| Kaph |
Articles about Kaph |
Information AboutKaph |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT KAPH | |
| phoenician alphabet | |
| arabic letters | |
|
Kaph (also spelled '''Kap''' or '''Kaf''') is the eleventh letter of many Semitic Abjads , including Phoenician , Aramaic , Hebrew , Arabic Alphabet , Persian Alphabet . Its value is . The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Kappa (Κ), Latin K , and the equivalent in the Cyrillic Alphabet ( К ). ORIGIN OF KAPH Kaph is thought to have been derived from a pictogram of a hand (in both Modern Hebrew and modern Arabic, ''kaph'' means palm). ARABIC KāF The letter is named ''kāf'', and is written is several ways depending in its position in the word: Kaf is almost universally pronounced as the Voiceless Velar Plosive , but in Iraqi Arabic it is sometimes pronounced as a Voiceless Postalveolar Affricate (possibly under Persian influence). Kaf is used as a prefix meaning "like", "as", or "as though", as in كطائر, ''kaṭā'ir'', "like a bird"/"as though a bird" (as in Hebrew, below). Unlike the Hebrew, the word is not a contraction; the prefix كَـ ''ka'' ''is'' one of the Arabic words for "like" or "as" (the other, مثل ''mithl'', is unrelated). Kāf is used as a Possessive suffix for second-person singular nouns (feminine taking kaf-kasra كِ, and masculine kaf-fatḥa كَ ); for instance, كتاب ''kitāb'' ("book") becomes كتابكَ ''kitābika'' ("your book", where the person spoken to is masculine كتابكِ ''kitābiki'' ("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 كتابك ''kitābik'' ("your book"). In several varieties of vernacular Arabic, however, the kāf with no Harakat is the standard second-person possessive, with the Standard Arabic harakah shifted to the letter ''before'' the kāf. HEBREW KAF Hebrew Pronunciation See Also: Hebrew phonology The letter Kaf is one of the six letters which can receive a Dagesh Kal. The six are Bet , Gimel , Daleth , Kaph, Pe , and Tav (see Hebrew Alphabet for more about these letters). There are two orthographic variants of this letter which alter the pronunciation:
and
Kaph with the dagesh When the Kaph has a "dot" in its center, known as a Dagesh , then it represents a Voiceless Velar Plosive (). There are various rules in Hebrew Grammar that stipulate when and why a dagesh is used. Kaph without the dagesh (Chaph) When this letter appears as כ ''without'' the Dagesh ("dot") in its center then it represents a Voiceless Velar Fricative (); like the ''ch'' in German "Bach". In Modern Israeli Hebrew the sound value of Kaph is the same as that of Heth , but many communities have differentiated between them. Final form of Kaph At the end of words the letter's written form changes to a ''Chaph Sophit'' (Final Chaph):
No longer commonly used in modern Hebrew, biblical Hebrew had a ''Kaph Sophit'' (Final Kaph):
Both the final forms of Chaph and Kaph take vowels. It is the only Hebrew final letter in which a vowel is necessary, and it is also the only vowel-taking final in which the consonant sound is pronounced first. The two vowels a final Chaph or Kaph takes are Sh'va and Chataf Kamats . In most Hebrew fonts they are written directly inside the curve rather than in line with the vowels that precede them. 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 :
KAPH IN PERSIAN ''Main Article Kaph (Persian) '' In Persian Alphabet "Kaph" is written a bit different from Arabic and has different code in Unicode . Its final form is ک. SEE ALSO |
|
|