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 (Hebrew קוףquf and Aramaic קופאqopɑʔ both refer to the eye of a needle), 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 (the Hebrew קוף means "monkey").[2]
Besides AramaicQop, 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]
Arabic qāf
The Arabic letter ق is named قافqāf. 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 ḳ.[5]
Pronunciation
According to Sibawayh, author of the first book on Arabic grammar, the letter is pronounced voiced (maǧhūr),[6] although some scholars argue, that Sibawayh's term maǧhūr implies lack of aspiration rather than voice.[7] As noted above, Modern Standard Arabic has the voiceless uvular plosive/q/ as its standard pronunciation of the letter, but dialectal pronunciations vary as follows:
The three main pronunciations:
[q]: 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/".[8] 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.
[ʔ]: in most of the Levant and Egypt, as well as some North African towns such as Tlemcen and Fez.
Other pronunciations:
[ɢ]: In Sudanese and some forms of Yemeni, even in loanwords from Modern Standard Arabic or when speaking Modern Standard Arabic.
[k]: In rural Palestinian it is often pronounced as a voiceless velar plosive[k], even in loanwords from Modern Standard Arabic or when speaking Modern Standard Arabic.
Marginal pronunciations:
[d͡z]: In some positions in Najdi, though this pronunciation is fading in favor of [ɡ].[10][11]
[ɣ] ~ [ʁ]: 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 gāf
It is not well known when the pronunciation of qāf ⟨ق⟩ as a velar [ɡ] occurred or the probability of it being connected to the pronunciation of jīm⟨ج⟩ as an affricate [d͡ʒ], but the Arabian peninsula which is the homeland of the Arabic language, there are two sets of pronunciations, either the ⟨ج⟩ represents a [d͡ʒ] and ⟨ق⟩ represents a [ɡ][12] which is the main pronunciation in most of the peninsula except for western and southern Yemen and parts of Oman where ⟨ج⟩ represents a [ɡ] and ⟨ق⟩ represents a [q].
The Standard Arabic (MSA) combination of ⟨ج⟩ as a [d͡ʒ] and ⟨ق⟩ as a [q] does not occur in any natural modern dialect in the Arabian peninsula, which shows a strong correlation between the palatalization of ⟨ج⟩ to [d͡ʒ] and the pronunciation of the ⟨ق⟩ as a [ɡ] as shown in the table below:
Western and southern Yemen: Taʽizzi, Adeni and Tihamiyya dialects (coastal Yemen), in addition to southwestern (Salalah region) and eastern Oman, including Muscat, the capital.
As used in the Arabian Peninsula: in Sanaa; ق is [ɡ] in Sanʽani dialect and also in the literary standard (local MSA), whereas the literary standard pronunciation in Sudan is [ɢ] or [ɡ]. For the pronunciation of ج in Modern Standard Arabic, check Jīm.
Not to be confused with ف, a letter with the same initial and medial forms in other languages.
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.[13]
The Maghrebi qāf
Position in word:
Isolated
Final
Medial
Initial
Form of letter:
ڧ ࢼ
ـڧ ـࢼ
ـڧـ
ڧـ
The earliest Arabic manuscripts show qāf in several variants: pointed (above or below) or unpointed.[14] Then the prevalent convention was having a point above for qāf and a point below for fāʼ; this practice is now only preserved in manuscripts from the Maghribi,[15] 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.[16]
Hebrew qof
The Oxford Hebrew-English Dictionary transliterates the letter Qoph (קוֹף) as q or k; and, when word-final, it may be transliterated as ck.[citation needed]
The English spellings of Biblical names (as derived via Latin from 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).
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 influenced by Yemeni Arabic.
Qoph is consistently transliterated into classical Greek with the unaspirated〈κ〉/k/, while Kaph (both its allophones) is transliterated with the aspirated〈χ〉/kʰ/. Thus Qoph was unaspirated /k/ where Kaph was /kʰ/, this distinction is no longer present. Further we know that Qoph is one of the emphatic consonants through comparison with other Semitic languages, and most likely was ejective /kʼ/. 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.[citation needed]
Numeral
Qof in Hebrew numerals 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.[17]
^
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.
^
Isaac Taylor, History of the Alphabet: Semitic Alphabets, Part 1, 2003, p. 174:
"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'.
^
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.
^Samy Swayd (10 March 2015). Historical Dictionary of the Druzes (2 ed.). Rowman & Littlefield. p. 50. ISBN978-1-4422-4617-1.
^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.
^al Nassir, Abdulmunʿim Abdulamir (1985). Sibawayh the Phonologist(PDF) (in Arabic). University of New York. p. 80. Retrieved 23 April 2024.
^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.
^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