Q Through the Ages

The letter we now recognize as Q began originally as the Phoenician letter Qoph. There are several hypotheses about why the letter is named this:  one story suggests that it came from the pictogram of a monkey (with the letter forming the monkey's rear end and hanging tail), as Qoph was the Phoenician word for "monkey;" others suggest that it came from the proto-Afro-Asiatic word for "neck," which is "qaw." By looking at the shape of the letter, one can see how both of these conclusions make sense.

The Greeks then adopted this letter, renaming it Koppa, slightly modifying its shape in the process. However, they already had the letter Kappa, which was their older letter for the /k/ sound, and ultimately preferred it. They eliminated Koppa from their alphabet, retaining it only as their number 90.

However, it has been suggested that the Greek letter Phi, which we pronounce as /f/, also originated from Koppa. As I am currently studying the Russian language (whose Cyrillic letters drew from the Greek alphabet), I find it interesting to note that their /f/ sound looks very much like Phi and, similarly, Koppa.

Ultimately, though, the Etruscans and Romans kept Qoppa. The Etruscan Q retained the vertical tail, but the Romans eventually gave it the curved tail we recognize today. However, so as to not have the same dilemma as the Greeks (who decided they did not need two /k/ sounds), the Romans dictated that it was only to be used before a /w/ sound or, more simply, the letter U.

I found it interesting to learn about how this letter was ultimately eliminated from the Greek alphabet because it was a redundancy, as our modern-day Q still feels that way sometimes. I had hoped to play off of the notion of Q having a hard time finding its place in the world before I read Q's history, but learning about its origins only reinforced this idea in my mind. Q had, and still has, a rather hard time of it.

Sources:
"Alphabet Letter Q" http://www.alphabetandletter.com/Q.html
"The Letter Q" http://www.fonts.com/AboutFonts/Articles/Letterseries/LetterQ.htm
"The Origin of the Alphabet" http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/alphabet.html
"Q" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q
"Qoph" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qoph