Kaph (also spelled kaf) is the eleventh
letter of the
Semitic abjads, including
Phoenician ''kāp'' 𐤊,
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
''kāp̄'' ,
Aramaic
Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...
''kāp'' 𐡊,
Syriac ''kāp̄'' ܟ, and
Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
''kāf'' (in
abjadi order). It is also related to the
Ancient North Arabian 𐪋,
South Arabian , and
Ge'ez .
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the
Greek kappa
Kappa (; uppercase Κ, lowercase κ or cursive ; , ''káppa'') is the tenth letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiceless velar plosive sound in Ancient and Modern Greek. In the system of Greek numerals, has a value of 20. It was d ...
(Κ),
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
K, and
Cyrillic
The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...
К.
Origin
Kaph is thought to be derived from a pictogram of a hand (in both modern
Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
and
modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew (, or ), also known as Israeli Hebrew or simply Hebrew, is the Standard language, standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today. It is the only surviving Canaanite language, as well as one of the List of languages by first w ...
, kaph means "palm" or "grip"), though in Arabic the ''a'' in the name of the letter (كاف) is pronounced longer than the ''a'' in the word meaning "palm" (كَف). The small ک above the
''kāf'' in its final and isolated forms was originally ''‘alāmatu-l-ihmāl'', but became a permanent part of the letter. Previously this sign could also appear above the medial form of ''kāf'', instead of the stroke on its
ascender.
D46
Arabic kāf
The letter is named ''kāf'', and it is written in several ways depending on its position in the word.
There are four variants of the letter:
* The basic form is used for the Arabic language and many other languages and is the
Naskh glyph form.
* The cross-barred form, or , is the
Nastaliq
''Nastaliq'' (; ; ), also Romanization of Persian, romanized as ''Nastaʿlīq'' or ''Nastaleeq'' (), is one of the main book hand, calligraphic hands used to write Arabic script and is used for some Indo-Iranian languages, predominantly Persi ...
form used predominantly in the
Perso-Arabic script
The Persian alphabet (), also known as the Perso-Arabic script, is the right-to-left script, right-to-left alphabet used for the Persian language. It is a variation of the Arabic script with four additional letters: (the sounds 'g', 'zh', ' ...
and as an alternative form of the version above in all forms of Arabic. It has a particular use in the
Sindhi language
Sindhi ( ; or , ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by more than 30 million people in the Pakistani province of Sindh, where it has official status, as well as by 1.7 million people in India, where it is a Scheduled languages of India, schedu ...
of Pakistan where it represents the
aspirated /kʰ/ and is called ''
keheh''.
* The long s-shaped variant form, , which is used in Arabic texts and in
Thuluth and
Kufic. It is a separate letter in the
Sindhi language
Sindhi ( ; or , ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by more than 30 million people in the Pakistani province of Sindh, where it has official status, as well as by 1.7 million people in India, where it is a Scheduled languages of India, schedu ...
of Pakistan, where it represents the unaspirated /k/.
* The variant of letter ''khe'' in Persian, and in
Tausug with a line above named
gaf is used, and it is thus written as:
Other than the four variants of the letter ''kāf'' as mentioned below, there are also five other variants of the Persian letter ''gaf'', namely,
* the letter ''khe'' with one dot above is used in the
Jawi alphabet
Jawi (; ; ; ) is a writing system used for writing several languages of Southeast Asia, such as Acehnese language, Acehnese, Banjarese language, Banjarese, Betawi language, Betawi, Maguindanao language, Magindanao, Malay language, Malay, Mar ...
, and it is thus written as:
* the letter ''kāf'' with three dots below is used in the
Pegon alphabet, using a modified basic form of ''kāf'', and it is thus written as:
* the letter ''kāf'' with one dot below is also used in the Pegon alphabet for writing
Javanese and
Sundanese in Arabic script, but is also used in the
Arwi alphabet for the
Tamil language
Tamil (, , , also written as ''Tamizhil'' according to linguistic pronunciation) is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia. It is one of the longest-surviving classical languages in the world,. "Tamil is one of ...
to represent , and it is thus written as:
* the letter ''khe'' with a ring is used in
Pashto
Pashto ( , ; , ) is an eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family, natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyb ...
, and it is thus written as:
* in
Chechen,
Kabardian, and
Adyghe, the Arabic character is used to spell or . In Chechen, ⟨⟩ is alternatively used as well.
In
Ottoman Turkish
Ottoman Turkish (, ; ) was the standardized register of the Turkish language in the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extensively, in all aspects, from Arabic and Persian. It was written in the Ottoman Turkish alphabet. ...
,
Chagatai,
Kazakh,
Kyrgyz,
Azerbaijani,
Uyghur,
Moroccan Arabic,
Xiao'erjing script, the Arabic letter ''ng'' has two forms, namely:
* the letter ''khe'' with three dots above is used, and thus it is written as:
* the basic form of the letter ''kāf'' with three dots is used, and thus it is written as:
There is also one another variant of the letter ''ng'', which is the letter ''khe'' with three dots below, and it is thus written as:
In the
Sindhi alphabet, the letter ''
gaf'' with two dots above is used, and it is thus written as:
There is also letter ''
gueh'' in the Sindhi alphabet. ''Gueh'' is thus written as:
Before 1928, the Nogai alphabet was written in Arabic script. There is one such letter based on a basic form of ''kāf'' with three dots below, and it is thus written as:
In
varieties of Arabic
Varieties of Arabic (or dialects or vernaculars) are the linguistic systems that Arabic speakers speak natively. Arabic is a Semitic languages, Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic family that originated in the Arabian P ...
''kāf'' is almost universally pronounced as the
voiceless velar plosive
The voiceless velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is k.
The sound is a ver ...
, but in
rural Palestinian and
Iraqi, it is pronounced as a
voiceless postalveolar affricate .
As an affix
Prefix
In Arabic, ''kāf'', when used as a prefix ', functions as a comparative
preposition
Adpositions are a part of speech, class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various thematic relations, semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositi ...
(, such as or )
and can carry the meaning of English words ''"like"'', ''"as"'', or ''"as though"'' . For example, (), means "like a bird" or "as though a bird" (as in Hebrew, above) and attached to "this, that" forms the fixed expression "like so, likewise."
Possessive suffix
When adjoined at the end of a word, ''kāf'' is used as a
possessive
A possessive or ktetic form (Glossing abbreviation, abbreviated or ; from ; ) is a word or grammatical construction indicating a relationship of possession (linguistics), possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ownership, or a numbe ...
suffix for second-person singular nouns (feminine taking ' , and masculine ' ); for instance, ' ("book") becomes ' ("your book", where the person spoken to is masculine) ' ("your book", where the person spoken to is feminine). At the ends of sentences and often in conversation the final vowel is suppressed, and thus ' ("your book"). In several varieties of vernacular Arabic, however, the ''kāf'' with no
harakat is the standard second-person possessive, with the literary Arabic harakah shifted to the letter ''before'' the ''kāf'': thus masculine "your book" in these varieties is ' and feminine "your book" '.
Hebrew kaf
Hebrew spelling:
Hebrew pronunciation
The letter kaf is one of the six letters that can receive a
dagesh kal. The other five are
bet,
gimel
Gimel is the third (in alphabetical order; fifth in spelling order) letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''gīml'' 𐤂, Hebrew ''gīmel'' , Aramaic ''gāmal'' 𐡂, Syriac ''gāmal'' ܓ and Arabic ''ǧīm'' . It is also rela ...
,
daleth
Dalet (, also spelled Daleth or Daled) is the fourth Letter (alphabet), letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician ' 𐤃, Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew , Aramaic alphabet, Aramaic ' 𐡃, Syriac alphabet, Syriac ' ܕ, ...
,
pe, and
tav (see
Hebrew alphabet
The Hebrew alphabet (, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is a unicase, unicameral abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably ...
for more about these letters).
There are two orthographic variants of this letter that alter the pronunciation:
Kaf with the dagesh
When the kaph has a "dot" in its center, known as a
dagesh, it represents a
voiceless velar plosive
The voiceless velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is k.
The sound is a ver ...
(). There are various rules in
Hebrew grammar that stipulate when and why a dagesh is used.
Kaf without the dagesh (khaf)
When this letter appears as ''without'' the
dagesh ("dot") in its center it represents , like the ''ch'' in German "Bach", or , like ''ch'' in Scottish English "
loch
''Loch'' ( ) is a word meaning "lake" or "inlet, sea inlet" in Scottish Gaelic, Scottish and Irish Gaelic, subsequently borrowed into English. In Irish contexts, it often appears in the anglicized form "lough". A small loch is sometimes calle ...
".
In
modern Israeli Hebrew the letter
heth
Heth, sometimes written Chet or Ḥet, is the eighth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''ḥēt'' 𐤇, Hebrew ''ḥēt'' , Aramaic ''ḥēṯ'' 𐡇, Syriac ''ḥēṯ'' ܚ, and Arabic ''ḥāʾ'' . It is also related to ...
is often pronounced the same way. However,
Mizrahi Jews
Mizrahi Jews (), also known as ''Mizrahim'' () in plural and ''Mizrahi'' () in singular, and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or ''Edot HaMizrach'' (, ), are terms used in Israeli discourse to refer to a grouping of Jews, Jewish c ...
and
Palestinian Arabs living in Israel have differentiated between these letters as in other Semitic languages.
Final form of kaf
If the letter is at the end of a word the symbol is drawn differently. However, it does not change the pronunciation or
transliteration
Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → and → the digraph , Cyrillic → , Armenian → or L ...
in any way. The name for the letter is ''final kaf'' (). Four additional Hebrew letters take final forms:
mem,
nun,
pei and
tsadi. Kaf/khaf is the only Hebrew letter that can take a vowel in its word-final form, which is pronounced after the consonant, that vowel being the
qamatz.
Significance of kaph in Hebrew
In
gematria
In numerology, gematria (; or , plural or ) is the practice of assigning a numerical value to a name, word, or phrase by reading it as a number, or sometimes by using an alphanumeric cipher. The letters of the alphabets involved have standar ...
, kaph represents the number 20. Its final form represents 500, but this is rarely used,
tav and
qoph
Qoph is the nineteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''qōp'' 𐤒, Hebrew ''qūp̄'' , Aramaic ''qop'' 𐡒, Syriac ''qōp̄'' ܩ, and Arabic ''qāf'' . It is also related to the Ancient North Arabian , South Arabian ...
(400+100) being used instead.
As a
prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the word to which it is affixed.
Prefixes, like other affixes, can b ...
, kaph is a
preposition
Adpositions are a part of speech, class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various thematic relations, semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositi ...
:
*It can mean "like" or "as", as in literary Arabic (see above).
*In colloquial Hebrew, kaph and
shin together have the meaning of "when". This is a contraction of , ''ka'asher'' (when).
Syriac kap
Character encodings
See also
*
Ca (Indic)
*
Gaf
*
Gueh
*
Ka (Indic)
*
Ngaph
References
{{Northwest Semitic abjad
Phoenician alphabet
Arabic letters
Hebrew letters
Letters with final form