X


X, or x, is the twenty-fourth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ex, plural exes.

History

The letter, representing, was inherited from the Etruscan alphabet. It perhaps originated in the of the Euboean alphabet or another Western Greek alphabet, which also represented. Its relationship with the of the Eastern Greek alphabets, which represented, is uncertain.
The pronunciation of in the Romance languages underwent sound changes, with various outcomes:
In Old Spanish, came to represent, which it still represents in most Iberian languages and in the orthographies of other languages influenced by Spanish, such as Nahuatl. In French, Italian, Romanian, and modern Spanish, was replaced by other letters.
The use of to represent was reintroduced to the Romance languages via Latin loanwords. In many words, the was voiced as.

Use in writing systems

English

In English orthography, is typically pronounced as the voiceless consonant cluster when it follows the stressed vowel, and the voiced consonant when it precedes the stressed vowel. It is also pronounced when it precedes a silent and a stressed vowel. Due to yod-coalescence, the sequence before a vowel can be pronounced resulting from earlier, e.g. in -xion, -xious. Similarly, the sequence can be pronounced with or . Due to NG-coalescence, the sequence can be pronounced in anxiety.
When ends a word, it is always, except in loan words such as faux. When does start a word, it is usually pronounced 'z'. When starting in some names or as its own representation, it is pronounced 'eks', in rare recent loanwords or foreign proper names, it can also be pronounced or . Many of the words that start with are of Greek origin, standardized trademarks, or acronyms.
In abbreviations, it can represent "trans-", "cross-", "Christ-", the "crys-" in crystal, "by", or various words starting with "ex-".
X is the third least frequently used letter in English, with a frequency of about 0.15% in words. There are very few English words that start with .

Romance languages

In Latin, stood for. In the Romance languages, as a result of assorted phonetic changes, has other pronunciations:
  • In Catalan, has three pronunciations; the most common is ; as in xarop. Others are: ; fixar, ; examen. In addition, gets voiced to before voiced consonants; caixmir. Catalan also has the digraph, pronounced.
  • In Galician and Leonese, is pronounced in most cases. The pronunciation occurs in learned words, such as 'taxativo'. However, Galician speakers tend to pronounce it, especially when it appears before plosives, such as in externo .
  • In French, usually represents or . It is pronounced in some city names such as Bruxelles or Auxerre; it is nevertheless pronounced in Aix, the name of several towns. At the ends of other words, it is silent. Two exceptions are pronounced : six and dix. It is pronounced in sixième and dixième.
  • In Italian, is either pronounced, as in extra, uxorio, xilofono, or, as in exogamia, when it is preceded by and followed by a vowel. In several related languages, notably Venetian, it represents the voiced sibilant. It is also used, mainly amongst young people, as a short written form for "per" ; for example, "x sempre". This is because in Italian, the multiplication sign is called "per". However, is found only in loanwords, as it is not part of the standard Italian alphabet; in most words with, this letter may be replaced with 's' or 'ss' or, rarely, by 'cs'.
  • In Portuguese, has four main pronunciations; the most common is, as in xícara. The other sounds are: as in flexão ;, when preceded by E and followed by a consonant, as in contexto, and in a small number of other words, such as próximo ; and, which occurs in the prefix "ex-" before a vowel, as in exagerado. A rare fifth sound is, coexisting with and as acceptable pronunciations in exantema and in words with the Greek prefix 'hexa-'.
  • In Sardinian and Ligurian, represents.
  • In Old Spanish, was pronounced, as it is still currently in other Iberian Romance languages. Later, the sound evolved to a sound. In modern Spanish, due to a spelling reform, whenever is used for the sound it has been replaced with, including in words that originally had such as ejemplo or ejercicio, though is still retained for some names. Presently, represents the sound, or the consonant cluster . Rarely, it can be pronounced as in Old Spanish in some proper nouns such as Raxel and Uxmal.
  • In Venetian, represents the voiced alveolar sibilant, much like in Portuguese 'exagerado', English 'xylophone' or in the French 'sixième'. Examples from medieval texts include raxon, prexon, dexerto, and chaxa or caxa. Nowadays, the best-known word is xe. The most notable exception to this rule is the name Venexia,, in which has evolved from the initial voiced sibilant to the present-day voiceless sibilant.

Other languages

In languages which adopted the Latin alphabet later, is used for various sounds, in some cases inspired by Latin or its descendants, but in others for unrelated consonants. Since the various Romance pronunciations of can often be written in other ways, the letter becomes available for other sounds.
An illustrative example of as a "leftover" letter is the differing usage in three different Cushitic languages:

Other systems

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, represents a voiceless velar fricative.

Other uses

Related characters

Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

  • Χ χ : Greek letter Chi, from which the following derive:
  • *Ꭓ ꭓ : Latin chi
  • *Х х : Cyrillic letter Kha
  • * : Coptic letter Khe, which derives from Greek Chi
  • * : Gothic letter enguz, which derives from Greek Chi
  • * ? : Old Italic X, which derives from Greek Chi, and is the ancestor of modern Latin X
  • ** : Runic letter Gyfu, which may derive from old Italic X
  • Ξ ξ : Greek letter Xi, which was used in place of Chi in the Eastern Greek alphabets

Other representations

Computing

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