Qoph Resh ->
Phoenician
Hebrew	?‎
Aramaic
Syriac	?
Arabic	?
Phonemic representation	q, g, ?, k
Position in alphabet	19
Numerical value	100
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician
Greek	? (?), ?
Latin	Q
Cyrillic	?, ?

Qoph (Phoenician Q?p ) is the nineteenth letter of the Semitic abjads. Aramaic Qop is derived from the Phoenician letter, and derivations from Aramaic include Hebrew Qof ?‎, Syriac Q?p? ? and Arabic Q?f ?.

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

Origins

The origin of the glyph shape of q?p () is uncertain. It is usually suggested to have originally depicted either a sewing needle, specifically the eye of a needle (Hebrew and Aramaic ? both refer to the eye of a needle), or the back of a head and neck (q?f 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 means "monkey").^[2]

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

Hebrew Qof

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

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

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 by Iraqi Jews and other Mizrahim, or even as by Yemenite Jews under the influence of Yemeni Arabic.

Qoph is consistently transliterated into classical Greek with the unaspirated 'k' /?/, while Kaph (both it's allophones) is transliterated with the aspirated /?/ [k?]. Thus Quph was unaspirated [k] where Kaph was [k?], this distinction is no longer present. Further we know that Qoph is one of the emphatic consonants through comparison with other semtic languages, and most likely was ejective [k']. 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

Gematria

Qof in gematria represents the number 100. Sarah is described in Genesis Rabba as ?' ?' ?‎, 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.^[4]

Arabic q?f

The main pronunciations of written in Arabic dialects.

The Arabic letter ? is named q?f. It is written in several ways depending in its position in the word:

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

Pronunciation

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

The three main pronunciations:

• : 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/". 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.
• : in most of the Arabian Peninsula, Northern and Eastern Yemen and parts of Oman, Southern Iraq, some parts of the Levant (within Jordan), Upper Egypt (?ad), 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.^[8]
• : in most of the Levant and Egypt, as well as some North African towns such as Tlemcen and Fez.

Other pronunciations:

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

Marginal Pronunciations:

• : In some positions in Najdi, though this pronunciation is fading in favor of .^[9][10]
• : Optionally in Iraqi and in Gulf Arabic, it is sometimes pronounced as a voiced postalveolar affricate , even in loanwords from Modern Standard Arabic or when speaking Modern Standard Arabic.
• ~ : 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 g?f

It is not well known when the pronunciation of Q?f ⟨?⟩ as a velar [?] occurred or the probability of it being connected to the pronunciation of J?m ⟨?⟩ as an affricate [d], but in most of the Arabian peninsula (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE and parts of Yemen and Oman) which is the homeland of the Arabic language, the ⟨?⟩ represents a [d] and ⟨?⟩ represents a [?], except in western and southern Yemen and parts of Oman where ⟨?⟩ represents a [?] and ⟨?⟩ represents a [q], which shows a strong correlation between the palatalization of ⟨?⟩ to [d] and the pronunciation of the ⟨?⟩ as a [?] as shown in the table below:

Notes:

1. Western and southern Yemen and parts of Oman.
2. [?] can be an allophone in some dialects.

The Maghribi text renders q?f and f?' differently than elsewhere would

Maghrebi variant

The Maghrebi style of writing q?f is different: having only a single point (dot) above; when the letter is isolated or word-final, it may sometimes become unpointed.^[11]

The earliest Arabic manuscripts show q?f in several variants: pointed (above or below) or unpointed.^[12] Then the prevalent convention was having a point above for q?f and a point below for f?'; this practice is now only preserved in manuscripts from the Maghribi,^[13] with the exception of Libya and Algeria, where the Mashriqi form (two dots above: ?) prevails.

Within Maghribi texts, there is no possibility of confusing it with the letter f?', as it is instead written with a dot underneath (?‎) in the Maghribi script.^[14]

Unicode

References

External links