כ, the Hebrew cursive letter kaf

History

כ is the 11th letter of the Hebrew alphabet and has a numerical value of 20. In traditional and modern Hebrew and Yiddish, it represents the voiceless velar plosive /k/ with dagesh, or voiceless uvular fricative /χ/ without dagesh; it takes the elongated final form ך at the end of words.

Cursive kaf is written as a smooth crescent or curved bowl opening toward the left. When in final position (kaf sofit, ך), the stroke drops into a long straight descender well below the baseline.

In historical correspondence and ledgers, distinguishing standard cursive kaf from bet and final kaf from vav or nun requires paying close attention to baseline position and descender length.

Kaf is a begadkefat letter: a dot inside it, the dagesh qal, calls for the plosive, and its absence for the fricative.^[1] The final form stands for 500, but this is rarely used; taw and qof, 400 + 100, are written instead.^[2] As a prefix kaf means like or as,^[3] and in colloquial Hebrew kaf and shin together mean when, a contraction of ka'asher.^[4]