Qoppa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| This article does not cite any references or sources. (October 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. |
Qoppa or Koppa (uppercase Ϙ, lowercase ϙ) is a letter that was used in early forms of the Greek alphabet, derived from Phoenician qoph. In Phoenician, qoph was pronounced as a uvular stop (IPA: [q]); in Greek, which lacked such a sound, it was instead used for /k/ before back vowels (Ο and Υ). As the sound /k/ then had two redundant spellings, qoppa was eventually replaced by kappa (Κ). Qoppa remained in use as a letter in some Doric regions into the 5th century BC.
Like all Greek letters, qoppa was also used as a numeral, and had the value of 90. It has continued to be used in this function into modern times, though its shape has changed over time from a Q-like one to a Z-like one (Ϟ ϟ).
The Qoppa was used as a symbol for the city of Corinth, which had the early spelling of Ϙόρινθος. Qoppa is also the source of the Latin letter Q and the archaic Cyrillic numeral koppa (Ҁ).
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
als:Ϙar:قوبا (حرف إغريقي) br:Koppa (lizherenn) bg:Копа ca:Qoppa cy:Qoppa da:Qoppa de:Qoppa el:Κόππα es:Ϙ fr:Koppa gd:Qoppa gl:Qoppa it:Qoppa he:קופא ku:Qoppa hu:Koppa nl:Qoppa ja:コッパ pl:Koppa pt:Ϙ sk:Koppa (grécke písmeno) sv:Koppa th:คอปปา zh:Ϙ
