Kaph (also spelled kaf) is the eleventh letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician kāp 𐤊, Hebrew alphabet kāp̄ , Aramaic alphabet kāp 𐡊, Syriac alphabet kāp̄ ܟ, and Arabic alphabet kāf (in abjadi order). It is also related to the Ancient North Arabian 𐪋, South Arabian 𐩫, and Ge'ez ከ.
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek alphabet kappa (Κ), Latin alphabet K, and Cyrillic script К.
Origin
Kaph is thought to be derived from a pictogram of a hand (in both modern
Arabic and
Hebrew language,
kaph כף 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 ,
-
The long s-shaped variant form, ,
-
The variant of letter khe in Persian, and in Tausug language 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, 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 to represent , and it is thus written as:
-
the letter khe with a ring is used in Pashto, and it is thus written as:
In Ottoman Turkish, Chagatai, Kazakh language, Kyrgyz language, Azerbaijani, Uyghur language, 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 kāf is almost universally pronounced as the voiceless velar plosive , but in rural Palestinian and Iraqi Arabic, it is pronounced as a voiceless postalveolar affricate .
As an affix
Prefix
In Arabic,
kāf, when used as a prefix كَـ
, functions as a comparative preposition (أداة التشبيه, such as مِثْل or شَبَه )
and can carry the meaning of English words
"like",
"as", or
"as though" . For example, كَطَائِر (), means "like a bird" or "as though a bird" (as in Hebrew, above) and attached to ذٰلِك "this, that" forms the fixed expression كَذٰلِك "like so, likewise."
Possessive suffix
When adjoined at the end of a word,
kāf is used as a
possessive suffix for second-person singular nouns (feminine taking
كِ, and masculine كَ ); for instance, كِتَاب
("book") becomes كِتَابُكَ ("your book", where the person spoken to is masculine) كِتَابُكِ
("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 كِتَابُك ("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 كِتَابَك
and feminine "your book" كِتَابِك .
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,
daleth, pe, and tav (see Hebrew alphabet for more about these letters).
There are two orthographic variants of this letter that alter the pronunciation:
|
|
| Kaf | | | k | kangaroo |
| Khaf | | or | ḵ, ch, or kh | lo ch |
|
Kaf with the dagesh
When the kaph has a "dot" in its center, known as a
dagesh, it represents a voiceless velar plosive (). 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".
In Hebrew language the letter heth is often pronounced the same way. However, Mizrahi Jews 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 in any way. The name for the letter is
final kaf (kaf sofit). Four additional Hebrew letters take final forms:
mem, nun, pei and
tsade. 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.
|
|
| Final kaf | Kaf sofit | |
| Final khaf | Khaf sofit | |
|
Significance of kaph in Hebrew
In
gematria, kaph represents the number 20. Its final form represents 500, but this is rarely used, tav and
qoph (400+100) being used instead.
As a prefix, kaph is a preposition:
-
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
