Q

Q is the 17th letter of the Latin alphabet.

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The Semitic sound value of Q?p (perhaps originally qaw cord) was /q/ (voiceless uvular plosive). In Greek this sign as Qoppa ? probably came to represent several labialized velar plosives, among them /kʷ/ and /kʷʰ/. These sounds changed to /p/ and /pʰ/ respectively. Therefore, Qoppa was transformed into two letters: Qoppa, which stood for a number only, and Phi ? which stood for the aspirated sound /pʰ/ that came to be pronounced /f/ in Modern Greek. The Etruscans used Q only in conjunction with V, symbolizing thus a /kʷ/. Some scholars claim that Q and Phi are unrelated.

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Alphabet: An alphabet is a complete standardized set of letters — basic written symbols — each of which roughly represents a phoneme of a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it may have been in the past. There are other systems of writing such as logograms, in which each symbol represe...

Semitic: Semitic is an adjective referring to the peoples who have traditionally spoken Semitic languages or to things pertaining to them. Genetic analysis suggests that the Semitic peoples share a significant common ancestry, despite important differences and contributions from other groups. This genetic ...

Voiceless uvular plosive: The voiceless uvular plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is pronounced like , except that the tongue makes contact not on the hard palate but on the uvula. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAM...