Kaph: Encyclopedia - Kaph

Kaph

Kaph or Kaf is the eleventh letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic. The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Kappa (Κ), Latin K, and the equivalent in the Cyrillic alphabet.

The basic sound represented by the letter is a velar plosive: IPA [k], however in Hebrew it developed in certain cases (notably following a vowel within the same word) to a fricative sound: IPA [x] — similar to ch in German "Bach". When written with a dagesh (a dot in the middle of the letter) kaph is pronounced [k]; when written without the dagesh, the fricative pronunciation is used.

There are two forms of the Hebrew letter: ך is used when it is the final letter of a word; כ is used in all other cases.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Kaph", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki