# The Roman Alphabet and C, K and Q **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 25, 2021, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-roman-alphabet-and-c-k-and-q/951345 "2021-09-25T22:28:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2021, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-roman-alphabet-and-c-k-and-q/951345/21 "2021-09-26T16:06:57Z")
so you missed the spoiler box, then? ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2021, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-roman-alphabet-and-c-k-and-q/951345/22 "2021-09-26T17:04:48Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > > [@dtilque](#): > > > > Latin didn’t use it, as Chronos points out, so why is it in our alphabet at all? > > Because it did exist in the original Latin alphabet. It fell out of use in classical times, but Romans remained aware that there was this additional letter that showed up in only very, very few archaic spellings of words. Not disagreeing, but I did once run across a Latin pangram[\*] that had only 20 different letters and K wasn’t one of them. It had all of our letters except J, K, U, W, Y, and Z. [\*] A pangram is a text that contains all the difference letters. This sentence was used as an exercise for students to practice writing. The Latin equivalent of “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”, which I remember having to type many times in typing class. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2021, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-roman-alphabet-and-c-k-and-q/951345/23 "2021-09-26T17:07:12Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > A nice video summarising the evolution of the alphabets is this That was a good video, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2021, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-roman-alphabet-and-c-k-and-q/951345/24 "2021-09-26T17:44:08Z")
The whole evolution of the alphabet is too complicated to go into here, but I just wanted to point out that K and Q come from two distinct letters in Semitic alphabets. In Hebrew they are kaph and qoph, representing the front and back versions of the stop. Roughly, the sounds of keep and cool. English speakers don’t even hear the difference, but the sounds are really different. But since they are entirely dependent on the following vowel, there can be no minimal pair. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2021, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-roman-alphabet-and-c-k-and-q/951345/25 "2021-09-26T18:05:58Z")
It’s fun to go to Iceland, where they kept those letters in their alphabet but it otherwise looks like English. Of course it’s fun to go to Iceland, period. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2021, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-roman-alphabet-and-c-k-and-q/951345/26 "2021-09-26T18:21:47Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > The whole evolution of the alphabet is too complicated to go into here, but I just wanted to point out that K and Q come from two distinct letters in Semitic alphabets. In Hebrew they are kaph and qoph, representing the front and back versions of the stop. Roughly, the sounds of keep and cool. English speakers don’t even hear the difference, but the sounds are really different. But since they are entirely dependent on the following vowel, there can be no minimal pair. What do you mean by, “entirely dependent on the following vowel”? They seem to just be two different consonants. Compare the words כָּרָה vs קָרָה,‎ כֵּן vs קֵן, etc ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2021, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-roman-alphabet-and-c-k-and-q/951345/27 "2021-09-26T18:29:06Z")
I think he meant that in English, they are dependent on the following vowel. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2021, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-roman-alphabet-and-c-k-and-q/951345/28 "2021-09-27T15:54:21Z")
That’s what I meant. In Hebrew they are distinct, but native English speakers are not even aware they are different. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2021, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-roman-alphabet-and-c-k-and-q/951345/29 "2021-09-28T16:22:51Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Ð and Þ were for /ð/ and /θ/ as in “this thing.” Yes, but not necessarily in that order. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2021, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-roman-alphabet-and-c-k-and-q/951345/30 "2021-09-28T16:34:05Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > > [@Jim\_B](#): > > > > They all literally have the exact same sound. > > Letter don’t have sounds. They loosely represent phonemes. The representation is so loose, in fact, that what @Jim_B wrote was pretty much just as correct as what you wrote. Some letters represent phonemes, some represent phones (individual sounds), some represent combinations of phonemes, some represent entire words, some don’t represent any sound at all (but may serve to modify the pronunciation of other letters), and some can be used for several of these purposes depending on the context. (I’m speaking about alphabets in general here, though most of these cases are found in Modern English.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-roman-alphabet-and-c-k-and-q/951345.md?page=1)