Kha,Khe,Xe orHa (Х х; italics:Х х orХ х; italics:Х х) is a letter of theCyrillic script. Itlooks the same as theLatin letter X (X x X x), in both uppercase and lowercase, both roman and italic forms, and was derived from theGreek letterChi, which also bears a resemblance to both the Latin X and Kha itself.[1]
It commonly represents thevoiceless velar fricative/x/, similar to how someScottish speakers pronounce the hard⟨ch⟩ in “loch”, but has different pronunciations in different languages.
Kha isromanised as⟨kh⟩ for Russian, Ukrainian, Mongolian, and Tajik, and as⟨ch⟩ for Belarusian and Polish, while being romanised as⟨h⟩ for Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Kazakh.It is also romanised as⟨j⟩ forSpanish.
Kha is also an alternative transliteration of the letterخ Ḫāʼ in theArabic alphabet. This was used inBelarusian Arabic script, corresponding to the above Cyrillic letter.
Because of the shape of the letter X, its name kher was often used to refer to something cross-shaped: Dahl mentions "the game of kheriki-oniki" (noughts and crosses) and the expression "legs like kher" to refer to thegenu valgum deformity (knock knee).[2] From this also comes the word pokherovat (originally, to cross out crosswise; cf. in N. S. Leskov:Vladika crossed out the consistory's decision on the appointment of the investigation with a kher.[3]
Being the first letter of the vulgar and obscene word for the male genital organ, the word kher has been actively used as its euphemism since the 19th century.[4] As a result, by the 1990s in the USSR, the word "kher" and its derivatives (e.g., "pokherit") were perceived as taboo by many people, as the original names of Cyrillic letters had been forgotten by the majority of the population. This fact has also affected the use of the word "kher" in the post-Soviet era, despite the change of attitude towards obscene vocabulary.[5] Nevertheless, the portal Gramota.ru notes that "the word kher and all derivatives of it do not belong to obscene words".[6]
