Ḫāʾ

Not to be confused with Khē.

Ḫāʾ, Khāʾ, or Xe (خ, transliterated as ḫ (DIN-31635), ḵ (Hans Wehr), kh (ALA-LC) or ẖ (ISO 233)) is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet (the others being ṯāʼ, ḏāl, ḍād, ẓāʼ, ġayn). It is based on the ḥāʾ  ح. It represents the sound [x] or [χ] in Modern Standard Arabic. The pronunciation of خ is very similar to German, Irish, and Polish unpalatalised "ch", Russian х (Cyrillic Kha), Greek χ and Peninsular Spanish and Southern Cone "j". In name and shape, it is a variant of ḥāʾ. South Semitic also kept the phoneme separate, and it appears as South Arabian , Ge'ez Ḫarm ኀ. Its numerical value is 600 (see Abjad numerals). In most European languages, it is mostly romanized as the digraph kh.

← Ṯāʾ Ḫāʾ Ḏāl →
Arabic	خ‎
Phonemic representation	x, χ
Position in alphabet	24
Numerical value	600
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician
Greek	Χ
Latin	X
Cyrillic	Х

Ḫāʾ خاء
خ
Usage
Writing system	Arabic script
Type	Abjad
Language of origin	Arabic language
Sound values	x, χ
Alphabetical position	7
History
Development	𐤇 𐡇‎ 𐢊 ح خ
Other
Writing direction	Right-to-left

When representing this sound in transliteration of Arabic into Hebrew, it is written as ח׳.

The most common transliteration in English is "kh", e.g. Khartoum (الخرطوم al-Kharṭūm), Sheikh (شيخ), Kazakhstan (كازاخستان), Maha Sarakham (ماها ساراخام).

Ḫāʾ is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:

Position in word	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	خ‎	ـخ‎	ـخـ‎	خـ‎

In the Quran

The letter ḫāʾ is mentioned 2,497 times in the Quran, with 31 āyahs starting with the letter ḫāʾ, but never ends with the letter ḫāʾ.

Character encodings

Character information

Preview	خ		ﺥ		ﺦ		ﺧ		ﺨ
Unicode name	ARABIC LETTER KHAH		ARABIC LETTER KHAH ISOLATED FORM		ARABIC LETTER KHAH FINAL FORM		ARABIC LETTER KHAH INITIAL FORM		ARABIC LETTER KHAH MEDIAL FORM
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	1582	U+062E	65189	U+FEA5	65190	U+FEA6	65191	U+FEA7	65192	U+FEA8
UTF-8	216 174	D8 AE	239 186 165	EF BA A5	239 186 166	EF BA A6	239 186 167	EF BA A7	239 186 168	EF BA A8
Numeric character reference	خ	خ	ﺥ	ﺥ	ﺦ	ﺦ	ﺧ	ﺧ	ﺨ	ﺨ

See also

• Arabic phonology
• Х, х: Kha (Cyrillic)
• X
• Chi