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Qoph

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This article is about the Semitic letter. For the band, see Qoph (band).
"Kuf" redirects here. For other uses, see KUF (disambiguation).
Qoph
Phoenician
𐤒‎
Hebrew
ק‎
Aramaic
𐡒‎
Syriac
ܩ‎
Arabic
ق‎
Phonemic representationq, g, ʔ, k
Position in alphabet19
Numerical value100
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician
GreekϘ, Φ
LatinQ
CyrillicҀ, Ф
This article contains special characters. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols.

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.

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

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 dialectical 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:

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
Dialects in parts of Oman and Yemen1 [g] [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. The standard pronunciation for Standard Arabic’s ق is [q] in most of the Arabian Peninsula, except in parts of Yemen as in Sanaa; where ق is [ɡ] in both the literary Standard Arabic pronunciation and the dialectal speech (Sanʽani dialect). 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 under the influence of 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.
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