ق (qāf) is letter 21 of the 28 in the Arabic alphabet, between ف fāʾ and ك kāf. Its sound is a k made far back in the throat. It joins on both sides, so it has four shapes: ق ق ق ق. It is a moon letter, and its abjad value is 100.
Hear its name, قاف (qāf):
Qāf in all four positions
Qāf joins to the letter before it and to the letter after it, so its shape depends on where it sits in a word. Alone it is ق. At the start of a word it is ق, in the middle ق, and at the end ق.
| Position | Shape | Code point | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolated | ق | U+FED5 | written alone, or after a letter that does not join forward |
| Initial | ق | U+FED7 | at the start of a word or a piece of a word |
| Medial | ق | U+FED8 | between two letters that join it |
| Final | ق | U+FED6 | at the end of a word, joined from the letter before |
Typed text stores all four shapes as one character, U+0642 (ARABIC LETTER QAF); the codes in the table, U+FED5 to U+FED8, are presentation forms that the Unicode Arabic FAQ does not recommend for regular text.
Qāf is number 16 of the 28 letters by frequency, 2.4% of all letters, in the 50,000 most common word forms of Arabic film and TV subtitles (hermitdave/FrequencyWords, OpenSubtitles 2018), each form counted as often as it occurs; it is initial in 35%, medial in 53%, final in 8% and alone in 4% of its occurrences.
How to pronounce qāf
The sound of qāf is a k made far back in the throat, written q in the transliteration of our Arabic alphabet chart. The chart's note on it reads: "k" made far back at the uvula; glottal stop in city dialects. English has no exact match, which puts qāf among the eleven sounds covered on our Arabic pronunciation guide. Its row from that guide:
| Where it is made | Back of the tongue closing against the uvula, further back than k |
|---|---|
| Nearest English | None. A k pushed as far back as it will go |
| Confused with | ك k |
| Word pair that tests it | قَلْب qalb, heart / كَلْب kalb, dog |
Spoken dialects do not all say qāf the same way. Learn the Standard sound first, because every speaker recognises it; this is what you will hear instead.
| Modern Standard | Egyptian (Cairo) | Levantine (cities) | Gulf (Kuwait, Qatar, Najd) | Libyan (Tripoli) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| q: قلب qalb, heart | glottal stop: ʾalb | glottal stop: ʾalb. Many Jordanian men say g; the Druze keep q | g: galb | g: gāl, he said |
In Arabic chat writing, where speakers type Arabic in Latin letters, qāf is written 8, 2, q or g.
Arabic words with qāf
These 5 everyday words show qāf in real writing: it is initial in قلم, قلب and قمر; medial in بقرة; final in صديق. The first three are the practice words printed on its worksheet; the others come from our Arabic pronunciation guide and other letters' worksheets, and more words by topic are in our Arabic vocabulary lists.
| Word | Transliteration | Meaning | Qāf here | Listen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| قلم | qalam | pen | initial | |
| بقرة | baqara | cow | medial | |
| صديق | ṣadīq | friend | final | |
| قلب | qalb | heart | initial | |
| قمر | qamar | moon | initial |
Qāf with al-, and its number
Qāf is a moon letter, so the l of al- (the) is pronounced before it: القلم is al-qalam, the pen (test any word in our sun and moon letters checker).
Its abjad value is 100 in both the Mashriqi and the Maghribi order; our abjad calculator adds up whole words. Qāf is also one of the five qalqalah letters of Quran recitation, ق ط ب ج د: when its vowel is cancelled, by a sukūn or by stopping on it at the end of a sentence, reciters give it a slight bounce, as the Wikipedia article on tajweed describes. Our tajweed rules chart marks it in colour.
Letters that look like qāf
Qāf and ف fāʾ share nearly the same shape when joined, and only the dots tell them apart:
- ق qāf: two dots above
- ف fāʾ: one dot above
Qāf is a stop, not a rasp: walk a k backwards until the back of the tongue touches the uvula. A k said in the normal English position turns قَلْب qalb (heart) into كَلْب kalb (dog), and our pronunciation guide has a recording of the letter to copy.
Practise writing qāf
Trace it on the free qāf tracing worksheet (PDF, one page, 66 KB), which prints its four shapes beside قلم (qalam), بقرة (baqara) and صديق (ṣadīq); the other 27 are on our Arabic writing worksheets page.
Frequently asked questions
How do you pronounce the Arabic letter qāf?
The sound of qāf (ق) is a k made far back in the throat, written q in transliteration. Our alphabet chart notes: "k" made far back at the uvula; glottal stop in city dialects. Learners often confuse it with ك k.
Does qāf join to the next letter?
Yes. Qāf joins on both sides, so it has four forms: ق alone, ق at the start of a word, ق in the middle and ق at the end.
Is qāf a sun letter or a moon letter?
A moon letter. Before qāf the l of al- is pronounced, so القلم is al-qalam (the pen).
Which Arabic letters look like qāf?
ق qāf has two dots above and ف fāʾ has one dot above. They share one shape and differ only in their dots.