Q with hook tail (majuscule: Ɋ, minuscule: ɋ) is a letter of the extended
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...
. It was introduced by
Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...
missionaries in
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
for use in the
Numanggang language
Numanggang (Manggang) is a language of Papua New Guinea. Other names are Boana, Kai, Ngain, Sugu. Numanggang is preferred over Tok Pisin
Tok Pisin (,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh ; Tok Pisin ), often ...
in the 1930s or 1940s. In 2002, it was decided to discontinue using Q with hook tail.
Revised Proposal for Additional Latin Phonetic and Orthographic Characters
, Lorna A. Priest, 2004. It is still used in the Kâte language
Kâte is a Papuan language spoken by about 6,000 people in the Finschhafen District of Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. It is part of the Finisterre–Huon branch of the Trans–New Guinea language family (McElhanon 1975, Ross 2005). It was a ...
to represent a voiced labial-velar plosive
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refer ...
. (Latin Q is voiceless .)
In some forms of handwriting for English (and presumably other languages based on the Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...
), lowercase q ''always'' has a hook tail. This is particularly evident in geometric sans-serif
In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than seri ...
typefaces used to teach children how to write.
Unicode
References
Qz
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