Q
Q 17th letter of the English alphabet and a letter employed in the alphabets of other w European languages. It is a consonant and is descended from the Semitic letter qoph (a name meaning “ape” or “monkey”), which became qoppa in the Greek alphabet. Qoppa was a rarely used letter intended to render the k sound before the lip-rounded back vowels o and u, but only a few Greek dialects had a use for it and it was superseded by kappa. However, the Romans took it over, retaining its k sound but invariably following it with the letter u to represent what phoneticians call a labialized velar plosive (pronounced kw). The qu spelling entered all the subsequent Romance languages, and thence came into English. It retains a kw pronunciation, although in French particularly this has been simplified to a k sound. English preserves both, depending on the origin of the word – kw in such words as queen, k in such words as quiche. In a few words (mostly proper names) of Arabic origin, the q has no accompanying u and is an attempt to transliterate a more uvular form of k. However, in English it is pronounced as a common velar k in such names as Qatar or Iraq. See K
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