The letter K comes from theGreek letter Κ (kappa), which was taken from theSemitickaph, the symbol for an open hand.[2] This, in turn, was likely adapted bySemitic tribes who had lived in Egypt from the hieroglyph for"hand" representing /ḏ/ in the Egyptian word for hand, ⟨ḏ-r-t⟩ (likely pronounced/ˈcʼaːɾat/ inOld Egyptian). The Semites evidently assigned it the sound value/k/ instead, because their word for hand started with that sound.[3]
K was brought into the Latin alphabet with the nameka /kaː/ to differentiate it from C, namedce (pronounced /keː/) and Q, namedqu and pronounced /kuː/. In the earliestLatin inscriptions, the letters C, K and Q were all used to represent the sounds/k/ and/ɡ/ (which were not differentiated in writing). Of these, Q was used before a rounded vowel (e.g.⟨EQO⟩ 'ego'), K before /a/ (e.g.⟨KALENDIS⟩ 'calendis'), and C elsewhere. Later, the use of C and its variant G replaced most usages of K and Q. K survived only in a few fossilized forms, such asKalendae, "thecalends".[4]
AfterGreek words were taken into Latin, the kappa was transliterated as a C. Loanwords from other alphabets with the sound/k/ were also transliterated with C. Hence, theRomance languages generally use C, in imitating Classical Latin's practice, and have K only in later loanwords from other language groups. TheCeltic languages also tended to use C instead of K, and this influence carried over intoOld English.
The letter usually represents/k/ in English. It issilent when it comes before⟨n⟩ at the start of astem, e.g.:
At the start of a word (knight,knife,knot,know, andknee)
After a prefix (unknowable)
In compounds (penknife)
English is now the onlyGermanic language to productively use "hard"⟨c⟩ (outside thedigraph⟨ck⟩) rather than⟨k⟩ (althoughDutch uses it in loanwords of Latin origin, and the pronunciation of these words follows the same hard/soft distinction as in English).[citation needed]
LikeJ,X,Q, andZ, the letter K is not used very frequently in English. It is thefifth least frequently used letter in the English language, with a frequency in words of about 0.8%.
Other languages
In most languages where it is employed, this letter represents the sound/k/ (with or withoutaspiration) or some similar sound.
The Latinization ofModern Greek also uses this letter for/k/. However, before the front vowels (/e,i/), this is rendered as[c], which can be considered a separate phoneme.
In theInternational System of Units (SI), theSI prefix for one thousand iskilo-, officially abbreviated ask: for example, prefixed tometre/meter or its abbreviationm,kilometre orkm signifies a thousand metres. As such, people occasionally represent numbers in a non-standard notation by replacing the last three zeros of the general numeral withK, as in 30K for 30,000.
Inchess notation, the letterK represents the King (WK for White King, BK for Black King).
Inbaseball scoring, the letterK is used to represent astrikeout. A forwards orientedK represents a "strikeout swinging"; a backwards oriented K () represents a "strikeout looking".
As an abbreviation forOK, often used in emails and short text messages.
K is used as a slang term forKetamine among recreational drug users.
In theUnited Kingdom under theold system (before 2001), a licence plate that begins with "K" for example "K123 XYZ" would correspond to a vehicle registered between August 1, 1992, and July 31, 1993. Again under the old system, a licence plate that ends with "K" for example "ABC 123K" would correspond to a vehicle that was registered between August 1, 1971, and July 31, 1972.
ₖ: Subscript small k was used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet prior to its formal standardization in 1902.[8]
Ʞ ʞ: Turned capital and small k were used in transcriptions of theDakota language in publications of the American Board of Ethnology in the late 19th century.[9] Turned small k was also used for avelar click in the International Phonetic Alphabet but its use waswithdrawn in 1970.
^Everson, Michael; Baker, Peter; Emiliano, António; Grammel, Florian; Haugen, Odd Einar; Luft, Diana; Pedro, Susana; Schumacher, Gerd; Stötzner, Andreas (30 January 2006)."L2/06-027: Proposal to add Medievalist characters to the UCS"(PDF).Archived(PDF) from the original on 19 September 2018. Retrieved24 March 2018.
