Qoph

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Qoph
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Phoenician	qoph‎
Hebrew	ק‎
Aramaic	qoph‎
Syriac	ܩ‎
Arabic	ق‍,ق‎
Phonemic representation	kˤ, q
Position in alphabet	19
Numerical value	100
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician
Greek	Ϙ
Latin	Q
Cyrillic	Ҁ

This article contains special characters. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols.

Qoph or Qop (in Modern Hebrew: Qof/Kof, Arabic: Qāf) is the nineteenth letter in many Semitic abjads or alphabets, including the Phoenician, Aramaic, Syriac, and Hebrew 'ק' or the Arabic alphabet qāf 'ق' (in abjadi order). Its sound value is an emphatic [kˤ] or [q]. The OHED (Oxford Hebrew English Dictionary) gives the letter Qoph a transliteration value of 'Q' or 'K' and a final transliteration value as a 'ck'. In Hebrew Gematria, it has the numerical value of 100.

The origin of qoph is uncertain. It is usually suggested to have originally depicted either a sewing needle, specifically the eye of a needle (Hebrew Template:J, means "hole"), or the back of a head and neck (qāf in Arabic meant "nape").^[1] Accoring to an older suggestion, it may also have been a picture of a monkey and its tail.^[2]

Hebrew Qof

Orthographic variants
Various Print Fonts			Cursive Hebrew	Rashi Script
Serif	Sans-serif	Monospaced	Cursive Hebrew	Rashi Script
ק	ק	ק

Hebrew spelling: קוֹף

Hebrew Pronunciation

In modern Israeli Hebrew the letter is also called kuf. The letter represents /k/; i.e., no distinction is made between Qof and Kaph. 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.

Significance of Qof

Qof in gematria represents the number 100. Sarah is described in Genesis Rabba as Template:Hebrew, literally At Qof years of age, she was like Kaph years of age in sin (i.e. when she was 100 years old, she was as sinless as when she was 20).

Qof is used in an Israeli phrase: after a child will say something false, one might say "B'Shin Qoph, Resh" (With Shin, Qoph, Resh). These letters spell Sheqer, which is the Hebrew word for a lie. It would be akin to an English speaker saying "That's an L-I-E."

Arabic qāf

The letter ق is named قاف qāf, and is written in several ways depending on its position in the word:

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

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:

In Egyptian Arabic, as well as Levantine Arabic and forms of Moroccan Arabic from around Fes, the letter is often pronounced as a glottal stop [ʔ] but is approximated to [k] or preserved in several Modern Standard Arabic loanwords.
In Sa'idi Arabic (the Arabic of Southern Egypt), in some rural areas of Jordan, parts of the Arabian Peninsula, in a few parts of the Maghreb and some forms of Yemeni Arabic, it is frequently pronounced as a voiced velar plosive [ɡ].
In Sudanese Arabic and some forms of Yemeni Arabic, it is pronounced as a voiced uvular plosive [ɢ].
In rural Palestinian Arabic it is often pronounced as a voiceless velar plosive [k].
In the United Arab Emirates and Gulf Arabic in general, it is pronounced as a voiced postalveolar affricate [d͡ʒ] usually in place of etymological /iq/.
In some variants of Northwest African Arabic (especially North Tunisian Arabic and the Arabic of the Middle Atlas in Morocco), it retains its MSA pronunciation [q].

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.

Position in word:	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Form of letter:	ٯ‎	ـٯ‎	ـڧـ‎	ڧـ‎

The Maghrebi style of writing qaf is different. Once the prevalent style, it is now only used in Maghribi countries for writing Qur'an with the exception of Libya which adopted the Mashriqi form. There is no possibility of confusing it with the letter fāʾ as it is written with a dot underneath (ڢ‎) in the Maghribi script.^[3]

Persian

In Persian, the letter is pronounced [ɣ]~[ɢ].

Character encodings

Character information
Preview	ק		ق		ܩ		ࠒ
Unicode name	HEBREW LETTER QOF		ARABIC LETTER QAF		SYRIAC LETTER QAPH		SAMARITAN LETTER QUF
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	1511	U+05E7	1602	U+0642	1833	U+0729	2066	U+0812
UTF-8	215 167	D7 A7	217 130	D9 82	220 169	DC A9	224 160 146	E0 A0 92
Numeric character reference	ק	ק	ق	ق	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

^ 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.
^ 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'.
^ 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

[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: "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] 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

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