| Letname: | Kaph |
| Previouslink: | Yodh |
| Previousletter: | Yodh |
| Nextlink: | Lamedh |
| Nextletter: | Lamedh |
| Archar: | ك |
| Sychar: | ܟ |
| Hechar: | כ |
| Gechar: | ከ |
| Grchar: | Κ |
| Lachar: | K |
| Cychar: | К |
| Ipa: | k (x) |
| Num: | 11 |
| Gem: | 20 |
Kaph (also spelled kaf) is the eleventh letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician kāp, Hebrew kāp̄, Aramaic kāp, Syriac kāp̄ ܟ, and Arabic kāf (in abjadi order).
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek kappa (Κ), Latin K, and Cyrillic К.
Kaph is thought to be derived from a pictogram of a hand (in both modern Arabic and modern Hebrew, kaph Hebrew: rtl=yes|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).
See also: khē, ng (Arabic letter) and gaf. 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,
Other than the four variants of the letter kāf as mentioned below, there are also five another variants of the Persian letter gaf, namely,
In Ottoman Turkish, Chagatai, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Azerbaijani, Uyghur, Moroccan Arabic, Xiao'erjing script, the Arabic letter ng has two forms, namely:
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 pronounced as //k//, but in rural Palestinian and Iraqi, it is pronounced as a voiceless postalveolar affricate pronounced as /[t͡ʃ]/.
In Arabic, kāf, when used as a prefix Arabic: كَـ , functions as a comparative preposition (such as Arabic: مِثْل pronounced as //miθl// or Arabic: شَبَه pronounced as //ʃabah//)[3] and can carry the meaning of English words "like", "as", or "as though" . For example, Arabic: كَطَائِر (pronounced as //katˤaːʔir//), means "like a bird" or "as though a bird" (as in Hebrew, above) and attached to Arabic: ذٰلِك pronounced as //ðaːlik// "this, that" forms the fixed expression Arabic: كَذٰلِك pronounced as //kaðaːlik// "like so, likewise."
When adjoined at the end of a word, kāf is used as a possessive suffix for second-person singular nouns (feminine taking Arabic: كِ, pronounced as //ki// and masculine Arabic: كَ pronounced as //ka//); for instance, Arabic: كِتَاب ("book") becomes Arabic: كِتَابُكَ ("your book", where the person spoken to is masculine) Arabic: 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 Arabic: 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 Arabic: كِتَابَك and feminine "your book" Arabic: كِتَابِك .
Hebrew spelling:
See main article: Modern Hebrew phonology. 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:
| Name | Symbol | IPA | Transliteration[4] | Example | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kaf | align=center | pronounced as /[k]/ | k | kangaroo | |
| Khaf | align=center | pronounced as /link/ or pronounced as /link/ | ḵ, ch, or kh | loch | |
When the kaph has a "dot" in its center, known as a dagesh, it represents a voiceless velar plosive (pronounced as //k//). There are various rules in Hebrew grammar that stipulate when and why a dagesh is used.
When this letter appears as without the dagesh ("dot") in its center it represents pronounced as /link/, like the ch in German "Bach", or pronounced as /link/, like ch in Scottish English "loch".
In modern Israeli Hebrew the letter heth is often pronounced the same way. However, Mizrahi Jews and Israeli Arabs have differentiated between these letters as in other Semitic languages.
| Name | Alternate name | Symbol | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Final kaf | Kaf sofit | align=center | |
| Final khaf | Khaf sofit | align=center | |
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: