K

K is the eleventh of the and the . Its name in English is (pronounced ), plural kays..

The letter K comes from the Greek letter Κ (), which was taken from the , the symbol for an open hand. in the Egyptian word for hand, ⟨⟩ (likely pronounced /ˈcʼaːɾat/ in ). The Semites evidently assigned it the sound value /k/ instead, because their word for hand started with that sound.[3]

In the earliest 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 as Kalendae, "the ".[4]

After 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, the generally use C, in imitating Classical Latin's practice, and have K only in later loanwords from other language groups. The also tended to use C instead of K, and this influence carried over into .

English

Today, English is the only to productively use "hard" ⟨c⟩ (outside the ⟨ck⟩) rather than ⟨k⟩ (although uses it in loan , and the pronunciation of these words follows the same hard/soft distinction as in English).[]

The at the start of an English word when it comes before the letter ⟨n⟩, as in the words "knight," "knife," "knot," "know," and "knee".

Like , , the letter K is not used very frequently in English. It is the in the English language, with a frequency in words of about 0.8%.

Number

In the , the for one thousand is kilo-, officially abbreviated as k: for example, prefixed to metre/meter or its abbreviation m, kilometre or km 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 with K, as in 30K for 30,000.

Other languages

In most languages where it is employed, this letter represents the sound /k/ (with or without ) or some similar sound.

Other systems

The uses ⟨k⟩ for the .

Ancestors, descendants and siblings

• 𐤊 : letter , from which the following symbols originally derive


• Κ κ/ϰ : letter , from which K derives


• К к : letter , also derived from Kappa


• K with : ǩ Ḵ ḵ
  
  • Ꞣ and ꞣ were used in before 1921[5]


• The uses various forms of the letter K:[6]
  
  • U+1D0B ᴋ LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL K
  
  
  • U+1D37 ᴷ MODIFIER LETTER CAPITAL K
  
  
  • U+1D4F ᵏ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL K


• ₖ : Subscript small k was used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet prior to its formal standardization in 1902[7]


• Ʞ ʞ : Turned capital and small k were used in transcriptions of the in publications of the American Board of Ethnology in the late 19th century. in the International Phonetic Alphabet but its use was .

Ligatures and abbreviations

• "K" replacing "C" in .


• K is the unit symbol for the , used to measure thermodynamic temperature.


• K is the for the (K is an abbreviation of kalium, the Latin name for potassium).


• .


• k, meaning 1000 times.


• Josef K is the name of the principal character in 's novel .


• In chess notation, the letter K represents the King (WK for White King, BK for Black King).


• In ) represents a "strikeout looking".


• As abbreviation for , often used in emails and short text messages.


• K is used as a slang term for among recreational drug users.


• In the , K represents black ink.


• In it is used to mean "".[10]


• In , K is used to represent the .


• In , k usually stands for


• .


• K is used colloquially to mean (as in "a ").


• When expressing amounts of money, $20K means twenty thousand dollars.


• In the under the (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.

1. (1993); "kay," op. cit.
   


2. ()[]
   


3. :.  543451.
   


4. (illustrated ed.). New York: . p. 21.   from the original on 2016-11-09. Retrieved 2016-10-18.
   


5. (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 2019-03-25. Retrieved 2019-03-06.
   


6. ; et al. (2002-03-20). (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 2018-02-19. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
   


7. (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
   


8. (2012-07-26). (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 2019-03-30. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
   


9. (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 2018-09-19. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
   


10. ^
    Stephen Phillips (2009-06-04). . from the original on 2014-02-12. Retrieved 2014-02-10.