Qoph

Qoph

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Qoph

Qoph or Qop (In modern Hebrew: Kuf, Arabic: Q?f) is the nineteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic alphabet (in abjadi order). Its sound value is an emphatic (pharyngealized) velar stop, , or uvular stop .

It became over time the letter Q in the Latin alphabet, and the letter Qoppa in certain early varieties of the Greek alphabet.

Origins of Qoph
Hebrew Kuf

Hebrew Pronunciation
Significance of Kuf

Arabic q?f
References

Origins of Qoph

The origin of Qoph is usually thought to have come from a pictogram of a monkey, with the body and tail shown (In Hebrew, Qoph, spelled in Hebrew letters as ???, means "monkey", and K'of in Old Egyptian meant a type of monkey). Others have proposed that it originated from a pictogram of someone's head and neck (Qaf in Arabic meant the nape).

Hebrew Kuf

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

Hebrew Pronunciation

In modern Israeli Hebrew, Kuf usually represents ; i.e., no distinction is made between Kuf and Kaph. However, many historical groups have made that distinction, with Kuf being pronounced as a voiceless uvular plosive by Iraqi Jews and other Mizrahim () or even as a voiced velar plosive by Yemenite Jews () (under the influence of Yemeni Arabic).

Significance of Kuf

Kuf in gematria represents the number 100. Sarah is described in Genesis Rabba as "?? ?' ??? ?' ??? ????", literally At Kuf 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).

Kuf 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 q?f

The letter ? is named ??? q?f, and is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:

The text in the folio appears below in modern script. Note how the Qaf's and Fa's are rendered:

???? ??? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ????? ????????? ???????? ?????? ?????? ??????? ?????? ????? ?? ?????? ????? ???? ??? ????? ?? ??? ???? ????

The letter q?f is matched only by ??m among Arabic consonants in the number of pronunciations applied to it dialectically. As noted above, Modern Standard Arabic has the voiceless uvular plosive as its standard pronunciation of the letter, but in northern Egyptian Arabic, as well as Levantine Arabic, the letter is often pronounced as the hamza or glottal stop but is preserved in several significant words; in Sa'idi (the Arabic of the Sa'id, Southern or Upper Egypt) and some forms of Yemeni Arabic, it is frequently pronounced the voiced velar plosive, ; and in rural Palestinian Arabic it is often pronounced as . 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 is more preserved but can also be sometimes pronounced as or a simple under Berber and French influence.

The Maghribi 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 fa' as fa' is written with a dot underneath in the Maghribi script^[1].