Wikipedia

Kha (Cyrillic)

Not to be confused with Latin letter X or the Greek letter Χ (chi).

Kha, Khe, Xe or Ha (Х х; italics: Х х) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. It looks the same as the Latin letter X (X x X x), in both uppercase and lowercase, both roman and italic forms, and was derived from the Greek letter Chi, which also bears a resemblance to both the Latin X and Kha.[1]

Kha хѣръ (Early Cyrillic alphabet)
Х х
Usage
Writing systemCyrillic
TypeAlphabetic
Sound values[x], [χ], [h]
History
Development
Χ χ
  • Х х
Other
Associated numbers600 (Cyrillic numerals)
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
Kha, from Elisabeth Boehm's alphabet book

It commonly represents the voiceless velar fricative /x/, similar to how some Scottish speakers pronounce the ⟨ch⟩ in “loch”, but has different pronunciations in different languages.

Kha is romanised as ⟨kh⟩ for Russian, Ukrainian, Mongolian, and Tajik, and as ⟨ch⟩ for Belarusian and Polish, while being romanised as ⟨h⟩ for Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Kazakh. It is also romanised as ⟨j⟩ for Spanish.

History

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The Cyrillic letter Kha was derived from the Greek letter Chi (Χ χ).

The name of Kha in the Early Cyrillic alphabet was хѣръ (xěrŭ).

In the Cyrillic numeral system, Kha has a value of 600.

Usage

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Russian

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Kha is the twenty-third letter of the Russian alphabet. It represents the voiceless velar fricative /x/ unless it is before a palatalizing vowel, when it represents /xʲ/.

Ossetian

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Kha represents the voiceless uvular fricative /χ/ in Ossetian. The digraph ⟨хъ⟩ represents the voiceless uvular plosive /q/.

Belarusian

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Kha is also an alternative transliteration of the letter خ Ḫāʼ in the Arabic alphabet. This was used in Belarusian Arabic script, corresponding to the above Cyrillic letter.

Ukrainian

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Kha is the twenty-sixth letter of the Ukrainian alphabet. It represents the voiceless velar fricative /x/.

Aleut

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In Aleut, kha represents /x/. Kha with inverted breve (Х̑ х̑) represents the voiceless uvular fricative (/χ/).

Figurative meanings of "хѣръ"

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  • Because of the shape of the letter X, its name kher was often used to refer to something cross-shaped: Dahl mentions "the game of kheriki-oniki" (crosses and zeros) and the expression "legs like kher" as the opposite of "bowlegged", "legs like a wheel".[2] From this also comes the word pokherovat (originally, to cross out crosswise; cf. in N. S. Leskov: Vladika crossed out the consistory's decision on the appointment of the investigation with a kher.[3]
  • Being the first letter of the vulgar and obscene word for the male genital organ, the word kher has been actively used as its euphemism since the 19th century.[4] As a result, by the 1990s in the USSR, the word "kher" and its derivatives (e.g., "pokherit") were perceived as taboo by many people, as the original names of Cyrillic letters had been forgotten by the majority of the population. This fact has also affected the use of the word "kher" in the post-Soviet era, despite the change of attitude towards obscene vocabulary.[5] Nevertheless, the portal Gramota.ru notes that "the word kher and all derivatives of it do not belong to obscene words".[6]
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Computing codes

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Character information
Preview Х х
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER HA CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER HA
Encodings decimal hex dec hex
Unicode 1061 U+0425 1093 U+0445
UTF-8 208 165 D0 A5 209 133 D1 85
Numeric character reference Х Х х х
Named character reference Х х
KOI8-R and KOI8-U 232 E8 200 C8
Code page 855 182 B6 181 B5
Code page 866 149 95 229 E5
Windows-1251 213 D5 245 F5
ISO-8859-5 197 C5 229 E5
Macintosh Cyrillic 149 95 245 F5

References

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  1. ^ Bourgholtzer, Frank (31 May 2023). Aleksandr Chayanov and Russian Berlin. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-000-94657-4.
  2. ^ ""Хер"" (in Russian). Archived from the original on 2017-02-13. Retrieved 10 July 2024.
  3. ^ ""Хер"" (in Russian). Archived from the original on 2021-05-09. Retrieved 10 July 2024.
  4. ^ Левин Ю. И. Об обсценных выражениях русского языка // Левин Ю. И. Избранные труды. Поэтика. Семиотика. — М., 1998. — С. 809—819
  5. ^ "Русская бранная лексика: цензурное и нецензурное". philology.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 12 July 2024.
  6. ^ ""Хер"". Gramota.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 12 July 2024.
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  •   The dictionary definition of Х at Wiktionary
  •   The dictionary definition of х at Wiktionary
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