Qoph

← Tsade Qoph Resh →
Phoenician Hebrew ק Aramaic Syriac ܩ Arabic ق,ق
Phonemic representation	q (kˤ, g)
Position in alphabet	19
Numerical value	100
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician
Greek Ϙ Latin Q Cyrillic Ҁ

Qoph or Qop (Phoenician Qōp ) is the nineteenth letter of the Semitic abjads. Aramaic Qop is derived from the Phoenician letter, and derivations from Aramaic include Hebrew Qof ק, Syriac Qōp̄ ܩ and Arabic Qāf ق.

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

Phoenician Qop

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 (the Hebrew קוף means "hole"), 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.^[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]

Hebrew Qof

The Oxford Hebrew-English Dictionary transliterates the letter Qoph (קוֹף) a transliteration 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 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 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.

Gematria

Qof in gematria 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.

Arabic qāf

The main Pronunciations of written <ق> in Arabic dialects.

The Arabic letter ق is named قاف qāf. It is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:

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

It is usually transliterated into Latin script as q, though some scholarly works use ḳ.^[4]

Pronunciation

According to Sibawayh, author of the first book on Arabic grammar, the letter is pronounced as a voiced phoneme.^[5] 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:

• [q]: In Druze dialects, partially all variants of Maghrebi and Gulf Arabic, it retains its MSA pronunciation [q].
• [ɡ]: In Hejazi Arabic, Najdi Arabic, partially in Maghrebi and Gulf Arabic, Libyan Arabic, rural Jordan and some forms of Yemeni and Sa'idi Arabic (of Southern Egypt).^[6]
• [k]: In rural Palestinian Arabic it is often pronounced as a voiceless velar plosive [k].
• [ɢ]: In Sudanese Arabic and some forms of Yemeni Arabic.
• [d͡ʒ]: Optionally in Iraqi and in Gulf Arabic, it is sometimes pronounced as a voiced postalveolar affricate [d͡ʒ].
• [ʔ]: In Egyptian Arabic, as well as Levantine Arabic and forms of Algerian Arabic and Moroccan Arabic from around Tlemcen and Fes respectively, the letter is often pronounced as a glottal stop [ʔ] but is preserved in several Modern Standard Arabic loanwords.

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

The Maghribi text renders qāf and fāʼ differently than elsewhere would:

منكم فقد ضل سواء السبيل فبما نقضهم ميثـٰـقهم لعنـٰـهم وجعلنا قلوبهم قـٰـسية يحرفون الكلم عن مواضعه ونسوا حظاً مما ذكروا به ولا تزال تطلع‎

Maghrebi variant

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.^[7]

The Maghrebi qāf

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

The earliest Arabic manuscripts show qāf in several variants: pointed (above or below) or unpointed.^[8] Then the prevalent convention was having a point above for fāʼ and a point below for qāf; this practice is now only preserved in manuscripts from the Maghribi,^[9] 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.^[10]

Unicode

Character	ק		ق		ܩ		ࠒ
Unicode name	HEBREW LETTER QOF		ARABIC LETTER QAF		SYRIAC LETTER QAPH		SAMARITAN LETTER QUF
Encodings	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	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	𐎖		𐡒		𐤒
Unicode name	UGARITIC LETTER QOPA		IMPERIAL ARAMAIC LETTER QOPH		PHOENICIAN LETTER QOF
Encodings	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	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: "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. e.g., The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition
5. Kees Versteegh, The Arabic Language, pg. 131. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001. Paperback edition. ISBN 9780748614363
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. Gacek, Adam (2008). The Arabic Manuscript Tradition. Brill. p. 61. ISBN 90-04-16540-1.
9. Gacek, Adam (2009). Arabic Manuscripts: A Vademecum for Readers. Brill. p. 145. ISBN 90-04-17036-7.
10. 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

External links