Hebrew final kaf

It is kaf’s word-ending form. Hebrew writes כ within a word and ך at its end; sofit means “final.”

The familiar square Hebrew script evolved from Aramaic writing. An early Jewish example dates to about 230 BCE. Jewish, Nabatean, Palmyrene and Syriac scripts developed within this related branch.

Some Qumran scrolls—ancient manuscripts from the Judean Desert—contain final kaf; others use only final mem and nun. The surveyed manuscripts span the mid-3rd century BCE to the third quarter of the 1st century CE, showing variation in the developing final-letter system.

Why does Hebrew have a final kaf?

It distinguishes kaf at a word’s end. Later rabbinic accounts say both forms were given at Sinai, the setting of divine revelation in Jewish tradition, and prophets restored their placement after it was forgotten. This is a religious account, distinct from manuscript history.

Later Jewish interpretations also assign ך a special numerical value in some forms of gematria, a practice that interprets words through letters’ number values.

An exception appears in Judeo-Turkish, Turkish written by Jewish communities in Hebrew letters. In 1889, the publication Üstad used final kaf at word beginnings and middles to distinguish two Arabic-derived sounds, written /h/ and /ḥ/.

How do I type ך?

With Unicode’s reference Hebrew layout active, press L. F produces כ; the two forms have separate keys.

Hebrew vowel and pronunciation marks attach to letters as combining characters. Their placement can vary with the font; a shifted mark does not change the underlying ך.

Pronunciation depends on tradition. Standard Israeli Hebrew merges the sounds of kaf and qof, and of het and khaf; some speakers from Arabic-speaking backgrounds retain these distinctions.