Q

Q, or q, is the seventeenth letter of the modern English alphabet

Q
and the ISO basic Latin alphabet. Its name in English is cue
(pronounced /ˈkjuː/), plural cues.[1]

Qq
Contents (See below)

History
Typography
Uppercase "Q"
Lowercase "q"
Pronunciation and use
Phonetic and phonemic transcription
English standard orthography
Other orthographies
Other uses
Usage
Related characters
Writing system Latin script
Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet
Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets Type Alphabetic and
Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations Logographic
Language of Greek
Computing codes
origin language

Other representations
Latin language
See also Phonetic usage (Table)

References /ˈkjuː/
Notes
Unicode U+0051,
External links codepoint U+0071
Alphabetical 17
position
History
History
Egyptian hieroglyph
Phoenician
Etruscan
Greek
Latin
Development
wj qoph Q Qoppa Q

The Semitic sound value of Qôp was /q/ (voiceless uvular stop),
and the form of the letter could have been based on the eye of a
needle, a knot, or even a monkey with its tail hanging
down.[2][3][4] /q/ is a sound common to Semitic languages, but Qq
not found in many European languages.[a] Some have even
Time period Unknown to
suggested that the form of the letter Q is even more ancient: it
present
could have originated from Egyptian hieroglyphics.[5][6]
Descendants  • Ƣ

In Greek, qoppa (Ϙ) probably came to represent several labialized  • Ɋ

velar stops, among them /kʷ/ and /kʷʰ/.[7] As a result of later  • ℺

sound shifts, these sounds in Greek changed to /p/ and /pʰ/

 • Ԛ
respectively.[8] Therefore, qoppa was transformed into two
Sisters Φ φ

letters: qoppa, which stood for the number 90,[9] and phi (Φ),
which stood for the aspirated sound /pʰ/ that came to be Ф

pronounced /f/ in Modern Greek.[10][11] ‫

ק‬
‫
ق‬
The Etruscans used Q in conjunction with V to represent /kʷ/, ‫
ܩ‬
and this usage was copied by the Romans with the rest of their ࠒ

alphabet.[4] In the earliest Latin inscriptions, the letters C, K and 𐎖

Q were all used to represent the two sounds /k/ and /ɡ/, which ቀ

were not differentiated in writing. Of these, Q was used before a

Փ փ

rounded vowel (e.g. ⟨EQO⟩ 'ego'), K before /a/ (e.g. ⟨KALENDIS⟩

Ֆֆ
'calendis'), and C elsewhere.[12] Later, the use of C (and its variant
G) replaced most usages of K and Q: Q survived only to represent Variations (See below)
/k/ when immediately followed by a /w/ sound.[13] Other
Other letters q(x)
Typography commonly used
with

Uppercase "Q"

Depending on the typeface used to typeset the letter Q, the letter's

tail may either bisect its bowl as in Helvetica,[15] meet the bowl as
in Univers, or lie completely outside the bowl as in PT Sans. In
writing block letters, bisecting tails are fastest to write, as they The five most common typographic
require less precision. All three styles are considered equally presentations of the capital letter Q.
valid, with most serif typefaces having a Q with a tail that meets
the circle, while sans-serif typefaces are more equally split
between those with bisecting tails and those without.[16]
Typefaces with a disconnected Q tail, while uncommon, have
existed since at least 1529.[17] A common method among
typographers to create the shape of the Q is by simply adding a
tail to the letter O.[16][18][19]

Old-style serif fonts, such as Garamond, may contain two capital

Qs: one with a short tail to be used in short words, and another
with a long tail to be used in long words.[17] Some early metal type
fonts included up to 3 different Qs: a short-tailed Q, a long-tailed A long-tailed Q as drawn by French
Q, and a long-tailed Q-u ligature.[14] This print tradition was alive typographer Geoffroy Tory in his
and well until the 19th century, when long-tailed Qs fell out of 1529 book Champfleury
favor: even recreations of classic typefaces such as Caslon began
being distributed with only short Q tails.[20][14] Not a fan of long-
tailed Qs, American typographer D. B. Updike celebrated their demise in his 1922 book Printing
Types, claiming that Renaissance printers made their Q tails
longer and longer simply to "outdo each other".[14] Latin-
language words, which are much more likely than English words
to contain "Q" as their first letter, have also been cited as the
reason for their existence.[14] The long-tailed Q had fallen
completely out of use with the advent of early digital typography,
The printed long-tailed Q was
as many early digital fonts could not choose different glyphs
inspired by ancient Roman square
based on the word that the glyph was in, but it has seen
capitals: this long-tailed Q, used
something of a comeback with the advent of OpenType fonts and
here in the Latin word
LaTeX, both of which can automatically typeset the long-tailed Q
"POPVLVSQVE", was carved into
when it is called for and the short-tailed Q when not.[21][22] Trajan's column c. AD 113.

Owing to the allowable variation in the Q, the letter is a very

distinctive feature of a typeface;[16][23] like the ampersand, the Q
is cited as a letter that gives typographers a chance to express
themselves.[4]

Identifont, an automated typeface identification service that A short trilingual text showing the
identifies typefaces by questions about their appearance, asks proper use of the long- and short-
about the Q tail second if the "sans-serif" option is chosen.[24] Out tailed Q. The short-tailed Q is only
used when the word is shorter than
of Identifont's database, Q tails are divided thus:[25]
the tail; the long-tailed Q is even
used in all-capitals text.[14]: 77 
Q tail type Serif Sans-serif
Bisecting 1461 2719
Meets bowl 3363 4521
Outside bowl 271 397
"2" ( ) shape 304 428
Inside bowl 129 220
Total 5528 8285
Some typographers prefer one "Q" design over another: Adrian Frutiger, famous for the airport
typeface that bears his name, remarked that most of his typefaces feature a Q tail that meets the bowl
and then extends horizontally.[19] Frutiger considered such Qs to make for more "harmonious" and
"gentle" typefaces.[19] Some typographers, such as Sophie Elinor Brown, have listed "Q" as being
among their favorite letters.[26][27]

Lowercase "q"

The lowercase "q" is usually seen as a lowercase "o" or "c" with a descender
(i.e., downward vertical tail) extending from the right side of the bowl, with
or without a swash (i.e., flourish), or even a reversed lowercase p. The "q"'s
descender is usually typed without a swash due to the major style difference
typically seen between the descenders of the "g" (a loop) and "q" (vertical).
When handwritten, or as part of a handwriting font, the descender of the
"q" sometimes finishes with a rightward swash to distinguish it from the
letter "g" (or, particularly in mathematics, the digit "9").

Pronunciation and use

A comparison of the
glyphs of ⟨q⟩ and ⟨g⟩
 List of pronunciations
Most common pronunciation: /q/

Languages in italics do not use the Latin alphabet

Pronunciation
Language Dialect(s) Environment Notes
(IPA)
Albanian /cç/
Azeri /ɡ/
Dogrib /ɣ/ Official orthography
English /k/ Mainly used in ⟨qu⟩ /kw/

Fijian /ᵑɡ/
French /k/ Mostly used in ⟨qu⟩ /k/

Galician /k/ Only used in ⟨qu⟩ /k/

German Standard /k/ Only used in ⟨qu⟩ /kv/

Hadza /!/
Only used in loanwords for religion and
Indonesian /k/
science
Italian /k/ Only used in ⟨qu⟩ /kw/

/q/~/qχ/
Ket
/ɢ/ After /ŋ/
K'iche /qʰ/
Kiowa /kʼ/
Kurdish /q/
Maltese /ʔ/
Mandarin /t͡ ɕʰ/
Menominee /ʔ/
Mi'kmaq /x/
Mohegan-Pequot /kʷ/
Nuxalk /qʰ/
Portuguese /k/ Only used in ⟨qu⟩ /k/

Somali /q/~/ɢ/
Sotho /!kʼ/
Spanish /k/ Only used in ⟨qu⟩ /k/

Swedish /k/ Archaic, uncommon spelling

Northern,
/k/ Only used in ⟨qu⟩ /kw/
Vietnamese Central
Southern silent Only used in ⟨qu⟩ /w/

Võro /ʔ/
 Wolof /qː/
Xhosa /!/
Zulu /!/

Phonetic and phonemic transcription

The International Phonetic Alphabet uses ⟨q⟩ for the voiceless uvular stop.

English standard orthography

In English, the digraph ⟨qu⟩ most often denotes the cluster /kw/; however, in borrowings from
French, it represents /k/, as in 'plaque'. See the list of English words containing Q not followed by U.
Q is the second least frequently used letter in the English language (after Z), with a frequency of just
0.1% in words. Q has the third fewest English words where it is the first letter, after Z and X.

Other orthographies

In most European languages written in the Latin script, such as in Romance and Germanic languages,
⟨q⟩ appears almost exclusively in the digraph ⟨qu⟩. In French, Occitan, Catalan and Portuguese, ⟨qu⟩
represents /k/ or /kw/; in Spanish, it represents /k/. ⟨qu⟩ replaces ⟨c⟩ for /k/ before front vowels ⟨i⟩
and ⟨e⟩, since in those languages ⟨c⟩ represents a fricative or affricate before front vowels. In Italian
⟨qu⟩ represents [kw] (where [w] is the semivowel allophone of /u/).

It is not considered to be part of the Cornish (Standard Written Form), Estonian, Icelandic, Irish,
Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Scottish Gaelic, Slovenian, Turkish, or Welsh alphabets.

⟨q⟩ has a wide variety of other pronunciations in some European languages and in non-European
languages that have adopted the Latin alphabet.

Other uses
The capital letter Q is used as the currency sign for the Guatemalan quetzal.

The Roman numeral Q is sometimes used to represent the number 500,000.[28]

Related characters

Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet

Q with diacritics: ʠ Ɋ ɋ q̃
Small capital q: ꞯ (Used in Japanese linguistics[29])
Gha: Ƣ ƣ

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

 𐤒 : Semitic letter Qoph, from which the following symbols originally derive
Ϙ ϙ: Greek letter Koppa

𐌒 : Old Italic Q, which is the ancestor of modern Latin Q

Ԛ ԛ : Cyrillic letter Qa

Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations

℺ : rotated capital Q, a signature mark
Ꝗ ꝗ, Ꝙ ꝙ : Various forms of Q were used for medieval scribal abbreviations[30]

Computing codes
Character information

Preview Q q
Unicode name LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Q LATIN SMALL LETTER Q

Encodings decimal hex decimal hex

Unicode 81 U+0051 113 U+0071
UTF-8 81 51 113 71
Numeric character reference Q Q q q
EBCDIC family 216 D8 152 98

ASCII 1 81 51 113 71

1 Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of
encodings.

Other representations
NATO phonetic Morse code

Quebec
  ▄▄▄  ▄▄▄  ▄  ▄▄▄ 

American Braille dots-

British manual
Signal flag manual 12345

Flag semaphore alphabet (BSL

alphabet (ASL Unified
fingerspelling)
fingerspelling) English Braille

See also
 List of English words containing Q not followed by U – None
Mind your Ps and Qs – English-language idiom used to encourage (one) to be polite, presentable,
and proper in a certain setting or context
Q# – Programming lang. for quantum algorithms
Generalized coordinates – System configuration relative to another

References
1. "Q", Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster's Third New International
Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "cue," op. cit.
2. Travers Wood, Henry Craven Ord Lanchester, A Hebrew Grammar, 1913, p. 7. A. B. Davidson,
Hebrew Primer and Grammar, 2000, p. 4 (https://books.google.ch/books?id=L3e0nqF9_1MC&pg
=RA1-PA4). The meaning is doubtful. "Eye of a needle" has been suggested, and also "knot"
Harvard Studies in Classical Philology vol. 45.
3. Isaac Taylor, History of the Alphabet: Semitic Alphabets, Part 1, 2003: "The old explanation, which
has again been revived by Halévy, is that it denotes an 'ape,' the character Q being taken to
represent an ape with its tail hanging down. It may also be referred to a Talmudic root which
would signify an 'aperture' of some kind, as the 'eye of a needle,' ... Lenormant adopts the more
usual explanation that the word means a 'knot'.
4. Haley, Allan. "The Letter Q" (https://www.fonts.com/content/learning/fontology/level-1/type-familie
s/letter-q). Fonts.com. Monotype Imaging Corporation. Retrieved 2017-02-03.
5. Samuel, Stehman Haldeman (1851). Elements of Latin Pronunciation: For the Use of Students in
Language, Law, Medicine, Zoology, Botany, and the Sciences Generally in which Latin Words are
Used (https://books.google.com/books?id=J4UAAAAAYAAJ&q=Qof+Qoppa&pg=PA56). J.B.
Lippincott. p. 56.
6. Hamilton, Gordon James (2006). The Origins of the West Semitic Alphabet in Egyptian Scripts (htt
ps://books.google.com/books?id=LdANAAAAYAAJ&q=Egyptian+Qoppa). Catholic Biblical
Association of America. ISBN 9780915170401.
7. Woodard, Roger G. (2014-03-24). The Textualization of the Greek Alphabet (https://books.google.
com/books?id=pxUOAwAAQBAJ&q=Greek+Qoppa+labiovelar&pg=PA303). p. 303.
ISBN 9781107729308.
8. Noyer, Rolf. "Principal Sound Changes from PIE to Greek" (http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~rnoyer/co
urses/51/GreekSoundChanges.pdf) (PDF). University of Pennsylvania Department of Linguistics.
9. Boeree, C. George. "The Origin of the Alphabet" (http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/alphabet.html).
Shippensburg University. Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved 2017-02-03.
10. Arvaniti, Amalia (1999). "Standard Modern Greek" (https://web.archive.org/web/20160303222353/
http://www.kent.ac.uk/secl/ell/staff/amalia-arvaniti/docs/Illustrations%20%20of%20the%20IPA%20
-%20Modern%20Greek.pdf) (PDF). Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 2 (29): 167–
172. doi:10.1017/S0025100300006538 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS0025100300006538).
Archived from the original on 2016-03-03.
11. Miller, D. Gary (1994-09-06). Ancient Scripts and Phonological Knowledge (https://books.google.c
om/books?id=DUBAAAAAQBAJ&q=qoppa+phi+split&pg=PA54). John Benjamins Publishing.
pp. 54–56. ISBN 9789027276711.
12. Bispham, Edward (2010-03-01). Edinburgh Companion to Ancient Greece and Rome (https://book
s.google.com/books?id=eNSqBgAAQBAJ&q=%22latin%22+inscriptions+%22C%22+%22Q%22
+%22K%22&pg=PA482). Edinburgh University Press. p. 482. ISBN 9780748627141.
13. Sihler, Andrew L. (1995), New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin (https://books.google.co
m/books?id=IeHmqKY2BqoC) (illustrated ed.), New York: Oxford University Press, p. 21, ISBN 0-
19-508345-8
14. Updike, Daniel Berkeley (1922). Printing types, their history, forms, and use; a study in survivals
(https://archive.org/details/printingtypesthe01updi). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press. ISBN 1584560568 – via Internet Archive.
15. Ambrose, Gavin; Harris, Paul (2011-08-31). The Fundamentals of Typography: Second Edition (ht
tps://books.google.com/books?id=IW9MAQAAQBAJ&q=q+tail+typography&pg=PA189). A & C
Black. p. 24. ISBN 9782940411764. "...the bisecting tail of the Helvetica 'Q'."
16. Willen, Bruce; Strals, Nolen (2009-09-23). Lettering & Type: Creating Letters and Designing
Typefaces (https://books.google.com/books?id=yBytanUmuCoC&q=q+tail+typography&pg=PA11
0). Princeton Architectural Press. p. 110. ISBN 9781568987651. "The bowl of the Q is typically
similar to the bowl of the O, although not always identical. The style and design of the Q's tail is
often a distinctive feature of a typeface."
17. Vervliet, Hendrik D. L. (2008-01-01). The Palaeotypography of the French Renaissance: Selected
Papers on Sixteenth-century Typefaces (https://books.google.com/books?id=6sidSDlif48C&q=q+t
ail+typography&pg=PA330). BRILL. pp. 58 (a) 54 (b). ISBN 978-9004169821.
18. Rabinowitz, Tova (2015-01-01). Exploring Typography (https://books.google.com/books?id=xjRBB
AAAQBAJ&q=q+tail+typography&pg=PA50). Cengage Learning. p. 264. ISBN 9781305464810.
19. Osterer, Heidrun; Stamm, Philipp (2014-05-08). Adrian Frutiger – Typefaces: The Complete
Works (https://books.google.com/books?id=X3_oBQAAQBAJ&q=q+tail+typography&pg=PA97).
Walter de Gruyter. pp. 97 (a) 183 (b) 219 (c). ISBN 9783038212607.
20. Loxley, Simon (2006-03-31). Type: The Secret History of Letters (https://books.google.com/book
s?id=_wn4AgAAQBAJ&q=long+tailed+Q+typography&pg=PT44). I.B.Tauris.
ISBN 9780857730176. "The uppercase roman Q...has a very long tail, but this has been modified
and reduced on versions produced in the following centuries."
21. Fischer, Ulrike (2014-11-02). "How to force a long-tailed Q in EB Garamond" (http://tex.stackexcha
nge.com/questions/210192/how-to-force-a-long-tailed-q-in-eb-garamond). TeX Stack Exchange.
Retrieved 2017-02-03.
22. "What are "Stylistic Sets?" " (http://www.typography.com/faq/question.php?faqID=157).
Typography.com. Hoefler & Co. Retrieved 2017-02-03.
23. Bosler, Denise (2012-05-16). Mastering Type: The Essential Guide to Typography for Print and
Web Design (https://books.google.com/books?id=SudnyGqZ5VAC&q=q+tail+typography&pg=PA3
1). F+W Media, Inc. p. 31. ISBN 978-1440313714. "Letters that contain truly individual parts [are]
S, ... Q..."
24. "2: Q Shape" (http://www.identifont.com/identify?2+%20+9Z). Identifont. Retrieved 2017-02-01.
25. "3: $ style" (http://www.identifont.com/identify?3+.+1QY+7AG+9Z). Identifont. Retrieved
2017-02-02. To get the numbers in the table, click Question 1 (serif or sans-serif?) or Question 2
(Q shape) and change the value. They appear under X possible fonts.
26. Heller, Stephen (2016-01-07). "We asked 15 typographers to describe their favorite letterforms.
Here's what they told us" (https://www.wired.com/2016/01/14-typographers-introduce-us-to-their-f
avorite-letterforms/). WIRED. Retrieved 2017-02-03.
27. Phillips, Nicole Arnett (2016-01-27). "Wired asked 15 Typographers to introduce us to their
favorite glyphs" (http://www.typographher.com/blog/2016/1/27/wired-asked-15-typographers-to-intr
oduce-us-to-their-favorite-glyphs). Typograph.Her. Retrieved 2017-02-03.
28. Gordon, Arthur E. (1983). Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy (https://archive.org/details/illu
stratedintro0000gord). University of California Press. pp. 44 (https://archive.org/details/illustratedin
tro0000gord/page/44). ISBN 9780520038981. Retrieved 3 October 2015. "roman numerals."
29. Barmeier, Severin (2015-10-10), L2/15-241: Proposal to encode Latin small capital letter Q (http
s://www.unicode.org/L2/L2015/15241-small-cap-q.pdf) (PDF)
30. Everson, Michael; Baker, Peter; Emiliano, António; Grammel, Florian; Haugen, Odd Einar; Luft,
Diana; Pedro, Susana; Schumacher, Gerd; Stötzner, Andreas (2006-01-30). "L2/06-027: Proposal
to add Medievalist characters to the UCS" (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2006/06027-n3027-medi
eval.pdf) (PDF).

Notes
a. See references at Voiceless uvular stop#Occurrence

External links
Media related to Q at Wikimedia Commons
The dictionary definition of Q at Wiktionary
The dictionary definition of q at Wiktionary

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