2857: Final Kaf כ: Arabic transliteration in Hebrew Oct 16, 2024

Hebrew has developed certain standards when it comes to transliterating other languages, that usually avoids the problems posed from the limits of applying its writing system to other languages. For instance, certain letters are used only vocalically in transliteration (see more about that here). Another issue is that some letters change environmentally but this is not treated as such in loans. For instance, traditionally, פּ (peh) is only after a consonant, but after a vowel is פ (feh), and also the letter is different at the end of the word. Since peh is always feh at the end of the word, written in a word-final form ף (such as סוף sof ‘end’), in loans it is written as peh such as from English telescope: טלסקופ. A similar situation exists with the letter ך/כ (kaf / khaf) which also has goes from plosive to fricative after a vowel, and it has a word-final form. 

In loan words from most languages, the letter ק (koof) is used for the /k/ sound no matter the spelling (note ‘quiche’: קיש), even going back to ancient loan words like קיסר (kesar) for ‘Caesar’. Despite the fact that in traditional Hebrew ק (koof) represents the gutural* /q/, but it does have have the fricative form like כ (caf) does. However, Arabic does have both a /k/ and /q/, unlike say Latin or English, so in transliterating those words, the כ (caf) must be used. This is why a word like הי טק ‘high tech’ or לינק ‘link’ (online) taken directly from English use a ק (koof). Arabic, which does allow /k/ or /x/ after a vowel as in תאריך (tarikh) ‘calendar date’, but also has a /q/ as seen in the Hebrew אופק (ofeq) ‘horizon’ and אפרסק (afarseq) ‘peach’. While it isn’t loaned into Hebrew, the term שמכ (shemek) meaning ‘your name’ (masculine) is spelt with the standard כ (caf) form for clarity.

That said, while the spelling from Arabic is preserved, the distinction in Modern Hebrew of using /q/ barely exists, but even the choice between two letters when they make the same sound can be important for a sense of etymological clarity, which English does too, arguably to a fault.

*This is just colloquialism in English; it is a uvular consonant.