how about Z? it has a different stroke and howcome it’s the last letter in the alphabet?

Why is ‘xylophone’ pronounced as ‘zylophone’ instead?

Please investigate ‘W’ I’d like to know why it has a 3 syllable name and why it is so commonly paired with ‘H’ (why, where, what, white, while, who et al.)

I think your mileage may vary as concerns the “gz”, “hard k” and “kzh” sounds… or in other words it depends where you live. I’ve heard enough people round me pronounce all those example words with a “ks” and it seems fairly normal (auksiliary, eks(h)aust, exscite, luksury…). Not to mention mashing some of the actual “ks”es into other phonemes (wakzh… fogz… tagzi/takzhi… ekzhaust… lugzury… etc etc).

It’s even more of a chameleon than you first thought, really!

The Letter-X is the spot or solution to the problem, is it not? What was the question? Qui?

FIRST PERSON TO LEAVE A COMMENT
HELL YEAH

Well Thanks for the information…..

wierd

i love the letter “X”. having a name that starts with “X”, Xirus is always a conversation starter. i like that “X” is sometimes used to represent the unknown. that fits my personality. it’s good to be a little mysterious. thanks letter “X”!

cool first comment-anyway that article is really interesting

This was a really stupid read.

Excuse me, but the Greek letter “chi” (which does look like an X) is not used in Greek for the /ks/ sound. “Chi” is used for the hard, guttural /ch/ sound we hear in German and some other languages (e.g. Scots “loch”). The Greek letter “xi” (which, confusingly, doesn’t look a thing like an X) is the one pronounced as /ks/.

This is very interesting!

Never knew this at all!

the letter V!
Whence did it come?

Hello!

I love this kind of investigation… I would like to read more about the letter “y” also borrowed from the Greek and especially the varying ways in which it is used as a consonant or a vowel and the different pronunciations in different languages (i.e. in German where it has kept the original Greek sound.

Thank you!

X.O.X.O

What about “W”? Why is it “double-U” when it is actually “Double-V”? When did it make the switch?

Great post! I hadn’t made that relationship with maths but now that I read it, it makes complete sense.
I would like to know more about vowels, because of the several phonemes they adopt according to the position in a word. Or maybe about the at sign “@”, which have become very popular with the arrival of the internet.
Thank you.

W or Z would be fascinating to learn about.

X the is great letter having such a checker past is what makes it cool

eXciting article

what about the letter – z- anything special to report?

@KLB: eXcellent response!☺

Interesting article, but one error at the end: the letter x having the /ks/ sound is actually NOT a ‘voiceless velar fricative’. This phonetic description is actually the sound found in the Scottish pronunciation of ‘loch’ or the German ‘Bach’ (not common in standard English). The /ks/ sound would be better described as a ‘voiceless velar affricative’, but even then some phoneticians would disagree with this for more complicated reasons.

You missed a pronunciation. X can also be read as a “sh” sound, especially in transliteration.

Courtenay Rule is correct. I had to re-read the article, because at first I thought it was just confusingly worded, but the following section is patently incorrect.

> Originally used by the Phoenicians to represent the /s/ consonant
> (denoting a hard “s” sound), the Greeks borrowed the samekh around
> 900 BC and named it “Chi.”
>
> The ancient Greeks utilized their newly acquired phonological element
> to simplify the digraph (a pair of letters representing a single
> speech sound) /ks/ – used most prominently throughout the western
> regions of Greece.

Chi was a completely different letter, unrelated to the letter Xi which held the “ks” pronunciation. When the Romans were borrowing wholesale from Greek culture, they conflated the symbol of Chi with the pronunciation of Xi, giving us the Latin X that descended into English. How and why this happened, I don’t know, and was actually hoping this article would hold the answer. Rather disappointing.

y

uuyyu

What about the letter “s”?

what about the letter v it’s the first letter of my name -Vlad-

Yo could research the letter “A”. Why does it have so many sounds? And why is it listed first in the Alphabet? Also, why is it called the “Alphabet”? There is, indeed, much to learn about even the most common of things in life.

I am really enjoying the letter series. I think you should just start at A, and go through the entire thing. Save the ones already covered, of course.

Richard Durst, Cheeser and Courtenay Rule have all spotted the many mistakes in your writing. All of them are entirely correct. If you are going to research something, make sure your sources are correct or you will lose all credibility that people once held in you. I do appreciate the work you put into it, but you simply must make sure you are correct for you never know when someone might read it and spot an error. Simply a convivial suggestion.

How eXiting! I’m curios about why the alphabet is in a certain order and if there’s a specific reason. And why is C a letter? I mean, K makes a hard c sound, and s makes the soft c sound. So what the heck is K for?? N’kay, that’s all.

Hello, I am glad that you have broadened this site to be more interactive with the community that enjoys learning.
As far as this article is concerned, it seems that there are some disagreements with the usage of the word Chi as part of the of the history of the letter X.
I wondered how you investigate the meaning of these words, what are your sources for this information?

Well that’s cool,And a bit wierd. It makes me think. wich thinking is hard.

The letter /v/

“sioux” is also a French loan word, of a sort. It’s a French approximation of an Oneida name for the people of the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota linguistic group.

Lorax,

Because the letter C makes a “s” sound when placed in front of Es and Is, as in cent and civil, we need the letter K to make that hard /k/ sound in front of the letters E and I. The word keep would sound like seep with a C (ceep) and kick just wouldn’t work either (cick).

Cs work brilliantly in front of As, Os, and Us, though.

Another albeit obscure but nonetheless omitted pronunciation was the “h” sound of a properly pronounced “Xavier.”

You could expand the investigation into geometrical properties, mirroring, both up/down and sideways, the difference between lower and upper case, usage in symbolism and esoteric traditions.

X – Cross
I – Eye
U – You
C – See

I was wondering if you have done Q before. If you have, pay me no mind, but if you haven’t, would you? It is my favorite letter and I have always wondered why it is always paired with U.

What a read! I’m eXausted!!

How about Q? I love the shape of it and the sound it makes. Why is it always paired with U, and where did it come from?

wow now it makes since im teling my algerba techer why x is uesd

I’m getting on queue and giving you a cue to write about the letter Q. Por que, you may ask… but for that I haven’t got a good answer (sorry).

–H

Somethings don’t sound right in this history: 1) ’samekh’? That is the name for the dull ’s’ sound in the Hebrew alphabet, derived from Phoenician. So why would it be used for such unrelated sounds? 2) The Phoenician ’samekh’ looks more like the Greek ‘ksi’ than like a Roman X (or a Greek ‘chi”) 3) The Roman Alphabet IS mainly West Greek. If the West Greeks were already using ‘X’, why did the Romans need to refer to the ‘Chalcidian’ at all? 4) the Phoenician letter that really DOES look like our modern ‘X’ was the Tau. 5) it really needs to be explained that the alphabet we NOW think of at ‘THE’ Greek alphabet is a late version of the Ionic alphabet.

I want to know what practical use we have for the letter “c” – all it does is rip off other letters’ jobs. Seriously – it makes a “k” and an “s” sound. The only time C is actually important is for ch-ch-ch noises… and I think it would only take a little stretch of the imagination to convert those to “sh” noises. Then we’d all sound like we have speech impediments… “Excuse me, what kind of animal is that?” “Why, it’s a SHinShilla!”

ruth-

you’re right about that you should have a k, but why doo we need a c?
kick could be kik, and celery could be selery.

sorry- i spelled do doo in the comment above

Mr. Richard Durst is correct in his comment that “x” is also pronounced “sh.” The Mayas in Yucatan and Quintana Roo in Mexico pronounce it that way when referring to, among other things, the Maya archeological sites in Uxmal and Xel-ha.

“Why is ‘xylophone’ pronounced as ‘zylophone’ instead?”

Answer: Because english pronounciation has little rhyme or reason. Xylophone, of course, is derived from the greek “xylos” (wood) and “phonos” (sound), xylos being pronounced xylos as in Xerxes. That’s why in German, for example, xylophone is pronounced the original greek way: (xylo-phon) instead of (zailo-phone).

The rhymes and reasons of english pronounciation, or the lack thereof, might provide some interesting food for thought to the Hot Word editors.

Thanks for the fun ball-of-wax story about the origins of the letter X as well as your previous one on the meaning of X!

I was wondering why we have the letter “Q”. And why is it paired with “U” all the time in the English language? It just makes it more confusing than it already can be.

Interesting article. I’d like to learn more about the letter ‘W’, Why is it double ‘U’, not double ‘V’, and why is it often paired with an ‘H’?

Why is “W” double U, not called the “double V”?

Eggs… it always boils down to eggs!

W is called “double U” likely because it was originally written like two U’s. Just look at old script. Or think about learning cursive in 3rd grade (if you’re old enough). It’s a U-shape.

Also, transliteration doesn’t make an “sh” sound, Richard Durst….

Y would be interesting too. It’s rare role as a vowel. Why. Gym.
Q as well. As others stated, the U follows Q factor is curious.

Very interesting XD

Oh wait…. Bahahahahahahahahahah. Sorry, Durst, I misunderstood. Hahahah. Sorry.

hey Johnny B

Its called double U because of the phonetian letter it was derived from.

nick and johnny B-
“W” got it’s name from what used to represent the /w/ sound; two “U” (“uu”)

When it comes to transliteration from other languages, X can have other sounds as well. For instance, the Mayan city of Uxmal, is pronounced “ushmal” and Xibalba is “shibalba.” I always pronounced the latter with a Scottish “ch.” That reminds me of a “bet-you-can’t-pronounce-this sentence with which the Scots love to tease foreigners, “It’s a bricht licht moonlicht nicht tonicht.”

Some Chinese names, including people’s names also begin with an X or contain one and I never know how to pronounce them. Does anyone have any knowledge of that?

My neighbors have adopted an unusual dog- a “xolo”, which they pronounce “show-low” Sh is a different sound for X from those listed above.(Maybe it is a Spanish pronunciation?)
I found this history on the web:
Xoloitzcuintle (also spelled xoloitzcuintli) is a hairless and very rare dog breed that is thought to have originated in Asia or Africa and ultimately brought to South American by traders. Most often this dog breed’s name is shortened to Xolo for obvious reasons – but if you want to know how to pronounce its full name, it is show-low-ee-squint-lee. The name is derived from the Aztec god Xoloti. In Mexico they are popularly known as Itzcuintles

To all Those W and QU fans we covered them recently in the hot word along with J and I perhaps the’re still in the queue.
I for one was egzasperated with the cavalier use of the gz phoneme so I egzosted myself egzamining d.coms’ pronunciation feature and decided to egzcoriate them on this topic. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

im sexy becuase my name starrts with x.
x rocks iknowthat

“Itzcuintli” in nahuatl means ‘naked’, ‘nude’, because this dog is almost hairless.

the x has always been a groovy letter to me and i think it is interesting and exotic and not really comon

Also note the shape is used in the Runic scripts as Gebo; a giving or gifts/wealth G can also be pronounced as eGGs, rendering an eks, or x.

In transliterating Urdu (official language of Pakistan), some authors use x for a sound that is akin to the “ch” of “Loch Ness” or “Chanukkah.” For instance, they would write “xuda hafiz” for a traditional Urdu greeting that means, “May God be your Protector.”

i think x is tackled already? you should tackle U

Mailminlin-

Perhaps there is a C for the expansion of the English language: sell and cell??? Don’t forget chuck… Khukk is not a very attractive word!!

R

Love all the cultural histories for the letter ‘x’. In addition for standing for an unknown [as in a math equation], it was also used to represent a signature and probably carried a distinctive style of its owner.

Enough we have now on X. It is really exciting to see & learn from the feedbacks & responses.Viewers input were more enlighting. Thanx, as it invoked teasers by your write up.
Won’t you like to continue with the genesis of other letters of English aphabet?

This is in response to some of the comments above and to information in the article:
In typical Ionian Greek, “X” (“chi”) would stand for the /x/ sound as in a guttural /ch/ like in “Loch” only a bit less stark, while “Ξ” was used for the /ks/ sound. This remains how these letters are pronounced in modern Greek as well. However, the Chalchidian alphabet would use the letter “X” for the /ks/ sound instead, and the letter “Ψ” in place of the normal “X” (“chi”, /x/) that Eastern Greek alphabets would use, as in the Ionian city-states (or in Athens from 403 B.C.). This Chalchidian version of the alphabet that was used in the Greek city-state of Region (Ρήγιον) — founded by citizens of Kyme (Κύμη) in Calabria, Italy, Kyme being a colony of Euboia (Εύβοια) in Greece — was indeed what the Romans borrowed for their Latin version. The alphabet of Region featured a few more letters not commonly used in Classical Ionian Greek versions, namely F (= f or v), H (= h) and Q (= q), which do survive to this day in the Western European alphabets, but not in the Greek alphabet. The use of these 3 letters had long been abandoned in the Eastern Greek alphabets, such as the Ionian, though they had been present several centuries before, as evidence in pottery inscriptions suggests. From 403 B.C., when Athens officially adopted the Ionian alphabet, this latter one gained a predominant place among all other versions of the Greek alphabet.

As a phonetician I find the letter R most intriguing. All the languages I am familiar with have such a phoneme, yet the pronunciation can vary dramatically. In some languages the R is represented by non-Latin letters (e.g. Hebrew, Arabic) and foreign learners often substitute their own ‘R sound.’ Some languages pronounce their R in the front of the mouth, while others use the back. Some languages have some of their dialects using the front R and others using the back R (e.g. French, German). Japanese merges R with L. The matter of articulation of R can be a flap (Spanish) or a roll (Spanish, Arabic) or a fricative (Northern French) or a frictionless continuant (e.g. English). Question: How can one phoneme be recognized as such despite the wide range of pronunciations?

I would just like to make clear one more thing, that I noticed may seem confusing in my post above: Euboia is in Greece, and Kyme was its colony in Italy.

“Anon E. Mous on April 26, 2011 at 9:12 am

Yo could research the letter “A”. Why does it have so many sounds? And why is it listed first in the Alphabet? Also, why is it called the “Alphabet”? There is, indeed, much to learn about even the most common of things in life.”

I don’t know much about “A” but it’s the start of my name! anyway i’m guessing it’s called the “Alphabet” because of the first 2 letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta just say it to yourself, alpha, beta, alphabet

thats very interesting! for the next time i like to investigate the letter “S”

Are you sure about the word Fish in Arabic. It is spelled and pronounced Samak until today, and not ending with the sound of kh.

People are asking for “W” to be covered – I find it interesting that words are spelled ‘what’, ‘why’, ‘where’, but they are pronounced ‘hwat’, ‘hwy’, ‘hwere’?

Nick “What about “W”? Why is it “double-U” when it is actually “Double-V”? When did it make the switch?”

Only in the USA and the UK. IN Europe, the mainland, where the alphabet was born, is actually still a double V

THe ROman alphabet doesnt have a W or even a V. Theirs V is actually an U. But when the English needed a new word they combined two Romans V Vs to make a W.

why is it called double-U and not double-V? it looks like two V’s not two U’s. vv w VV W <<<<< you can hardley tell a difference! UU W uu w …….. ??????????

I know this is not a letter, but I’m interested in the combination of the letters S and U, as in sugar and sure. Are these the only two time these letters combine to form the sh sound? If so, why did the spelling evolve in this way?

I’d like you to investigate the missing 27th letter of the alphabet.

that is amazing what about oooooooooooooooooooooooo’s

personally i pronounce “auxiliary” and “exhaust” with the “x” having the /ks/ sound, which i think it was meant to, but progression of language sluring gave it the /gz/ sound, in my opinion.

Why do we have so many useless letters? “C” could be kicked out. “X” also could. Why does “G” say “J” (giraffe). Why can’t we spell some sounds (J in Jacques; difference between TH in THing and THose; clicks used in African languages; etc.)

@Heyya Alphabet is from the Greek. i.e. Alpha, Beta,…

Sunny D And Rum Yummm Yummmmmmm

That was stupid to leave on an “Article” that has nothing to with what i said. So Haters, Hate.

how bout, J? Ain’t it cool

I’d like to learn about /t/ idk why

Also, I didn’t know there was a 27th letter of the alphabet?!?

also, there is a missing 27th letter of the alphabet?!?!

How about Q? Why is always paired with U? Why doesn’t it make the “kwuh” sound on its own?

W because y is it double U when it is actually double V. this really bothers me!

C Q is yanking your chain. If you accept the thorn you’d have to add the rest of the runes. If you did that you might as well add those cyrillic letters that english doesn’t use. Before you know it all language is one megabet, so un wieldy that only the energy beings of planet Claire can could communicate literately.

helloe,

what about the letter v .,in greek math it would 5.
anythin special to that?

the 27th letter would be nice too. =/

To all you people who are asking: W is double-u because cursive was how people wrote before printing. That was kind of obvious.

tell us about /c/

Why is it pronounced “see”?

Why is it paired with /h/ as the sound “tj” in “churro” or the sound “k” “Chiasmus”

I think the origins of the letter “y” would be interesting. Why is it that it stole the uppercase upsilon (the Greek /u/) but the lowercase gamma? (Greek /g/) And its whole thing with being a vowel BUT NOT.

Thank you so much for your explanations of the “X”.

What about the letter H? Seems that H plays a big supporting role, as in ch, gh, ph, sh, th, and wh. I can remember being taught that’wh’ as in ‘when’ is pronounced ‘hwen.’

Besides, in Welsh the W is actually pronounced as a doubled (long) U, as in cwn = “coon”.

The /x/ sound – or voiceless velar fricative – is in the International Phonetic Alphabet used to denote the sound we know from Scottish ‘loch’ or (parodies of) Arabic or Dutch speech. It is, however, most definitely NOT the /ks/ sound from ‘wax’ or ‘fox’, as your article makes it seem to be.

For those of you requesting /W/, it was actually explored a few weeks ago on here and you can probably still find the article….very interesting!

In Albanian, the X is pronounced as the g in AnGel for example, the name Anxhela is pronounced AnGela

And the letter q is pronounced as CH like in CHime for example, tea could be spelled çaj or qaj pronounced Chai.

Discover why “b” is such a boring letter and doesn’t sound like anything except “ba”

re the letters of the alphabet in that order (a,b,c,d,e,f…)/ Is there a reason?

Please send answer 2 my email!

THX!

“Voiceless velar fricative” ~ try saying that ten times fast!

What about the letter “A”? Why’s it the first letter of the alphabet?

wow i never knew that a simple letter could be so confusing

Anon E. Mous asked why it is called the alphabet.
I think that in Greek, the alphabet letters are alpha, beta, and so on, so alphabet probably just means a list of letters in a language

DO the letter W

i just would like to suggest about letter “W” THIS LETTER SHOULD PRONOUNCE DOUBLE V NOT DOUBLE U

The most commonly used letter in the alphabet would be the letter I’d like to hear about next. Yep, Q. There’s your hilarious sentence of the day. Whoopee! Anyway, I’d like to hear about E next. It’s used in pretty much everything, and yet no one really thinks about it when listing letters they would like to know more about. But I for one would like to hear it!

“W” IS THE ONLY LETTER IN THE ALPHABET PRONOUNCE AS DOUBLE, HOW ABOUT ADDING DOUBLE AA, double BB, double CC, ETC TO DOUBLE ZZ, SO WE WILL HAVE A TOTAL OF 51 LETTERS IN THE ALPHABET THAT WOULD BE NICE WE CAN CREATE A LOT OF WORDS WITH 51 LETTERS IN THE ALPHABET.

u kno? thats really interesting but i would really like to know about the letters “O”, “Q”, “F”, “I”, and “M” thanks

i think this letter is already tackled? you should tackle G.

There is an error in this article. The “ks” sound is NOT a voiceless velar fricative. That would be an individual consonant sound, whereas [ks] is a consonant cluster. The X symbol does represent a voiceless velar fricative in the International Phonetic Alphabet, but the sound of a voiceless velar fricative is actually the same sound we would hear in the Scottish pronunciation of “loch.”

Why are all the letters in alphabetical order? Why does it start with A and go down to Z? I don’t see why it has to go that way. Why not it go from Z-A?

OMG THAT WAS SO STUPID!!

I have never wondered about the origens of “X”. I thought pirates made it though, as a marker on their maps.

27th letter of the alphabet is ñ or Ñ enye for spanish.

how about letter J j in Jewish alphabet there’s no such letter remember the time of Jesus wherein Jesus is spelled as iesus. Kindly consider as well.

please consider the letter J j also for during the time of Jesus there’s no such letter as J so they spelled jesus as iesus or Iesus. Kindly consider as well.

I havent visited “hot word” for a while. Seems to me we used to get a new word every day. What gives? This “X” blurb has been on for three days now. Time to freshen up.
This “HOT WORD” is not only OLD but it’s gotten very COLD.

Where did r’uh come from?

please consider letter f.

A solution for you all…….buy the book “Letter Perfect” by David Sacks. It tells the detailed history of every single letter in our Alphabet in language us “laymen and laywomen” can all understand, together with lovely humour and wit.
I am not related to him either, I just love that book !

dats pretty cool.. it ll help me in my phonetics class.. wat about other letters.. specially U & W & V???

When Greek letter “Chi” came into Russian language it became a “X” which sounds like “H” in English or “J” in Spanish.

please do z its such a interesting letter

iwould like to know more about the letter Q also why is the simbol of measures of pesantes as in @ =25 qq=100 pounds.thanks

Most of your stupid questions can be answered by putting your stupid questions in google.

This has already been said, I think, but your description of the /ks/ phoneme is incorrect. A “voiceless velar fricative” is indeed what the “x” in the International Phonetic Alphabet represents, but it’s the -ch in Bach or Channukah, not /ks/. /ks/ is really just two phonemes squished together, in which case there is no difference between the “x” in fox and the “x” in excite… they are both /ks/.

to john rhea there is not such stupid question in life thats whay dictionaries exist to educate, it also call amansa “burros” because if one is so smart dictionaries would not exist. thanks

Your explanation is a bit confused, as are some of the comments. Are you trying to explain the origin of the cross-shaped sign , or the /ks/ sound? The semitic samekh is a reflex, not of the Greek chi, but of xi. However, neither had the cross form we know for X. As someone has mentioned, the tau was closer to this shape. The Greeks did use the cross shape for chi, but this was added after the letters that they inherited from the Phoenicians.

what about ”z” the letter is just there at the end of the alphabet not many words start with z ?

How about the letter “R” ?

This is amazing! I would like to learn more. I am a $_$ (a.k.a greedy) king for words. Just X-p (a.k.a joking)!!!