Why Is Q Always Followed By U?

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SOURCES AND FURTHER READING
Digraphs: www.twinkl.co.uk/teaching-wik...
The QU Digraph: ingles-americano.blogspot.com/...
List of English words containing Q not followed by U: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
Why Does The Letter Q Almost Always Need The Letter U?: www.dictionary.com/e/q/
History of Q: www.britannica.com/topic/Q-le...
Why Does Q (Almost) Always Go With a U?: www.mentalfloss.com/article/5...
Koppa: memim.com/koppa-letter.html
Qoph: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qoph
Early Greek Alphabet: www.brown.edu/Departments/Jou...
The Phoenicians: www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pho...
Rounding: www.britannica.com/topic/roun...

[@NameExplain]

What kind of relationship do Q and U have in your language?

[@siyacer]

Q U

[@BatataKarambas]

QUIET

[@aH00man]

We dont have Q

[@Bouncyboizes]

We never use q expect for borrowed words

[@itsgiag]

In Spanish there is always a Q followed by an U and then an E or I, but if it's a foreign word it may be that the word isn't followed by an U like Qatar. In Spanish is Qatar or Catar

[@SCSilk]

Bad pick up line alert. “I’m like Q. I’m dependent upon U”.

[@dcarbs2979]

You could say it while you're in a Q(ueue) for the bar :-)

[@Azier18]

This kinda stings, but still got it.

[@Reubentheimitator6572]

That actually sounds good, but I still won't use it, because it might not work.

[@dianeridley9804]

*rimshot* But this one is actually quite good

[@chargemankent]

Moral of the story: *"Q is Useless"*

[@kelsqi-books4835]

Qi (a variant spelling of chi), is the most played word in scrabble tournaments 😅

[@rachelle2227]

I also remember the words qat and qaid!

[@sohopedeco]

Qi and chi make completely different sounds in mandarin pinyin.

[@omargerardolopez3294]

Obviously borrowed

[@MrBenjigee]

@@sohopedeco The English language has a very ... relaxed attitude to spelling and pronouncing loan words lol. Even very recent loan words often get changed quite a lot.

[@luciferangelica]

right, i met a person who told me they teach qi jong, and i was all like, oh, you must be obi wan

[@sheila3348]

Me, flirting: I must be the letter Q because I need U

[@muhammadirfanjalaluddin1018]

Eyyy. Cha cha real smooth

[@YourAverageNormalHumanBeing]

I'm going to use that on my bf.

[@davie53]

The relationship between Q and U in Icelandic? Q doesn't exist in Icelandic.

[@dcarbs2979]

Probably because there's not enough people to form a line behind ;-)

[@brokkrep]

@@dcarbs2979 omg

[@ManmadeMath]

Same in Welsh

[@geometryjumpfl2784]

bruh

[@alexanderlapp5048]

They don't use the letter C in Iseland.

[@Psyk60]

In the Picard language, Q is always followed by a facepalm.

[@redapol5678]

🤦‍♂️ 🤣

[@oz_jones]

Goddamnit.

[@redapol5678]

@Billy Gibson it’s a Star Trek (The Next Generation) reference. Also there’s the meme of Picard facepalming

[@Psyk60]

@Billy Gibson Picard is a language from France. It's also the surname of the captain of the Enterprise from Star Trek The Next Generation. In that there is a character called Q who likes to annoy Captain Picard. And there's that popular meme of Captain Picard facepalming.

[@wildanfatihg]

In Indonesian, Q is only used in Arabic loanwords, words from English or Dutch that have Q are respelled to K.

[@pedromenchik1961]

"Q" is also followed by "u" in Portuguese. Even words like "Qatar" will have preferred spellings like "Catar"

[@gabrielabatista6016]

Yup, Q on Portuguese basically only exists if it's followed by U

[@sohopedeco]

And "Iraque", and "burca".

[@josephang9927]

Same in Spanish

[@realhawaii5o]

I was indeed going to say this too.

[@i.e1273]

Isn't it funny how the word digraph has a digraph in it with "PH" making an "F" sound?

[@user-hm1zb8js5i]

Ph is used for Greek loan words in place of f. The original sound in Ancient Greek was pronounced like an aspirated p, but has become pronounced like an f in modern Greek. The Roman's borrowed the ph to represent the f sounds from Greek words, which was later adapted into English.

[@redapol5678]

@@user-hm1zb8js5i I would love to learn more about Greek ‘ph’ words borrowed into Latin as all modern Italian examples I can think of use an ‘f’ as in ‘telefono’ for ‘telephone’ (and obviously they didn’t have telephones back in Ancient Rome!)

[@user-hm1zb8js5i]

@@redapol5678 The word telephone is made up of two parts: tele and phone. Both of these roots come from Greek. Tele means from afar in Greek and phone means sound in Greek. So telephone would literally mean a far away sound, which is essentially what a telephone is used for. The word was invented much later in the 1800s when the phone was invented, but the root phone still existed in Latin before then. Italian is a very phonetic language, which means they like to spell words exactly as how they are pronounced without any extra and unnecessary rules. Because of this, Italian will often replace ph loam words from Greek with f to be more phonetically consistent.

[@redapol5678]

@@user-hm1zb8js5i yes I know all that. What I was interested in was the “ph” words imported from Greek to Latin

[@jasonalexanderlukas10]

@@user-hm1zb8js5i According to Wikipedia, Phi is seemingly also a descendant of Qoppa, which makes it a relative of Q en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q "In Greek, qoppa (Ϙ) probably came to represent several labialized velar stops, among them /kʷ/ and /kʷʰ/. As a result of later sound shifts, these sounds in Greek changed to /p/ and /pʰ/ respectively. Therefore, qoppa was transformed into two letters: qoppa, which stood for the number 90, and phi (Φ), which stood for the aspirated sound /pʰ/ that came to be pronounced /f/ in Modern Greek."

[@SWLinPHX]

The relationship between those two letters really survived centuries and it’s rather touching. You don’t see that kind of loyalty nowadays.

[@FenrizNNN]

The "QU" relationship QUite is uniQUe

[@brokkrep]

Theeoreteekallee iu kud right Eengleesh kommpleetlee deeferentlee and steell qed da point.

[@FenrizNNN]

@@brokkrep I qess yeeu ave e poeint

[@knower1514]

@@brokkrep ei þaute þaet ju wurr speikeng gurmuen forr ur sehkunt

[@brokkrep]

@@knower1514 Witzig ist, dass obwohl Deutsch und Englisch sich in vielen Dingen ähneln, es im Deutschen Laute gibt, die wofür es im Englischen keine Buchstaben gibt und andersrum. Sprich: Man kann gar nicht mit der jeweiligen Schreibweise, in der anderen Sprache schreiben. Wanted to write that in German. I meant to say, that even though English and German are pretty similar, you are not able to write ones language with the others letters. For instance "th", "r" in english and "ch", "ü" in German are sounds that are exclusive and have to be practised to pronounce. Both languages are pretty inconsistent in pronounciation, English much more. But both languages are not quite well pronounced if not some exceptions are learned.

[@knower1514]

@@brokkrep English and Dutch evolved from west Germanic right,

[@gymnastalexliang]

I'd like to point out that in the Welsh language, they still use CW to represent the QU sound, the best example is the word cwestiwn (literally: question and pronounced much like question in English). Welsh doesn't use the Q and it doesn't even bother with the K, instead it uses the C so even loanwords like 'joke' are spelled as jôc even if the pronunciation is exactly the same as in English. So the French and Latin influence did clearly make its impact in English but not Welsh. NB. I am a proud speaker of Welsh.

[@flamencoprof]

A quick comment: It's quite quirky how Q is quantified as infrequent without U; queries quickly find lone Qs aren't unique, just the subject of FAQ.

[@MrMigueldelaO]

Touche - sorry - can't accent.

[@flamencoprof]

@@MrMigueldelaO Have an é or thréé on me for free.

[@MrMigueldelaO]

@@flamencoprof Thanks!!!

[@Politography]

Amazing alliteration!

[@gyorokpeter]

In Hungary, Q is not even part of the "standard" alphabet. Loanwords containing "qu" replace it with "kv" (or just "k" for the Arabic "q" and "cs" for the Chinese "q"). However Q is in the "extended" alphabet just because foreign names containing Q should not be respelled and they need a defined place when sorting them.

[@Vivi-yw1eu]

it's just about the same in Polish, just with different but equivalent spelling :D

[@TheAlps36]

And yet Hungarian has over 40 letters in its alphabet no? Including four Os

[@elderscrollsswimmer4833]

Unsurprisingly, same goes for Finnish. In the middle of the word at least. If we don't just replace it with K.

[@Mohammed7411h]

You cant replace qaaf (q) with kaaf (k) in arabic

[@rft9776]

Make a video on why Chinese transliterations use Q to mean "Ch". Like in the word Qing dynasty.

[@peneficial1643]

there’s also ch for 车(Che) for example

[@johnwalters1806]

That's a fairly modern change as, when I was growing up, it used to be spelled "Ching Dynasty" and "Chi" rather than "Qi".

[@randyyy2609]

In Chinese, Q and ch are slightly different sounds. But to speakers of "Western" languages, they sound (almost) the same.

[@weirdlanguageguy]

@@peneficial1643 the q is [t͡ɕʰ] and the ch is [t͡ʂʰ].

[@weirdlanguageguy]

@@johnwalters1806 that's because the main system used to be wade-giles, but now most people use pinyin

[@user-qm4mb7ct3d]

Q is used to represent hard uvular "k" in Turkic languages for example in Kazakh latin alphabet Kazakhstan is written like Qazaqstan. Also this letter is often used in Azerbaijani and Uzbek languages

[@weirdlanguageguy]

It's also used as a uvular k in Arabic

[@k.k.9378]

wouldn't a glottal [k] just be [ʔ]?

[@weirdlanguageguy]

@@k.k.9378 they mean a uvular k, [q]

[@qaaqqutsiaqtaatsiaq8796]

Really? That’s super interesting. In my language (Greenlandic) we do that as well :)

[@anonymysable]

"Why is Q always followed by U" All tomorrows readers : OnO

[@risyanthbalaji805]

Lol

[@screwyourhandle]

I just discovered that yesterday, and then the algorithm suggested this video

[@qwerty_314]

Baader-Meinhof phenomenon

[@AllanLimosin]

QuQ

[@Emily-the_funny_guys]

Patrick are you saying U is permiscuis and happily hooks up with nearly all other letters while Q stays home waiting on U to return? Good old faithful Q staying true to U

[@Austin_Schulz]

It's not that some people *believe* Caesar is pronounced, "Kaisar," that's just factually how it was pronounced.

[@sogghartha]

and how it was borrowed into some other languages, like keizer in Dutch, Kaiser in German..

[@sethlangston181]

It's funny how the non-Italic languages have a more historically accurate pronunciation than the Italic ones.

[@FarfettilLejl]

@@sethlangston181 that's because of a little phenomenon called language change

[@omargerardolopez3294]

@@sethlangston181 It's because: Germanic one: Well, this word isn't mine, so I must pronounce it as the owner did. Romance one: Well, this word is mine, so however I pronounce it it's still the correct pronunciation.

[@jojones4685]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/f5vGiWaDi7iXr6M

[@vboyz21]

In Catalan there's is a lot of "qu" such as; quarentena (quarantine), pàrquing (parking), quan (when), quin (how) ect.

[@vyktorino]

Felicidades

[@carlosandleon]

You mean Spanish

[@sohopedeco]

In catalan, does "qua" make "ka" like in French or "kwa" like in Portuguese?

[@carlosandleon]

@ilikeminecraft6753 technically is lmao

[@danielnewell843]

@@carlosandleon no. Catalan and Spanish are different languages

[@deldarel]

Frisian no longer uses the Q for this reason, nor does it use the X (which is ks here). Aquaduct in Frisian is an Akwadukt

[@no_bitches420]

Same in Polish! Aquaduct in Polish is Akwedukt

[@snuscaboose1942]

The Frisian and Polish versions look harsh to say, as in saying them could dislodge phlegm.

[@oz_jones]

@@snuscaboose1942 Only the spelling changed.

[@ThW5]

On the other hand, in Frisian we find that the C is always followed by an H.

[@finneganmanthe8984]

“Having two letters make the same sound isn’t very useful” Omega/Omicron: Sweating nervously

[@sapphoenixthefirebird5063]

Eta/iota/upsilon: sweats even more profusely C/K/Q: sweats even more profusely

[@mattt.4395]

O-mega: big O O-micron: small O

[@jojo-yz8qf]

There are certain Swedish last names that are spelled with a "qv" such as "Nyqvist" and "Blomqvist", but almost all of these "qvist" names have an alternative spelling as "kvist".

[@TheFlyfly]

oh yeah! thats so weird haha

[@kerianhalcon3557]

Husqvarna sorta as well.

[@Redhotsmasher]

I think there are alternate spellings as "quist" too.

[@voxveritas333]

in America, Swedish names are spelled Nyquist, Bloomquist, etc., at least where I grew up.

[@stephenreardon2698]

9:17: "French almost exclusively uses a q when followed by a u." Cinq - am I not a number to you

[@aidenbooksmith2351]

"almost"

[@TommyCrosby]

Cinq coqs

[@AllanLimosin]

@@TommyCrosby Don't translate that, if you know what I mean.

[@TommyCrosby]

@@AllanLimosin Five roosters

[@Hendricus56]

3:03 or QWERTZ when you use a German keyboard (yes, z and y are switched there)

[@allangibson2408]

And the top row of a French keyboard is AZERTY…

[@kitfifty]

headcannon: q and k are siblings, q and u are bffs

[@beatrix1120]

Qute

[@olbiomoiros]

In the early form of my language we used to have an ancestor of Q, the Ϙ (koppa), but we got rid of it early on and we only have Κ to represent it.

[@Ggdivhjkjl]

Good move mate!

[@myscreen2urs]

I see that koppa ended up in the crapper 🙃

[@Vengir]

Is that language you are talking about Greek? Because that was mentioned in the video.

[@jasmithwrites]

Here's a question, why do some words use both C and K next to each other to make one sound? Eg. Bucket?

[@voxveritas333]

it's boo-kay lol.

[@user-mg1pj2vt9l]

@@voxveritas333 xD I got that reference

[@modmaker7617]

Probably for decoration.

[@immortalkombatant]

Qat, a word all Scrabble players should know.

[@klausjackklaus]

Yes that's borrowed from Semitic languages

[@gertvanderstraaten6352]

Arabic words don't have a u following the q because it's not really a q but a qaf ق.

[@pauldefillippo8490]

Yep, my favorite q word

[@sfaune92]

In Latin, C (derived from Greek gamma) was always pronounced with a /k/ sound. The softening of C before some vowels in romance languages happened after Caesar and Cicero's time.

[@pseudomino3]

It happened after Cicero’s time, sure. But it was not always pronounced as /k/ in latin. Even when the Roman Empire still existed, latin in the Italic Peninsula already had the soft C typical of today’s Italian. Even after the fall of Rome, latin was still a living language for centuries in Europe.

[@Oturan20]

@@pseudomino3 It also made the "Guh" sound at times, which is where G comes from. The name Gaius was spelt more like CAIVS, the letters U and V hadn't been split yet.

[@nuzayerov]

What about Qwerty? Oh wait, w is actually just Double U (uu).

[@kaengurus.sind.genossen]

Qwertzuiopü

[@user-fi6oo3if8m]

that's kinda sus

[@kamilradzikowski1663]

@@kaengurus.sind.genossen okay and

[@kaengurus.sind.genossen]

@@kamilradzikowski1663 The only good keyboard layout! For writing German

[@5TC]

@@kaengurus.sind.genossen wow I can't translate it's English and another language

[@Pyovali]

Q is never used in my language. Only in loanwords. We don't use c, g, b, q, w, x, z or f at all.

[@user-fi6oo3if8m]

what is your language?

[@Pyovali]

@@user-fi6oo3if8m Finnish

[@Pyovali]

@@sqrt2295 yeah, it's a rarity though. It doesn't appear as a singular sound except in loanwords.

[@Ggdivhjkjl]

The Anglo-Saxons wrote in runes. The rune queorth was invented by scribes rather late simply to have an equivalent to Q even though it wasn't needed.

[@lewisconroy6225]

Maybe it's because I'm using older headphones, but you sound like you've got a bit of a sore throat in this one. Is everything okay?

[@Tzar1]

It does sound like that without head phones too

[@kohakuaiko]

@@Tzar1 agreed.

[@hrayz]

Frough "fick and fin" he makes fideos for uzz.

[@MrMigueldelaO]

actually, I thought - maybe I should buy headphones with a volume adjuster AFTER I maxed out both settings on my laptop.

[@greywolf7577]

Even if he does have a sore throat, it's nothing to be worried about.

[@ikitclaw7146]

Ive never had this explained in such a way that i understood it in this much depth. thank you!

[@maybeanonymous6846]

Thanks! Your video answered my question quite quickly. Your content is very unique.

[@candicoated2001]

Q and U are my OTP, Q obviously tops. I'll see myself out.

[@ravinerenegade]

the profile picture makes it worse or better, idk

[@candicoated2001]

@@ravinerenegade Thank you this pfp is very aesthetic I guess lmao.

[@seamussc]

I remember that when learning Spanish in school, the teacher had an explanation for "qu," which like English also must be together, that it's a deliberate attempt to show the connection to Latin and other Romance languages. Spanish takes it a step further in that "qu" can only have an i or e after it, so it must be que or qui, never quo or qua. When new to Spanish, getting the hang of ci/qui and ce/que is one of the tricky parts of an otherwise simple alphabet (gi/gui/güi and ge/gue/güe being the other), since K is really only commonly used for the prefix kilo.

[@galileor.cuevas9739]

Well, "k" is used mostly in Greek loanwords in Spanish. I can't name many right now, but I'm sure there are cases. Maybe also some Kiswahili or Arabic words, but that is less frequent.

[@JaredtheRabbit]

The “ueue” in queue is quite useless.

[@rukathehamsteratwork8896]

😆

[@FenrizNNN]

Q -u- e u -e-

[@daydreamer226]

true, but quaint

[@abmoha]

In my language, x̄á’islak̓ala, q and u together sound like the "co" in "coat". The q causes the u to become retracted, a regular u sounds like the "oo" in boot. We have an ejective q that also causes a letter u following it to become retracted.

[@benavraham4397]

Is your language Caucasian?

[@abmoha]

@@benavraham4397 No, it’s a northwest coast indigenous dialect in British Columbia.

[@benavraham4397]

@@abmoha Keep it going🤩. Totally cool.

[@M77Vidal]

I like the French word "piqûre" (puncture, sting) where the ^ on the u indicates that it is pronounced separately.

[@klausjackklaus]

Q is a K with glottal stop in Semitic languages and C-H in Chinese languages. I am not a linguist but I speculate something to do with Romans distinguishing C and G as they were written the same, as both these letters when combined with S turned into X. Look at all the irregular 3rd conjugation verbs in their perfect tense (e.g. lego, legere, lexi, lectus- gs becomes x and dico, dicere, dixi, dictus- cs becomes x). And you can even see that in Hangul with g/k pronounced as a middle ground between the two.

[@matthewpopow6647]

Thanks for answering a question that I never knew I wanted to know.

[@davidpaterson2309]

In old Scots, QU was often used as an alternative to WH - so quat = what, quilk = which. It was only the standardisation of spelling on the English model that changed that. Most Scots people still pronounce WH with an aspiration on the W sound which differentiates it from W (and find it rather odd that the English pronounce W and WH as if they were the same).

[@nobodyeverinhistory]

All Tomorrow Fans: "Because it's foreshadowing."

[@mrcomino2915]

finally, the only important comment

[@DanielM2001]

What a great QUestion!

[@kokojo4872]

Quite a unique quarter Quentin, quickly quash quality qualified questions

[@destindarksoul]

I wish digraphs would di out (lol) so we could get cool letters like thorn again

[@HalfEye79]

A whats with thy german trigraph? In Germany we don't use "SH", but "SCH".

[@weirdlanguageguy]

@@HalfEye79 it represents how the sch came from an original sc. Like ship, Schiff, skip, or fresh, frisch, frisk

[@dixgun]

That was brilliant 🙏

[@marjinboes]

This was very helpful.

[@user-fi6oo3if8m]

the words Iraq, Qatar, Burqa and Souq are Arabic words and they written with Q because they pronounced in Arabic with the phoneme /q/ not /k/, its a different sound but it sounds alike for english speakers (and anyone who doesn't have them both in his language).

[@adrianblake8876]

Except when it isn't. I've heard Yemenites pronounce it as /g/, and Egyptians as the glottal stop... Adding: you wrote it accidently as a "g" as well... is your accent slipping!?

[@user-fi6oo3if8m]

@@adrianblake8876 I'm yemenite, and you actually right, gulf, iraqi and some of yemen dialects pronounce /q/ as /g/. And since i was born and grew up in Saudi Arabia, i pronounce most words with /g/ and some with /q/, some words sounds weird if i pronounce it with /g/. And yeah thx for telling me the worng words, its my accent slipping, i've correct it 😂, i actually pronounce them all with /g/ except for iraq, most of the time i will pronounce it with /q/.

[@adrianblake8876]

@@user-fi6oo3if8m I didn't correct you, though, to me it was a charming little quirk... (edited for spelling)

[@Vercixx]

In Romanian the letter q is used for recently borrowed words like quinoa, quechua, quark etc. Words inherited from Latin or earlier borrowings from French or Italian are written with c. Usually qu was turned into cv (read kv), but sometimes que and qui turned into ce and ci (read che and chi) or che or chi (read ke and ki)

[@jejtherusheddoodle23]

In Vietnamese, Q and U bunch up the same as English (Ex: quả quít (tangerine in English)), but the sound they make is slightly different. QU roughly makes the sound of an English “gw” or in some accents, a W sound, which we have no W. QU can also come before most vowels, but not vowels U and Ư, due to them looking like quu and quư.

[@stuartnochance]

Please talk about the common English spoken change (heard in your narration) where TH changes from theta/eth to f/v.

[@Beofware]

If anyone ever asks you why English is so strange, just answer "The French".

[@jestallionn.5984]

To mix up the dynamic UQ would have a case for replacing OOK, to shorten a word, if for anything at all.

[@FewVidsJustComments]

Alphabet nitpickers: “c and k make the same sound” Q, which can also make that sound: “am a I a joke to U” U "no”

[@robo1540]

the all tomorrows horde has been alerted

[@hypnoskales7069]

In Polish q isn't used and when words containing it are borrowed, it's changed to "kw" (pronounced as kv or kf), such as: quartz - kwarc (pr. kfarts)

[@paweguzik9929]

In Polish we dont have q or v nor x but we have all those sounds in case of q by spelling it as ku (aslo v is w and w is ł so as you can see very easy language (how do i spell langlague))

[@Omar-cw5gg]

In Spanish, the Q is (mostly) always followed by a U as well. The purpose it serves is to make the “K” sound. “Que” is pronounced “Keh,” and if it were written “ce,” it would be pronounced “seh.”

[@chimpazoo1143]

Same in portuguese, but we also have the KW sound with Q Frequente (frequent), tranquilo (chill, as in the state of being), quatro (four), quantidade (quantity, qualidade (quality)

[@weirdlanguageguy]

@@chimpazoo1143 so does spanish. Cuatro [ˈkwa.t̪ɾo].

[@chimpazoo1143]

@@weirdlanguageguy but that's not Q Btw nice username you got there

[@weirdlanguageguy]

@@chimpazoo1143 sorry for that misunderstanding. And thank you

[@lindah3879]

I have a friend named Qiana. I found a shirt from the thrift store tagged Qiana JC Penney. Now I'm not sure if it was because of the fabric or the brand name. Regardless I bought it for her. I'll have to ask if she still has it... 10 years later lol

[@Vercixx]

The Latins used q to distinguish the pronunciation of c and u in words like qui (read kwi) and cui (read cooi).

[@randyyy2609]

As someone who likes to play Scrabble, I still hate it when I get a Q but don't have a U to play them together. In my native language, Dutch, we almost always use Q together with a U, just like in English. Those words are usually borrowed from English or Romance languages. There are however a couple of words with a Q, not followed by a U. These are mostly words from Arabic or Chinese origin. Examples are "qat" (a plant that can be used as a drug) and "qi" (the life energy in Chinese culture).

[@debbieanne7962]

Yes, I always assumed qu was introduced into English by the French. Our national airline here in Australia is QANTAS. standing fir Queensland and Northern Territory Air Service

[@kamrongrant]

Another exception (although it is a name and the long version uses QU) might be QANTAS - the Australian Airline. However in full it stands for Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services. Thought I would still add it though :)

[@kennyfordham6208]

What about the double 'o' sound? The sound of 'foot' and 'book' differ drastically different from 'food' and 'mood'. How did this come about? 🤔

[@4orinrin]

jan Misali made a video about the letter c which ties with q and k, and that also has a good explanation of the existence of all 3 letters

[@benavraham4397]

Awesome!!!

[@emilandreasson9670]

I allready know but I gonna watch the video anyway

[@rachelle2227]

X is an even more absurd letter! When a word rarely starts with X, it is pronounced as a Z, as in xylophone, or like a 'ks' kind of sound when it is at the end of the word, as in fox.

[@Nn-3]

Not to mention eggzam, luckshury, and luggzhury.

[@grantorino2325]

Even weirder: None of the more than 7000 living languages known to man-when written in the Latin alphabet-has *even one single word* spelled with a "xx." (Trademarks such as *Lexxi* and *Exxon* don't count.)

[@blackhaulmike]

In Czech Q can be in most cases replaced with KV or K. It appears mostly in borrowed words and usually both versions are accepted. Like quasi -> kvazi, quiche -> kyš, Iraq -> Irák

[@vtron9832]

Qatar: Am I a joke to you? 😭 Just kidding, splendorous video!

[@daydreamer226]

Italian often has a 'c' or 'q' proceeding the 'qu, as in cqu or qqu

[@jayde1708]

One of the Chinese ladies I used to work with (in Australia) told me one day she always wondered why her name was incorrectly spelt so often. People who knew her well got it right but others, not so much. Her name was Qiu, and I explained "Q" in the English language was "always" followed by a "U". I suggested she check any English dictionary . She hadn't realised that and was happy with the explanation.

[@Slaydrik]

I thought that Q came from G, for several reasons: 1. Both the capital and lowercase forms of both letters look very similar: G Q g q 2. the sound of a hard g is the voiced version of the sound of a q/k/hard c 3. many words have gu- similar to qu-. although most of these aren't pronounced "gw", but some of them are. ex: guitar, guide, guild, guard, Guatemala, segue, guerilla, language, etc. 4. similar to how -que is pronounced "k" there are plenty of words with -gue, pronounced "G". ex: morgue, colleague, intrigue, dialogue, catalogue, fatigue, vague, etc. 5. there are even words that differ by g/q! guilt/quilt, plague/plaque 6. Latin for water is aqua, obviously, but Spanish for water is agua. My thinking now is that the shape of the Gg was based on the shape of the Qq when it was split from Cc, and that some q's in Spanish were replaced with g (agua) while others with c (cuatro). I don't know about most of these though, where they come from. I will have to research this.

[@user-fi6oo3if8m]

what about p+h being pronounced as f?

[@kugul1683]

It's because of Greek orthography transcripted into Latin. The sound p shifted to f, so they added h to distinguish the sound.

[@EnigmaticLucas]

Phi was /pʰ/ in Ancient Greek. Latin speakers heard /pʰ/ as /ph/ so they wrote it down as . Later, phi became /f/, but the spelling stuck.

[@vikvostok8892]

Qu here in Brazil makes the Cw sound too. For example, the world painting: in portuguese, Quadro, is pronounced qwadro

[@PlumEXE]

Except for foreign words like Qatar, or brands like Qantas Edit: just started video lmao

[@Dawid23_Gamer]

Don't worry, these videos are well researched 😂

[@BangFarang1]

Quantas has no U but we it's pronounced... qwantas! Like if it had one. Weird.

[@tanrekki]

There is no Q in Polish. We just use K. However, there are foreign words like "quiz" for example, that we use in Polish.

[@diegoarmando5489]

Unfortunately, the Qu digraph gives us the Anglo-Abomination of pronunciation that is "Kwebec".

[@UsamaMnemonikk]

What about ICQ? =) By the way, in Ukraine, we had an alternative ICQ client - QIP. Some pronounced it like KIP (like the word "keep" with Aussie accent), others - like KVIP or KVEEP.

[@oz_jones]

ICQ is derived from the phrase I seek you, so it's not a word.

[@UsamaMnemonikk]

@@oz_jones Thank you, captain!

[@wendychavez5348]

In my world, I am the U and my partner is the Q. It's an open relationship, and I take full advantage of that. He theoretically could too, but has only chosen to do so rarely and under very special circumstances. Once I asked if his needs are being met, and he said, "If I get really needy I usually just take care of it myself." So I completely understand this little digraph, because it matches the one I'm a part of.

[@andrewmirror4611]

These videos are becoming less and less hearable, it's like twice as quiet as any other video on YT. In Chinese Q is a letter that stands for the ch/ts sound and is basically just another initial, the only limiting factor to which is that it's soft and thus can only connect with soft finals. Meaning qi, qie, qian, qu, but not qong, qa, or qe

[@Paranoid_Found]

Q is pronounced as “tɕʰ”, in Chinese Pinyin, which is entirely different from other languages. Sometimes people tries to explain it as pronounces like the English “ch” (ʈʂʰ) but that’s not true at all.

[@andrewmirror4611]

@@Paranoid_Found yeah, I know, it's like in the middle between ts and ch. It also depends heavily on the accent closer to which it is. At least it's more explainable than the Chinese X

[@weirdlanguageguy]

@@andrewmirror4611 the x can sort of be approximated in English by an h followed by a y sound, like in human or Hugh

[@andrewmirror4611]

@@weirdlanguageguy that couldn't have been more wrong. X in Chinese is a non plosive version of the Chinese Q. Standard English doesn't have a way to exactly represent it, it's like sh, but much closer to a soft voiceless S. Also heavily depends on the accent, some do say it like a pure sh.

[@weirdlanguageguy]

@@andrewmirror4611 yes, i know that. the x is a /ɕ/, a voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative. The h + y in "human" is (in many dialects) a /ç/, voiceless palatal fricative. Like I said previously, it's not identical, but it's a close approximation.

[@gubjorggisladottir3525]

One of those letters that is in the English ABC (26 letters) ... but not in the Icelandic (33 letters) alphabet one. The English letters that are not part of the Icelandic language are: C,Q and W ... also Z. The Icelandic letters are: Á,Ð, É, Í, Ó, Ú,Ý, Þ, Æ, and Ö of these letters are ðöÞóíó used in my full name; one upper case and the others lower case.

[@sogghartha]

interesting, so if a word has q and kw sound it's older and if it has qu but only a k sound, it's a recent import?

[@RafalRacegPolonusSum]

In my language (Polish) we do not use „q” at all officialy. It is always replaced by „k” in borrowings. However, since it is on the keyboard it is rarely used in internet language jokes, or to incorrectly spell indecent words to make them less serious like „ku*wa” --> „qurva”.

[@duodecasylabus2503]

In Spanish the hard K in front of I or E is "qu" as in quesadilla (the u is always silent), and in front of every other vowel it is C

[@Ggdivhjkjl]

As in "cuenta"?

[@adriansmith3139]

And Qantas now a word/noun originally Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial/Air Services (QANTAS).

[@coweatsman]

The airline Qantas which originally stood for Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service.

[@andreeac7875]

In Danish, you can see many similar words to those French and English that start with "qu". The difference is that in Danish you use the "kv". So "quality" in English is "kvalitet" in Danish.

[@nijinoshita3301]

I am not aware of any german words with only a Q, we even write Iraq as Irak and Qatar as Katar. but we do have a few words with the QU pair

[@catman64k]

thats something interesting, even for me as german in German there is also this QU relationship, however there is even a trend that most words that uses Qu will do it at the start. Also a lot of words that use it are important from latin or another romance language. Quelle, Quarz, quer, Aquarium, etc Digraph, here we also have a lot and very similar digraphs. however, there are even trigraphs (at least its not so bad as in french, with 4 or more letters for one sound). we have ch, but it makes a sound more like hissing (dont any english word that would use that the sch, which is basically your sh (dont be confused with this ch within) we also have st, which will change the s to a sch in some cases interestingly the important words from arabic are here also transfered into a k, like Katar, Irak, Koran, Burka oh qwerty also doesnt exist in german, here its qwertz (yes z and y are swichted at german keyboard layout) oh and with symbols it gets a mess if you try to compare it. i would need quite some time to adjust to an english keyboard.

[@danielimmortuos666]

In Portuguese Q is always followed by U, and can be pronounced as Kw or K, E.g.: "Cinquenta" /sinkwenta/, meaning fifty, and "Querer" /kere:/, meaning to want.

[@qaaqqutsiaqtaatsiaq8796]

My language also features the letter Q a lot. It is like a super hard k sound from the back of your mouth. It was actually established in the 1970s I think when there was a big spelling reform. Before that Q was K’ and q was к. I think that letter is not used in any other languages. About what letters can follow it, I think it can only be followed by vowels, which goes for most consonants, so that feature is not unique for q. :)

[@TheJH1015]

in Dutch, words with a 'qu'-combination are mostly French or English, but even then we mostly try to change it into a 'kw'-combination. For example: 'Qualifying' becomes 'Kwalificeren,' and 'quantum mechanics' becomes 'kwantummechanica'

[@norwaytoday]

In Slovak q would be used only in loan words such as status quo, Tequila or quinoa, but most words that were naturalised would use kv- instead, such as quiz = kvíz or aquapark = akvapark...

[@NBK1122]

There are barbecue places that spell the word as Bar-B-Q in their name. Also, the name of Australian airline Qantas starts with a KW sound.

[@iallso1]

I'm British and therefore a native English speaker but I am attempting to learn Te Reo the language of Māori. Interstingly there is no Q sound in the language but there are other letter combinations that produce unexpected sounds, Ng where the G is silent but there is a slight difference to gust an N without the G, and Wh which produces a Fuu sound. The vowels are pronounced differently and are lengthened when a macron is placed above.

[@winkleperiwinkle808]

in italian we have the same rule,Q is always followed by U (unless it's a foreign word like burqa or iraq). one fun fact we learn in elementary school is that the only word that has a double Q in it is "soqquadro" (disarray , very unusual word).