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, or the back of a head and neck. According to an older suggestion, it may also have been a picture of a monkey and its tail. Besides Aramaic Qop, which gave rise to the letter in the Semitic abjads used in classical antiquity, Phoenician qōp is also the origin of the Latin letterQ and Greek Ϙ and Φ.
Hebrew Qof
The Oxford Hebrew-English Dictionary transliterates the letter Qoph as q or k; and, when word-final, it may be transliterated as ck. The English spellings of Biblical names containing this letter may represent it as c or k, e.g. Cain for Hebrew Qayin, or Kenan for Qenan.
Pronunciation
In modern Israeli Hebrew the letter is also calledkuf. The letter represents ; i.e., no distinction is made between Qof and Kaph. However, many historical groups have made that distinction, with Qof being pronounced by Iraqi Jews and other Mizrahim, or even as by Yemenite Jewsunder the influence of Yemeni Arabic. Qoph is consistently transliterated into classical Greek with the unaspirated 'k' /κ/, while Kaph is transliterated with the aspirated /χ/ . Thus Quph was unaspirated where Kaph was , this distinction is no longer present. Further we know that Qoph is one of the emphatic consonants through comparison with other semtic languages, and most likely was ejective . 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 and therefore were most likely not pharyngealised, but ejective. Pharyngealisation being a result of Arabisation
Gematria
Qof in gematria represents the number 100. Sarah is described in Genesis Rabba as, 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.
Arabic qāf
The Arabic letter ق is named قاف qāf. 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.
: in most of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, Southern and WesternYemen and parts of Oman, Northern Iraq, parts of the Levant. 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/". 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.
: in most of the Arabian Peninsula, Northern and Eastern Yemen and parts of Oman, Southern Iraq, some parts of the Levant, Upper Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Mauritania and to lesser extent in some parts of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco but it is also used partially across those countries in some words.
: In Sudanese and some forms of Yemeni, even in loanwords from Modern Standard Arabic or when speaking Modern Standard Arabic.
: In rural Palestinian it is often pronounced as a voiceless velar plosive, even in loanwords from Modern Standard Arabic or when speaking Modern Standard Arabic.
Marginal Pronunciations:
: In some positions in Najdi, though this pronunciation is fading in favor of.
: Optionally in Iraqi and in Gulf Arabic, it is sometimes pronounced as a voiced postalveolar affricate, even in loanwords from Modern Standard Arabic or when speaking Modern Standard Arabic.
~ : in Sudanese and some Yemeni dialects, 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 as a velar occurred or the probability of it being connected to the pronunciation of Jīm as an affricate, but in most of the Arabian peninsula which is the homeland of the Arabic language, the represents a and represents a, except in western and southern Yemen and parts of Oman where represents a and represents a, which shows a strong correlation between the palatalization of to and the pronunciation of the as a as shown in the table below: Notes:
The Maghrebi style of writing qāf is different: having only a single point above; when the letter is isolated or word-final, it may sometimes become unpointed.
Position in word:
Isolated
Final
Medial
Initial
Form of letter:
The earliest Arabic manuscripts show qāf in several variants: pointed or unpointed. 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, with the exception of Libya and Algeria, where the Mashriqi form prevails. Within Maghribi texts, there is no possibility of confusing it with the letter fāʼ, as it is instead written with a dot underneath in the Maghribi script.
