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'''K''' is the eleventh letter of the modern [[Latin alphabet]]. Its name in [[English language|English]] is spelled ''kay'' ({{pronEng|keɪ}}).<ref>"K" ''Oxford English Dictionary,'' 2nd edition (1989); ''Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1993); "kay," op. cit.</ref>
==History and usage==
{| border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse;text-align:center;"
|- bgcolor="#EEEEEE"
! Egyptian hieroglyph D
! Proto-Semitic K
! Phoenician K
! Etruscan K
! Greek Kappa
|-----
|<hiero>d</hiero>
|[[Image:Proto-semiticK-01.png]]
|[[Image:PhoenicianK-01.png]]
|[[Image:EtruscanK-01.png]]
|[[Image:Kappa uc lc.svg|64px]]
|}
The letter K comes from the Greek Κ ([[kappa]]), which was taken from the Semitic [[kaph|kap]], the symbol for an open hand.<ref name="OED">"K". ''The Oxford English Dictionary'', 2nd ed., 1989, online [http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50124982?query_type=word&queryword=k&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&result_place=1&search_id=h5Sx-nTaC9b-24269&hilite=50124982]</ref> This in turn was likely adapted by Semites who had lived in Egypt from the hieroglyph for "hand" representing D in the Egyptian word for hand, ''d-r-t''. The Semites evidently assigned it the sound value {{IPA|/k/}} instead, because their word for hand started with that sound.<ref>Cyrus H. Gordon: ''[http://www.jstor.org/pss/543451 The Accidental Invention of the Phonemic Alphabet]''</ref>
The Semitic value of {{IPA|/k/}} was maintained in most classical as well as modern languages, although Latin abandoned the use of K almost completely, preferring [[C]]. When [[Roman language|Greek]] words were taken into Latin, the Kappa was converted to C, with a few exceptions such as the term ''kalendae'' ([[calends]]) and the [[praenomen]] ''[[Kaeso]]''.<ref name="OED" /> Some words from other alphabets were also transliterated into C. Therefore, the [[Romance languages]] have K only in words from still other language groups. The [[Celtic languages]] also chose C over K, and this influence carried over into [[Old English]]. Today, English is the only [[Germanic language]] to productively use hard C in addition to K (although [[Dutch language|Dutch]] uses it in learned words of Latin origin and follows the same "hard / soft" distinction in such words as does French and English -- but not in native words).
Some English linguists prefer to reverse the Latin transliteration process for proper names in Greek, spelling ''[[Hecate]]'' as "Hekate", for example. And the writing down of languages that don't have their own alphabet with the Latin one has resulted in a standardization of the letter for this sound, as in ''Kwakiutl.''
In the [[International Phonetic Alphabet]], [k] is the symbol for the [[voiceless velar plosive]].
Several other alphabets also use characters with sharp angles to indicate the sound {{IPA|/k/}} or syllables that start with a {{IPA|/k/}}, for example: [[Arabic alphabet|Arabic]] ك, [[Hebrew alphabet|Hebrew]] כ (in some fonts), [[Hangul|Korean]] ㄱ. This kind of phonetic-visual association was studied by [[Wolfgang Köhler]]. However, there are also many examples of rounded letters for {{IPA|/k/}}, like ค in [[Thai alphabet|Thai]] and Ք in [[Armenian alphabet|Armenian]].
==Codes for computing==
{{Letter
|NATO=Kilo
|Morse=–·–
|Character=K
|Braille=⠅
}}
In [[Unicode]] the [[majuscule|capital]] K is codepoint U+004B and the [[lower case]] k is U+006B.
The [[ASCII]] code for capital K is 75 and for lowercase k is 107; or in [[Binary numeral system|binary]] 01001011 and 01101011, correspondingly.
The [[EBCDIC]] code for capital K is 210, and for lowercase k, 146.
The [[numeric character reference]]s in [[HTML]] and [[XML]] are "<tt>&#75;</tt>" and "<tt>&#107;</tt>" for upper and lower case respectively.
== Notes ==
{{reflist}}
== See also ==
{{Commons|K}}
*[[Ƙ]] (hooked K)
*[[К|К, к - Ka (Cyrillic)]]
*[[Kappa|Κ, κ or ϰ - Kappa (Greek)]]
{{Latin alphabet}}
[[Category:Latin letters]]
[[af:K]]
[[als:K]]
[[ar:K]]
[[arc:K]]
[[ast:K]]
[[az:K]]
[[bs:K]]
[[br:K (lizherenn)]]
[[ca:K]]
[[cs:K]]
[[co:K]]
[[cy:K]]
[[da:K]]
[[de:K]]
[[el:K]]
[[es:K]]
[[eo:K]]
[[eu:K]]
[[fa:K]]
[[fr:K (lettre)]]
[[fur:K]]
[[gan:K]]
[[gd:K]]
[[gl:K]]
[[ko:K]]
[[hr:K]]
[[ilo:K]]
[[is:K]]
[[it:K]]
[[he:K]]
[[ka:K]]
[[kw:K]]
[[sw:K]]
[[ht:K]]
[[ku:K (herf)]]
[[la:K]]
[[lv:K]]
[[lt:K]]
[[hu:K]]
[[mzn:K]]
[[ms:K]]
[[nah:K]]
[[nl:K (letter)]]
[[ja:K]]
[[no:K]]
[[nrm:K]]
[[uz:K (harf)]]
[[pl:K]]
[[pt:K]]
[[ro:K]]
[[qu:K]]
[[ru:K (латиница)]]
[[se:K]]
[[simple:K]]
[[sk:K]]
[[sl:K]]
[[sr:K (слово латинице)]]
[[fi:K]]
[[sv:K]]
[[tl:K]]
[[th:K]]
[[vi:K]]
[[tr:K (harf)]]
[[uk:K (латиниця)]]
[[vo:K]]
[[yo:K]]
[[zh-yue:K]]
[[bat-smg:K]]
[[zh:K]]