K

K, k [Called ‘kay’, rhyming with say]. The 11th LETTER of the Roman ALPHABET as used for English. It originated in the Phoenician consonant kap, which was adopted as kappa for GREEK. It reached the Romans via the Etruscans, but was little used in LATIN, in which C and Q were preferred as symbols for the voiceless velar stop /k/. The transliteration of Greek K into C was standard: comma not komma, Socrates not Sokrates. When c acquired a soft value before e and i in later Latin and the Romance languages, k was available to represent hard c in those positions, and was so adopted by most of the GERMANIC LANGUAGES. Old English, however, normally used c for /k/ (as in cwic, cyning for what later became quick, king), with k as an occasional variant. After 1066, under the influence of NORMAN-FRENCH spelling, both letters were widely used, but after a period of uncertainty (could being spelt both coude, koude) fairly distinct functions emerged for c and k, according to position and CONTEXT.

Sound value and distribution

In English, k normally represents a voiceless velar stop, whose voiced equivalent is g. It is typically used: (1) Before e, i: kennel, keep, kit, kind, sketch, skirt, skin. It occurs more rarely before other vowel letters (chiefly after s) in long-established English words: skate, skull, sky (contrast scale, Scot, scud). (2) After a long vowel (take, break, meek, like, soak, broke, duke) as well as after oo (book, cook). Further syllables may follow (naked, token). (3) In conjunction with preceding c after a short vowel, ck having the function of a doubled c or k: sack, wreck, lick, mock, duck; bracken, reckon, wicked, rocket, bucket. (4) After other consonants which follow a short vowel (whose value may be modified and lengthened before l, r, w): walk, whelk, folk, milk, hulk, frank, pink, lark, jerk, ask, desk, hawk; sparkle, whisker.

Exotic and innovative usages

(1) Recently coined or borrowed words use k without positional restrictions: names for exotic creatures, such as kangaroo, koala, have k, not c, before a, o, and yak, trek lack the usual c between short vowel and k. (2) K may be doubled between vowels in such words as yakkity-yak and trekking. (3) For visual effect, c and q are sometimes changed to k: as trade names (Kleenex, based on clean) and businesses (Kwik-Fit, based on quick). The change may take place for facetious, humorous, or sinister purposes: Krazy Kats, Ku Klux Klan. (4) Foreign names commonly occur with k in untypical positions: Kaiser, Kremlin, Kuwait.

Digraphs

(1) Ck is not a digraph in the sense of a combination creating a new pronunciation, but is common after short vowels in VERNACULAR words (black, not *blac or *blak), although the loanwords bloc, chic, and dak, flak occur. (2) Kh may constitute a digraph by representing a voiceless velar fricative /x/, rather as in ScoE loch, transliterating RUSSIAN x (Kharkov, Khrushchev) and similar sounds in other languages. However, in such words, the h is commonly ignored, and kh is pronounced as /k/: khaki, khan, khedive, astrakhan.

Silent K

(1) In OLD ENGLISH and MIDDLE ENGLISH, initial c or k (like its voiced equivalent g) could be pronounced immediately before n. In this position, k has since fallen silent, but has been retained in writing in some twenty forms that include knave, knee, knife, knot, knuckle. This orthographic feature strikingly distinguishes several pairs of HOMOPHONES: knave/nave, knight/night, know/no. (2) In isolated cases, ck or k has been assimilated or elided before another consonant, as in blackguard (‘blaggard’) and Cockburn (‘Coburn’).

Variations

(1) K is inserted before vowels in inflected forms and derivatives of verbs ending in c: bivouacked, picknicker, panicking (but note arced not *arcked, from to arc). (2) It occurs before e and i in place of a c in a related word or form: cat/kitten, cow/kine, joke/jocular, urb/kerb, curfew/kerchief. (3) It has been replaced in ake, which is now ache. (4) It has disappeared from made, which was formerly maked. (5) It no longer occurs in forms ending in -ic: logic, music. which were formerly logick, musick. (6) Taken has the poetic spelling ta'en, reflecting a common pronunciation in DIALECT in England and Scotland. (7) The letter x has replaced cks in coxcomb and ck in coxswain, while bucksome was one of many earlier forms of buxom. In India, it sometimes replaces the Romanized SANSKRIT ksh, the names Lakshman, Lakshmi becoming Laxman, Laxmi. (8) For humorous, commercial purposes, such spellings as socks can become sox. (9) Alternations with c and qu in various combinations arise in loans from FRENCH: block/bloc, manikin/mannequin, racket/racquet. (10) BrE barque, cheque, chequer, disc, kerb, mollusc, sceptic are usually written bark, check, checker, disk, curb, mollusk, skeptic in AmE. However, some similar pairs of words are of distinct meaning and origin: arc/ark, scull/skull. See C, X.