluster /kw/; however, in borrowings from French, it represents /k/, as in 'plaque'. See the list of English words containing Q not followed by U. Q is the second least frequently used letter in the English language (after Z), with a frequency of just 0.1% in words. Q has the fourth fewest English words where it is the first letter, after X, Z, and Y.

Other languages

In most European languages written in the Latin script, such as Romance and Germanic languages, ⟨q⟩ appears almost exclusively in the digraph ⟨qu⟩. In French, Occitan, Catalan, and Portuguese, ⟨qu⟩ represents /k/ or /kw/; in Spanish, it represents /k/. ⟨qu⟩ replaces ⟨c⟩ for /k/ before front vowels ⟨i⟩ and ⟨e⟩, since in those languages ⟨c⟩ represents a fricative or affricate before front vowels. In Italian, ⟨qu⟩ represents [kw] (where [w] is the semivowel allophone of /u/). In Albanian, Q represents /c/, as in Shqip.

The letter is often not used often or at all in other languages, The letter is not officially part of the Cornish (Standard Written Form), Estonian, Icelandic, Irish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Scottish Gaelic, Slovenian, Turkish, or Welsh alphabets. However, In some of them, It may be found in borrowings.

⟨q⟩ has a wide variety of other pronunciations in some European languages and in non-European languages that have adopted the Latin alphabet.

Other systems

The International Phonetic Alphabet uses ⟨q⟩ for the voiceless uvular stop.

Other uses

Main article: Q (disambiguation)

• The capital letter Q is used as the currency symbol for the Guatemalan quetzal.
• The Roman numeral Q is sometimes used to represent the number 500,000.^[30]

Related characters

Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet

• Q with diacritics: ʠ Ɋ ɋ q̃
• Japanese linguistics: Small capital q (ꞯ)^[31] and modifier letter capital q (ꟴ)^[32]
• 𐞥 Modifier letter small q is used as a superscript IPA letter^[33]
• Gha: Ƣ ƣ

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

• 𐤒: Semitic letter Qoph, from which the following symbols originally derive:
  • Ϙ ϙ: Greek letter Koppa
    • 𐌒: Old Italic Q, which is the ancestor of modern Latin Q
    • Ԛ ԛ: Cyrillic letter Qa

Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations

• ℺: rotated capital Q, a signature mark
• Ꝗ ꝗ, Ꝙ ꝙ: Various forms of Q were used for medieval scribal abbreviations^[34]

Other representations

Computing

Character information

Preview	Q		q		Ｑ		ｑ
Unicode name	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Q		LATIN SMALL LETTER Q		FULLWIDTH LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Q		FULLWIDTH LATIN SMALL LETTER Q
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	81	U+0051	113	U+0071	65329	U+FF31	65361	U+FF51
UTF-8	81	51	113	71	239 188 177	EF BC B1	239 189 145	EF BD 91
Numeric character reference	Q	Q	q	q	Ｑ	Ｑ	ｑ	ｑ
EBCDIC family	216	D8	152	98
ASCII[b]	81	51	113	71

Other

NATO phonetic	Morse code
Quebec	▄▄▄  ▄▄▄  ▄  ▄▄▄ ⓘ

Signal flag	Flag semaphore	American manual alphabet (ASL fingerspelling)	British manual alphabet (BSL fingerspelling)	Braille dots-12345 Unified English Braille

See also

• List of English words containing Q not followed by U
• Mind your Ps and Qs – English idiom about minding manners
• Q factor – Parameter describing the longevity of energy in a resonator relative to its resonant frequency
• Q# – Programming lang. for quantum algorithms
• QAnon – American conspiracy theory and political movement

Notes

1. See references at Voiceless uvular stop#Occurrence
2. Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.

References

1. "Q", Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989).
   Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993) lists "cue" and "kue" as current. James Joyce used "kew"; it and "que" remain in use.
2. Travers Wood, Henry Craven Ord Lanchester, A Hebrew Grammar, 1913, p. 7. A. B. Davidson, Hebrew Primer and Grammar, 2000, p. 4 Archived 2017-02-04 at the Wayback Machine. The meaning is doubtful. "Eye of a needle" has been suggested, and also "knot" Harvard Studies in Classical Philology vol. 45.
3. Isaac Taylor, History of the Alphabet: Semitic Alphabets, Part 1, 2003: "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'.
4. Haley, Allan. "The Letter Q". Fonts.com. Monotype Imaging Corporation. Archived from the original on February 3, 2017. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
5. Samuel, Stehman Haldeman (1851). Elements of Latin Pronunciation: For the Use of Students in Language, Law, Medicine, Zoology, Botany, and the Sciences Generally in which Latin Words are Used. J.B. Lippincott. p. 56. Archived from the original on August 16, 2021. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
6. Hamilton, Gordon James (2006). The Origins of the West Semitic Alphabet in Egyptian Scripts. Catholic Biblical Association of America. ISBN 9780915170401. Archived from the original on February 21, 2022. Retrieved September 16, 2020.
7. Woodard, Roger G. (March 24, 2014). The Textualization of the Greek Alphabet. Cambridge University Press. p. 303. ISBN 9781107729308. Archived from the original on February 21, 2022. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
8. Noyer, Rolf. "Principal Sound Changes from PIE to Greek" (PDF). University of Pennsylvania Department of Linguistics. Archived (PDF) from the original on February 4, 2017. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
9. Boeree, C. George. "The Origin of the Alphabet". Shippensburg University. Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. Archived from the original on December 4, 2016. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
10. Arvaniti, Amalia (1999). "Standard Modern Greek" (PDF). Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 2 (29): 167–172. doi:10.1017/S0025100300006538. S2CID 145606058. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
11. Miller, D. Gary (September 6, 1994). Ancient Scripts and Phonological Knowledge. John Benjamins Publishing. pp. 54–56. ISBN 9789027276711. Archived from the original on August 18, 2021. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
12. Bispham, Edward (March 1, 2010). Edinburgh Companion to Ancient Greece and Rome. Edinburgh University Press. p. 482. ISBN 9780748627141. Archived from the original on February 21, 2022. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
13. Sihler, Andrew L. (1995), New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin (illustrated ed.), New York: Oxford University Press, p. 21, ISBN 0-19-508345-8, archived from the original on November 9, 2016, retrieved December 24, 2015
14. "Ban on Kurdish letters to be lifted with democracy package - Turkey News". Hürriyet Daily News. September 27, 2013. Archived from the original on January 17, 2022. Retrieved January 17, 2022.
15. Updike, Daniel Berkeley (1922). Printing types, their history, forms, and use; a study in survivals. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 1584560568 – via Internet Archive.
16. Ambrose, Gavin; Harris, Paul (August 31, 2011). The Fundamentals of Typography: Second Edition. A & C Black. p. 24. ISBN 9782940411764. Archived from the original on August 19, 2021. Retrieved November 19, 2020. ...the bisecting tail of the Helvetica 'Q'.
17. Willen, Bruce; Strals, Nolen (September 23, 2009). Lettering & Type: Creating Letters and Designing Typefaces. Princeton Architectural Press. p. 110. ISBN 9781568987651. Archived from the original on August 15, 2021. Retrieved November 19, 2020. The bowl of the Q is typically similar to the bowl of the O, although not always identical. The style and design of the Q's tail is often a distinctive feature of a typeface.
18. Vervliet, Hendrik D. L. (January 1, 2008). The Palaeotypography of the French Renaissance: Selected Papers on Sixteenth-century Typefaces. BRILL. pp. 58 (a) 54 (b). ISBN 978-9004169821. Archived from the original on February 21, 2022. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
19. Rabinowitz, Tova (January 1, 2015). Exploring Typography. Cengage Learning. p. 264. ISBN 9781305464810. Archived from the original on February 21, 2022. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
20. Osterer, Heidrun; Stamm, Philipp (May 8, 2014). Adrian Frutiger – Typefaces: The Complete Works. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 97 (a) 183 (b) 219 (c). ISBN 9783038212607. Archived from the original on February 21, 2022. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
21. Loxley, Simon (March 31, 2006). Type: The Secret History of Letters. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 9780857730176. Archived from the original on February 21, 2022. Retrieved November 19, 2020. The uppercase roman Q...has a very long tail, but this has been modified and reduced on versions produced in the following centuries.
22. Fischer, Ulrike (November 2, 2014). "How to force a long-tailed Q in EB Garamond". TeX Stack Exchange. Archived from the original on February 4, 2017. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
23. "What are "Stylistic Sets?"". Typography.com. Hoefler & Co. Archived from the original on February 4, 2017. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
24. Bosler, Denise (May 16, 2012). Mastering Type: The Essential Guide to Typography for Print and Web Design. F+W Media, Inc. p. 31. ISBN 978-1440313714. Letters that contain truly individual parts [are] S, ... Q...^{[permanent dead link‍]}
25. "2: Q Shape". Identifont. Archived from the original on February 3, 2017. Retrieved February 1, 2017.
26. "3: $ style". Identifont. Archived from the original on February 3, 2017. Retrieved February 2, 2017. To get the numbers in the table, click Question 1 (serif or sans-serif?) or Question 2 (Q shape) and change the value. They appear under X possible fonts.
27. Hughes, Kerrie (September 2, 2014). "Font of the day: Strato". Creative Bloq. Bath, Somerset: Future plc. Retrieved August 25, 2022.
28. Heller, Stephen (January 7, 2016). "We asked 15 typographers to describe their favorite letterforms. Here's what they told us". WIRED. Archived from the original on February 3, 2017. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
29. Phillips, Nicole Arnett (January 27, 2016). "Wired asked 15 Typographers to introduce us to their favorite glyphs". Typograph.Her. Archived from the original on February 3, 2017. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
30. Gordon, Arthur E. (1983). Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy. University of California Press. pp. 44. ISBN 9780520038981. Retrieved October 3, 2015. roman numerals.
31. Barmeier, Severin (October 10, 2015), L2/15-241: Proposal to encode Latin small capital letter Q (PDF), archived (PDF) from the original on June 14, 2019, retrieved June 19, 2018
32. Miller, Kirk; Cornelius, Craig (September 25, 2020). "L2/20-251: Unicode request for modifier Latin capital letters" (PDF).
33. Miller, Kirk; Ashby, Michael (November 8, 2020). "L2/20-252R: Unicode request for IPA modifier-letters (a), pulmonic" (PDF).
34. Everson, Michael; Baker, Peter; Emiliano, António; Grammel, Florian; Haugen, Odd Einar; Luft, Diana; Pedro, Susana; Schumacher, Gerd; Stötzner, Andreas (January 30, 2006). "L2/06-027: Proposal to add Medievalist characters to the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on September 19, 2018. Retrieved March 24, 2018.

External links

• Media related to Q at Wikimedia Commons
• The dictionary definition of Q at Wiktionary
• The dictionary definition of q at Wiktionary