Ḫāʾ
7th Arabic letter / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ḫāʾ, Khāʾ, or Xe (خ, transliterated as ḫ (DIN-31635), ḵ (Hans Wehr), kh (ALA-LC) or ẖ (ISO 233)) is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet (the others being ṯāʼ, ḏāl, ḍād, ẓāʼ, ġayn). It is based on the ḥāʾ ح. It represents the sound [x] or [χ] in Modern Standard Arabic. The pronunciation of خ is very similar to German, Irish, and Polish unpalatalised "ch", Russian х (Cyrillic Kha), Greek χ and Peninsular Spanish and Southern Cone "j". In name and shape, it is a variant of ḥāʾ. South Semitic also kept the phoneme separate, and it appears as South Arabian , Ge'ez Ḫarm ኀ. Its numerical value is 600 (see Abjad numerals).
Ḫāʾ | |
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Arabic | خ |
Phonemic representation | x, χ |
Position in alphabet | 24 |
Numerical value | 600 |
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician |
Ḫāʾ | |
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خ | |
Usage | |
Writing system | Arabic script |
Type | Abjad |
Language of origin | Arabic language |
Phonetic usage | x, χ |
Alphabetical position | 7 |
History | |
Development |
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Other | |
Writing direction | Right-to-left |
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. |
When representing this sound in transliteration of Arabic into Hebrew, it is written as ח׳.
The most common transliteration in English is "kh", e.g. Khartoum (الخرطوم al-Kharṭūm), Sheikh (شيخ).
Ḫāʾ is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:
Position in word | Isolated | Final | Medial | Initial |
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Glyph form: (Help) |
خ | ـخ | ـخـ | خـ |