Qaf (Cyrillic)

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Cyrillic letter Qaf
Image:Cyrillic letter Qaf.png
Unicode (hex)
majuscule: U+049A
minuscule: U+049B
Cyrillic alphabet
А Б В Г Ґ Д Ѓ
Ђ Е Ѐ Ё Є Ж З
Ѕ И Ѝ І Ї Й Ј
К Л Љ М Н Њ О
П Р С Т Ћ Ќ У
Ў Ф Х Ц Ч Џ Ш
Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э Ю Я
Non-Slavic letters
Ӑ Ӓ Ә Ӛ Ӕ Ғ Ӷ
Ҕ Ӗ Ҽ Ҿ Ӂ Җ Ӝ
Ҙ Ӟ Ӡ Ӥ Ӣ Ӏ Ҋ
Қ Ҟ Ҡ Ӄ Ҝ Ӆ Ӎ
Ҥ Ң Ӊ Ӈ Ӧ Ө Ӫ
Ҩ Ҧ Ҏ Ҫ Ҭ Ӳ Ӱ
Ӯ Ү Ұ Ҳ Һ Ҵ Ӵ
Ҷ Ӌ Ҹ Ӹ Ҍ Ӭ  
Archaic letters
Ҁ Ѹ Ѡ Ѿ Ѻ Ѣ ІА
Ѥ Ѧ Ѫ Ѩ Ѭ Ѯ Ѱ
Ѳ Ѵ Ѷ      
List of Cyrillic letters

The Cyrillic letter Қ, қ (in Kazakh: Qaf) is a К with a descender. It is used in a number of Turkic languages spoken on the territory of the former Soviet Union, including Tajik, Kazakh, Uzbek, Uighur and several smaller languages (Karakalpak, Tofa), where it represents a voiceless uvular plosive /q/. Since /q/ is represented by the letter ق qāf in the Arabic alphabet, Қ is sometimes referred to as "Cyrillic Qaf."

The letter is also used in some non-Turkic languages, where it may represent other sounds. For example, it is used in Abkhaz to represent a voiceless velar plosive (/k/). (Plain Cyrillic "К" is used to represent /kʼ/.)

It was introduced in 1905 for the spelling of Abkhaz. From 1928 to 1938, Abkhaz was spelled with the Latin alphabet, and the corresponding letter was a latin K with descender.

Its ISO 9 transliteration is ķ (k with cedilla), and is so transliterated for Abkhaz, while the common Kazakh and Uzbek romanization is q.

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