Q
Q | |
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Q q | |
Usage | |
Writing system | |
Other | |
Other letters commonly used with | q(x) |
Writing direction | Left-to-Right |
ISO basic Latin alphabet |
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AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz |
Q, or q, is the seventeenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is pronounced /ˈkjuː/, most commonly spelled cue, but also kew, kue and que.[1]
History
Egyptian hieroglyph wj |
Phoenician Qoph |
Western Greek Koppa |
Etruscan Q |
Latin Q | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
The
In an early form of
The
In Turkey the use of the letter Q was banned between 1928 and 2013. This constituted a problem for the Kurdish population in Turkey as the letter was a part of the Kurdish alphabet. The ones who used the letter Q, were able to be prosecuted and sentenced to prison terms ranging from six months to two years.[14]
Typographic variants
Uppercase "Q"
Depending on the
Owing to the allowable variation between letters Q, Q is a very distinctive feature of a typeface;[17][24] as &, Q is oft cited as a letter that gives type designers a greater opportunity at self-expression.[4]
Identifont, an automatic typeface identification service that identifies typefaces by questions about their appearance, asks about the Q tail second if the "sans-serif" option is chosen.[25] In the Identifont database, the distribution of Q tails is:[26]
Q tail type | Serif | Sans-serif |
---|---|---|
Bisecting | 1461 | 2719 |
Meets bowl | 3363 | 4521 |
Outside bowl | 271 | 397 |
"2" shape () | 304 | 428 |
Inside bowl | 129 | 220 |
Total | 5528 | 8285 |
Some type designers prefer one "Q" design over another: Adrian Frutiger, famous for the airport typeface that bears his name, remarked that most of his typefaces feature a Q tail that meets the bowl and then extends horizontally.[20] Frutiger considered such Qs to make for more "harmonious" and "gentle" typefaces.[20] "Q" often makes the list of their favorite letters; for example, Sophie Elinor Brown, designer of Strato,[27] has listed "Q" as being her favorite letter.[28][29]
Lowercase "q"
The lowercase "q" is usually seen as a lowercase "o" or "c" with a descender (i.e., downward vertical tail) extending from the right side of the bowl, with or without a swash (i.e., flourish), or even a reversed lowercase p. The "q"'s descender is usually typed without a swash due to the major style difference typically seen between the descenders of the "g" (a loop) and "q" (vertical). When handwritten, or as part of a handwriting font, the descender of the "q" sometimes finishes with a rightward swash to distinguish it from the letter "g" (or, particularly in mathematics, the digit "9").
Use in writing systems
Languages in italics are not usually written using the Latin alphabet | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Language | Dialect(s) | Pronunciation (IPA) | Environment | Notes |
Afar | /ʕ/ | |||
Albanian | /cç/ | |||
Azeri | /ɡ/ | |||
Mandarin Chinese | Standard | /t͡ɕʰ/ | Pinyin romanization | |
Dogrib | /ɣ/ | Official orthography | ||
English | /k/ | Mainly used in ⟨qu⟩ /kw/ | ||
Fijian | /ᵑɡ/ | |||
French | /k/ | Mostly used in ⟨qu⟩ /k/ | ||
Galician | /k/ | Only used in ⟨qu⟩ /k/ | ||
German | Standard | /k/ | Only used in ⟨qu⟩ /kv/ | |
Hadza | /!/ | |||
Indonesian | /k/ | Only used in loanwords for religion and science | ||
Italian | /k/ | Only used in ⟨qu⟩ /kw/ | ||
Ket | /q/~/qχ/ | |||
/ɢ/ | After /ŋ/ | |||
K'iche | /qʰ/ | |||
Kiowa | /kʼ/ | |||
Kurdish | /q/ | |||
Maltese | /ʔ/ | |||
Menominee | /ʔ/ | |||
Mi'kmaq
|
/x/ | |||
Mohegan-Pequot | /kʷ/ | |||
Nuxalk | /qʰ/ | |||
Portuguese | /k/ | Only used in ⟨qu⟩ /k/ | ||
Sasak | /ʔ/ | Only word-finally | ||
Somali | /q/~/ɢ/ | |||
Sotho | /!kʼ/ | |||
Spanish | /k/ | Only used in ⟨qu⟩ /k/ | ||
Swedish | /k/ | Archaic, uncommon spelling | ||
Uzbek | /q/ | |||
Vietnamese | Northern, Central | /k/ | Only used in ⟨qu⟩ /kw/ | |
Southern | silent | Only used in ⟨qu⟩ /w/ | ||
Võro | /ʔ/ | |||
Wolof | /qː/ | |||
Xhosa | /!/ | |||
Zulu | /!/ |
English
In English, the digraph ⟨qu⟩ most often denotes the cluster /kw/; however, in borrowings from French, it represents /k/, as in 'plaque'. See the list of English words containing Q not followed by U. Q is the second least frequently used letter in the English language (after Z), with a frequency of just 0.1% in words. Q has the fourth fewest English words where it is the first letter, after X, Z, and Y.
Other languages
In most European languages written in the Latin script, such as in
It is not considered to be part of the
⟨q⟩ has a wide variety of other pronunciations in some European languages and in non-European languages that have adopted the Latin alphabet.
Other systems
The
Other uses
- The capital letter Q is used as the currency sign for the Guatemalan quetzal.
- The Roman numeral Q is sometimes used to represent the number 500,000.[30]
- In the video game Quake the letter is stylized as the logo for the franchise.
Related characters
- Q with Ɋ ɋ q̃
- Japanese linguistics: Small capital q (ꞯ)[31] and modifier letter capital q (ꟴ)[32]
- 𐞥 Modifier letter small q is used as a superscript IPA letter[33]
- Gha: Ƣ ƣ
Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets
Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations
- ℺ : rotated capital Q, a signature mark
- Ꝗ ꝗ, Ꝙ ꝙ : Various forms of Q were used for medieval scribal abbreviations[34]
Other representations
Computing
Preview | Q | q | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Unicode name | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Q | LATIN SMALL LETTER Q | ||
Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex |
Unicode | 81 | U+0051 | 113 | U+0071 |
UTF-8 | 81 | 51 | 113 | 71 |
Numeric character reference | Q |
Q |
q |
q |
EBCDIC family | 216 | D8 | 152 | 98 |
ASCII 1 | 81 | 51 | 113 | 71 |
- 1 Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.
Other
NATO phonetic
|
Morse code |
Quebec |
ⓘ |
Signal flag | Flag semaphore | American manual alphabet (ASL fingerspelling) | British manual alphabet (BSL fingerspelling )
|
Braille dots-12345 Unified English Braille |
See also
- List of English words containing Q not followed by U
- Mind your Ps and Qs – English-language idiom
- Q factor – Parameter describing the longevity of energy in a resonator relative to its resonant frequency
- Q# – Programming lang. for quantum algorithms
- QAnon – American conspiracy theory and political movement
References
- ^ "Q", Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989).
Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993) lists "cue" and "kue" as current. James Joyce used "kew"; it and "que" remain in use. - ^ Travers Wood, Henry Craven Ord Lanchester, A Hebrew Grammar, 1913, p. 7. A. B. Davidson, Hebrew Primer and Grammar, 2000, p. 4 Archived 2017-02-04 at the Wayback Machine. The meaning is doubtful. "Eye of a needle" has been suggested, and also "knot" Harvard Studies in Classical Philology vol. 45.
- ^ Isaac Taylor, History of the Alphabet: Semitic Alphabets, Part 1, 2003: "The old explanation, which has again been revived by Halévy, is that it denotes an 'ape,' the character Q being taken to represent an ape with its tail hanging down. It may also be referred to a Talmudic root which would signify an 'aperture' of some kind, as the 'eye of a needle,' ... Lenormant adopts the more usual explanation that the word means a 'knot'.
- ^ a b c Haley, Allan. "The Letter Q". Fonts.com. Monotype Imaging Corporation. Archived from the original on 2017-02-03. Retrieved 2017-02-03.
- ^ Samuel, Stehman Haldeman (1851). Elements of Latin Pronunciation: For the Use of Students in Language, Law, Medicine, Zoology, Botany, and the Sciences Generally in which Latin Words are Used. J.B. Lippincott. p. 56. Archived from the original on 2021-08-16. Retrieved 2020-11-19.
- ISBN 9780915170401. Archivedfrom the original on 2022-02-21. Retrieved 2020-09-16.
- ISBN 9781107729308. Archivedfrom the original on 2022-02-21. Retrieved 2020-11-19.
- ^ Noyer, Rolf. "Principal Sound Changes from PIE to Greek" (PDF). University of Pennsylvania Department of Linguistics. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-02-04. Retrieved 2017-02-03.
- ^ Boeree, C. George. "The Origin of the Alphabet". Shippensburg University. Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. Archived from the original on 2016-12-04. Retrieved 2017-02-03.
- S2CID 145606058. Archived from the original on 2016-03-03.)
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link - ISBN 9789027276711. Archivedfrom the original on 2021-08-18. Retrieved 2020-11-19.
- ISBN 9780748627141. Archivedfrom the original on 2022-02-21. Retrieved 2020-11-19.
- ISBN 0-19-508345-8, archivedfrom the original on 2016-11-09, retrieved 2015-12-24
- ^ "Ban on Kurdish letters to be lifted with democracy package - Turkey News". Hürriyet Daily News. 27 September 2013. Archived from the original on 2022-01-17. Retrieved 2022-01-17.
- ^ ISBN 1584560568– via Internet Archive.
- ISBN 9782940411764. Archivedfrom the original on 2021-08-19. Retrieved 2020-11-19.
...the bisecting tail of the Helvetica 'Q'.
- ^ ISBN 9781568987651. Archivedfrom the original on 2021-08-15. Retrieved 2020-11-19.
The bowl of the Q is typically similar to the bowl of the O, although not always identical. The style and design of the Q's tail is often a distinctive feature of a typeface.
- ^ ISBN 978-9004169821. Archivedfrom the original on 2022-02-21. Retrieved 2020-11-19.
- ISBN 9781305464810. Archivedfrom the original on 2022-02-21. Retrieved 2020-11-19.
- ^ ISBN 9783038212607. Archivedfrom the original on 2022-02-21. Retrieved 2020-11-19.
- ISBN 9780857730176. Archivedfrom the original on 2022-02-21. Retrieved 2020-11-19.
The uppercase roman Q...has a very long tail, but this has been modified and reduced on versions produced in the following centuries.
- ^ Fischer, Ulrike (2014-11-02). "How to force a long-tailed Q in EB Garamond". TeX Stack Exchange. Archived from the original on 2017-02-04. Retrieved 2017-02-03.
- ^ "What are "Stylistic Sets?"". Typography.com. Hoefler & Co. Archived from the original on 2017-02-04. Retrieved 2017-02-03.
- ISBN 978-1440313714.]
Letters that contain truly individual parts [are] S, ... Q...
[permanent dead link - ^ "2: Q Shape". Identifont. Archived from the original on 2017-02-03. Retrieved 2017-02-01.
- ^ "3: $ style". Identifont. Archived from the original on 2017-02-03. Retrieved 2017-02-02. To get the numbers in the table, click Question 1 (serif or sans-serif?) or Question 2 (Q shape) and change the value. They appear under X possible fonts.
- ^ Hughes, Kerrie (2014-09-02). "Font of the day: Strato". Creative Bloq. Bath, Somerset: Future plc. Retrieved 2022-08-25.
- ^ Heller, Stephen (2016-01-07). "We asked 15 typographers to describe their favorite letterforms. Here's what they told us". WIRED. Archived from the original on 2017-02-03. Retrieved 2017-02-03.
- ^ Phillips, Nicole Arnett (2016-01-27). "Wired asked 15 Typographers to introduce us to their favorite glyphs". Typograph.Her. Archived from the original on 2017-02-03. Retrieved 2017-02-03.
- ISBN 9780520038981. Retrieved 3 October 2015.
roman numerals.
- ^ Barmeier, Severin (2015-10-10), L2/15-241: Proposal to encode Latin small capital letter Q (PDF), archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-06-14, retrieved 2018-06-19
- ^ Miller, Kirk; Cornelius, Craig (2020-09-25). "L2/20-251: Unicode request for modifier Latin capital letters" (PDF).
- ^ Miller, Kirk; Ashby, Michael (2020-11-08). "L2/20-252R: Unicode request for IPA modifier-letters (a), pulmonic" (PDF).
- ^ Everson, Michael; Baker, Peter; Emiliano, António; Grammel, Florian; Haugen, Odd Einar; Luft, Diana; Pedro, Susana; Schumacher, Gerd; Stötzner, Andreas (2006-01-30). "L2/06-027: Proposal to add Medievalist characters to the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-09-19. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
Notes
- Voiceless uvular stop#Occurrence