X, or x, is the twenty-fourth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is (pronounced ), plural exes.["X", Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "ex", op. cit.]
History
The letter , representing , was inherited from the Etruscan alphabet. It perhaps originated in the of the Euboean alphabet or another Western Greek alphabet, which also represented . Its relationship with the of the Eastern Greek alphabets, which represented , is uncertain.
The pronunciation of in the Romance languages underwent sound changes, with various outcomes:
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French language: (e.g. laisser from laxare)
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Italian language: (e.g. asse from axem)
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Portuguese: (e.g. eixo from axem)
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Romanian: (e.g. coapsă from coxa)
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Old Spanish:
In Old Spanish, came to represent , which it still represents in most Iberian languages and in the orthographies of other languages influenced by Spanish, such as
Nahuatl language. In French (with a few exceptions), Italian, Romanian, and modern Spanish, was replaced by other letters.
The use of to represent was reintroduced to the Romance languages via Latin . In many words, the was voiced as .
Use in writing systems
| + Pronunciation of by language
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| | In Texel |
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| | Before a stressed vowel |
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| | Don Quixote, Oaxaca, and words derived from Classical Nahuatl/Nahuatl |
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| | Mainly in the prefix ex- followed by a vowel; sometimes word-initially |
| Silent | Word-finally with no liaison |
| | Word-finally with liaison; in sixième (6th) and dixième (10th) |
| | In six (6), dix (10), Auxerre, and Bruxelles (Brussels) |
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| | Some learned loanwords |
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| | In the middle or the end of a word, although words borrowed with the letter x in the middle or the end of a word are always replaced by the letters 'ks'. For example, the word 'maximum' and 'climax' in Indonesian would be 'maksimal' and 'klimaks'. Letter x on the middle or the end of a word only occurs in names. Mainly used in loanwords for science. |
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| | Before consonants |
| | In the prefix ex- before vowels in the Provençal, Limousin dialect, Auvergnat, Vivaro-Alpine, and Niçard dialects |
| | Before and in the Auvergnat dialect |
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| | Found between vowels in some words, mainly in those that entered the language recently |
| | When preceded by and succeeded by a consonant |
| | In the when before a vowel and |
| | Optionally in the prefix Numeral prefix, although most dialects just pronounce this prefix's as or |
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| , , | In some names and words |
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| | In Venexia, "Venice" |
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English
In English orthography, is typically pronounced as the voiceless consonant cluster when it follows the stressed vowel (e.g.
ox), and the voiced consonant when it precedes the stressed vowel (e.g.
exam). It is also pronounced when it precedes a silent and a stressed vowel (e.g.
exhaust).
Due to
yod-coalescence, the sequence before a vowel can be pronounced resulting from earlier , e.g. in
-xion(-),
-xious(-). Similarly, the sequence can be pronounced with (e.g.
flexure,
sexual) or (in
luxury and its derivatives). Due to
NG-coalescence, the sequence can be pronounced in
anxiety.
When ends a word, it is always (e.g. fax), except in loan words such as faux. When does start a word, it is usually pronounced 'z' (e.g. xylophone, xanthan). When starting in some names or as its own representation, it is pronounced 'eks', in rare recent loanwords or foreign proper names, it can also be pronounced (e.g. the obsolete Vietnamese monetary unit ) or (e.g. Chinese names starting with Xi, like Xiaomi or Xinjiang). Many of the words that start with are of Greek language origin, standardized trademarks ( Xerox), or acronyms ( XC).
In abbreviations, it can represent "trans-" (e.g. XMIT for transmit, XFER for transfer), "cross-" (e.g. X-ing for crossing, XREF for cross-reference), "Christ-" (e.g. Xmas for Christmas, Xian for Christians), the "crys-" in crystal ( XTAL), "by" ( SXSW for South by Southwest), or various words starting with "ex-" (e.g. XL for extra large, XOR for exclusive-or, or the extinction symbol).
X is the Letter frequency in English (after and ), with a frequency of about 0.15% in words.
Romance languages
In Latin, stood for . In the Romance languages, as a result of assorted phonetic changes, has other pronunciations:
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In Catalan language, has three pronunciations; the most common is ; as in xarop ('syrup'). Others are: ; fixar ('to fix'), ; examen. In addition, gets voiced to before voiced consonants; caixmir. Catalan also has the digraph , pronounced .
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In Galician and Leonese language, is pronounced in most cases (often used in place of etymological g or j). The pronunciation occurs in learned words, such as ' taxativo' (taxing). However, Galician speakers tend to pronounce it , especially when it appears before plosives, such as in externo ('external').
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In French language, usually represents or (primarily in words beginning with ex- followed by a vowel) . It is pronounced in some city names such as Brussels (although some people pronounce it 'ks') or Auxerre; it is nevertheless pronounced in Aix, the name of several towns. At the ends of other words, it is silent (or in liaison if the next word starts with a vowel). Two exceptions are pronounced : six ('six') and dix ('ten'). It is pronounced in sixième and dixième.
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In Italian language, is either pronounced , as in extra, uxorio, xilofono,
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In Portuguese, has four main pronunciations; the most common is , as in xícara ('cup'). The other sounds are: as in flexão ('flexion'); , when preceded by E and followed by a consonant, as in contexto ( in European Portuguese), and in a small number of other words, such as próximo (close/next); and (the rarest) , which occurs in the prefix "ex-" before a vowel, as in exagerado ('exaggerated'). A rare fifth sound is , coexisting with and as acceptable pronunciations in exantema and in words with the Greek prefix 'hexa-'.
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In Sardinian and Ligurian, represents .
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In Old Spanish, was pronounced , as it is still currently in other Iberian Romance languages. Later, the sound evolved to a sound. In modern Spanish language, due to a spelling reform, whenever is used for the sound it has been replaced with , including in words that originally had such as ejemplo or ejercicio, though is still retained for some names (notably "México", even though "Méjico" may sometimes be used in Spain). Presently, represents the sound (word-initially), or the consonant cluster (e.g. oxígeno, examen). Rarely, it can be pronounced as in Old Spanish in some proper nouns such as Raxel (a variant of Rachel) and Uxmal.
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In Venetian, represents the voiced alveolar sibilant , much like in Portuguese 'exagerado', English 'xylophone' or in the French 'sixième'. Examples from medieval texts include raxon ('reason'), prexon ('prison'), dexerto ('desert'), and chaxa or caxa ('home'). Nowadays, the best-known word is xe (is/are). The most notable exception to this rule is the name Venexia, , in which has evolved from the initial voiced sibilant to the present-day voiceless sibilant .
Other languages
In languages which adopted the
Latin script later, is used for various sounds, in some cases inspired by Latin or its descendants, but in others for unrelated consonants. Since the various Romance pronunciations of can often be written in other ways, the letter becomes available for other sounds.
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In Albanian, represents while the digraph represents .
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It represents (voiceless velar fricative) in Apache, Azerbaijani, Kurdish language (Hawar alphabet), Georgian (when Latinized), Lojban, Pashto (when Latinized), Tatar language (Jaꞑalif, Zamanälif, official romanization of 2012), Uzbek language, and Uyghur language (Latin script).
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In Basque language, represents . Additionally, the digraph represents .
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In Hanyu Pinyin, Standard Chinese's official transcription system in China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan, the letter represents the voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative , for instance in 'Xi', .
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In Dutch language, usually represents , except in the name of the island of Texel, which is pronounced Tessel. This is because of historical sound-changes in Dutch, where all sounds have been replaced by sounds. Words with an in the Dutch language are nowadays usually . In the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, with are not uncommon (e.g. Dierckxa and Hendrickx).
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In Esperanto, the x-convention replaces , , , , , and with x-suffixes: , , , , , and .
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In German language, generally pronounced ; in native words, however, such as Ochs or wachsen, the cluster is often written .
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In transliterations of Indian languages, primarily Indo-Aryan languages, represents the consonant cluster in alternate spellings of words containing 'क्ष' (kṣ), especially names such as Laxmi and Dikshit. Less frequently, is used to represent 'ख़' .
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In Lao language, based on romanization of Lao consonants, represents , while appears to be homophonous with , it is a "low consonant" and affects the tone of the following vowel, e.g. in Lan Xang.
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In Maltese language, is pronounced or, in some cases, (only in loanwords such as 'televixin', and not for all speakers).
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In Nahuatl, represents .
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In Nguni languages, represents the alveolar lateral click .
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In Norwegian, is generally pronounced , but since the 19th century, there has been a tendency to spell it out as ; it may still be retained in personal names, though it is fairly rare, and occurs mostly in foreign words and SMS language. Usage in Danish language and Finnish language is similar (while Swedish language, on the other hand, makes frequent use of in native words as well as in loanwords).
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In Pirahã, symbolizes the glottal stop .
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In Polish language, was used prior to 19th century both in loanwords and native words and was pronounced or , e.g. xiążę, xięstwo (now książę, księstwo). This was later replaced by and in almost all words and remained only in a few loanwords as 'xenia' ( xenien), surnames as Axentowicz, Rexemowski, and Xiężopolski, names as Xawery, and Xymena, and abbreviations.
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In Vietnamese, represents . This sound was in Middle Vietnamese, resembling the Portuguese , spelled .
An illustrative example of as a "leftover" letter is the differing usage in three different Cushitic languages:
Other systems
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, represents a voiceless velar fricative.
Other uses
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X mark has a widely accepted meaning of "negative" or "wrong".
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The Roman numeral X represents the number 10.
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In mathematics, x is commonly used as the name for an independent variable or unknown value. The modern tradition of using x, y, and z to represent an unknown ( incognita) was introduced by René Descartes in La Géométrie (1637).
[ See History of algebra.] As a result of its use in algebra, X is often used to represent unknowns in other circumstances (e.g. X-rays, The X-Files, and The Man from Planet X).
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On some identification documents, the letter X represents a non-binary gender, where F means female and M means male.
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In the Cartesian coordinate system, x is used to refer to the horizontal axis.
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It is also sometimes used as a typographic approximation for the multiplication sign, . In mathematical typesetting, x meaning an algebraic variable is normally in italic type (), partly to avoid confusion with the multiplication symbol. In fonts containing both x (the letter) and × (the multiplication sign), the two glyphs are dissimilar.
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It can be used as an abbreviation for 'between' in the context of historical dating; e.g. "1483 x 1485".
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Maps and other images sometimes use an X to label a specific location, leading to the expression "X marks the spot".
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In art or fashion, the use of X indicates a collaboration by two or more artists, e.g. Aaron Koblin x Takashi Kawashima. This application, which originated in Japan, now extends to other kinds of collaboration outside the art world.
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At the end of a letter or other correspondence, 'x' can mean a kiss;
[" X, n." OED Online (Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2022), §6. Accessed 11 November 2022.]
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An X rating denotes media, such as movies, that are intended for adults only.
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In the Korean language, a series of Xs is used as a visual bleep censor for subtitles and captions, serving the same role as an asterisk (*).
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In the C programming language, "x" preceded by zero (as in 0x or 0X) is used to denote hexadecimal literal values.
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X is commonly used as a prefix term in nouns related to the X Window System and Unix.
Related characters
Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet
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X with : Ẍ ẍ Ẋ ẋ X̂ x̂ ᶍ
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IPA-specific symbols related to X:
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Teuthonista phonetic transcription-specific symbols related to X:
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: Modifier letter small x is used for phonetic transcription
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: Subscript small x is used in Indo-European studies
Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets
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Χ χ : Greek alphabet letter Chi, from which the following derive:
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Ꭓ ꭓ : Latin chi
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Х х : Cyrillic letter Kha
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: Coptic alphabet letter Khe, which derives from Greek Chi
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: Gothic alphabet letter enguz, which derives from Greek Chi
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𐌗 : Old Italic X, which derives from Greek Chi, and is the ancestor of modern Latin X
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: Runes letter Gyfu, which may derive from old Italic X
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Ξ ξ : Greek letter Xi, which was used in place of Chi in the Eastern (and the modern) Greek alphabets
Other representations
Computing
Other
See also
Notes
External links
