Ϙ

Qoppa (Ϙ ϙ) is an obsolete letter of the Greek alphabet that had a numerical value of 90 and whose Latin transcription was Q. Later it was replaced by kappa.

Qoppa is the origin of the letter of the Latin alphabet represented with a similar glyph: Q.

History

When the Greek peoples took in the centuryVIIIa. C. The Phoenician lyrics to create their alphabets (there were indeed numerous modifications of the Greek alphabet before the Jonio model of Mileto was imposed in Athens by 403 B.C.), they were used in the letter qōf (rebuilt name, not attested, like those of the remaining Phoenician letters) to transcrib the alophone /k/ of the fonema /k/, a sound that, in Greek ears, was the closest to the phenolic value of the letter: /q/.

Corinth statero, marked with a qoppa under Pegaso

The qoppa was used as a symbol for the city of Corinth, which had the early spelling of Ϙόρινθος. The qoppa is also the source of the archaic Cyrillic numeral koppa (Ҁ).

Epigraphic variants

In archaic epigraphic sources the following variants appear:

Use

Number Qoppa

Today the alternative glyph, the numerical qoppa (ϟ), is used to represent the figure equivalent to 90 (ϟʹ).

Unicode

Qoppa appears in its old form and as a numeral, however some typefaces may render them wrong.