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X is the twenty-fourth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English ( ) is spelled ex, plural exes ( ).

History

The consonant cluster was, in Ancient Greek, written as either Chi Χ (Western Greek) or Xi Ξ (Eastern Greek). In the end, Chi was standardized as ( in Modern Greek), while Xi was standardized for . But the Etruscansmarker had taken over Χ from older Western Greek; therefore, it stood for in Etruscan and Latin.

It is unknown whether the letters Chi and Xi are Greek inventions, or whether they are ultimately of Semitic origin. Chi was placed toward the end of the Greek alphabet, after the Semitic letters, along with Phi, Psi, and Omega, suggesting that it was an innovation; further, there is no letter corresponding specifically to the sound /ks/ in Semitic. There was a Phoenician letter ḥeth with a probable sound , somewhat similar to , but this was adopted into Greek as first the consonant /h/, and later, the long vowel Eta (Η,η), and does not seem to have been the source of Greek Chi. The Phoenician letter Samekh (representing /s/) is usually considered the inspiration for Greek Xi, but as noted, Chi had a graphically distinct shape from Xi—although it may possibly have been another variant originally based on samekh. The original form of samekh may have been an Egyptian hieroglyph for the Djed column, but this too is uncertain, as no intervening Proto-Sinaitic form of this letter is attested.

Egyptian hieroglyph "column" Phoenician S Greek Xi Greek Chi Etruscan X
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Usage

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

In some languages, as a result of assorted phonetic changes, handwriting adaptations or simply spelling convention, X has other pronunciations:
  • Basque or Leonese: as a spelling for .
  • Dutch: The island of Texel is pronounced as Tessel. This is because ss used to be written with a ligature closely resembling X. In all other words X represents .
  • English: X is typically a sign for the compound consonants ; or sometimes when followed by an accented syllable beginning with a vowel, or when followed by silent h and an accented vowel (e.g. exhaust, exam); usually at the beginnings of words (e.g. xylophone, Xenon), and in some compounds keeps the sound, as in (e.g. meta-xylene). It also makes the sound in words ending in -xion (typically used only in British-based spellings of the language; American spellings tend to use -ction). It can also represent the sounds or , for example, in the words luxury and sexual, respectively. Final x is always (e.g. ax/axe) except in loan words such as faux (see French, below). In abbreviations, it can represent "trans-" (e.g. XMIT for transmit, XFER for transfer), "cross-" (e.g. X-ing for crossing; XREF for cross-reference), "Christ" (e.g. Xmas for Christmas; Xian for Christian), the "Crys" in Crystal (XTAL), or various words starting with "ex" (e.g. XL for extra large; XOR for exclusive-or). There are very few English words that start with X - the least amount of any letter. Many of the words that do start with X are either standardized trademarks (XEROX) or acronyms (XC).
  • French: at the ends of words, silent (or in liaison if the next word starts with a vowel). This usage arose as a handwriting alteration of final -us. Two exceptions are pronounced [s]: six and dix.
  • In Italian, X is always pronounced , as in the words uxorio, extra, xilofono. It is also used, mainly amongst younger generations as a short form for "per" meaning "for", for example, x sempre (forever). This because in Italian the multiplication sign (similar to x) is called "per".
  • In Norwegian, X is generally pronounced , but since the nineteenth century there has been a tendency to spell it out as ks whenever possible; it may still be retained in names of people, though it is fairly rare, and occurs mostly in foreign words and SMS language. Usage in German and Finnish is similar.
  • Spanish: In Old Spanish, X was pronounced , as it is still currently in other Iberian Romance languages. Later, the sound evolved to a hard sound. In modern Spanish, the hard sound is spelled with a j, or with a g before e and i, though x is still retained for some names (notably México, which alternates with Méjico). Now, X represents the sound (word-initially), or the consonant cluster (e.g. oxígeno, examen). Even rarer, the x can be pronounced like in Old Spanish in some proper nouns such as Raxel (a variant of Rachel) and Xelajú.
  • Galician, Catalan and Leonese language: In Galician (a language related to Portuguese and spoken in Northwestern Spain), and Leonese, in Spain, x is pronounced in most cases. In learned words, such as 'taxativo' (taxative), the x is pronounced . However, Galician speakers tend to pronounce it as , especially when it appears in implosive position, such as in 'externo' (extern).
  • In Portuguese, x can have four sounds: the most common is , as in 'xícara' (cup). The other sounds are: as in 'fênix/fénix' (phoenix) and , as in 'próximo' (close/next). The most rare is , as in 'exagerado' (exaggerate).
  • Venetian:it represented the voiced alveolar fricative much like in Portuguese 'exagerado', English 'xylophone' or in the French liaison. Examples from medieval texts include 'raxon' (reason), 'prexon' (prison), 'dexerto' (desert), 'chaxa/caxa' (home, It. "casa"). Nowadays, the most known word is 'xe' (is/are).
  • In Albanian, x represents , while the digraph xh represents .
  • In Maltese x is pronounced or, in some cases, (only in loanwords such as 'televixin', and not for all speakers)


Additionally, in languages for which the Latin alphabet has been adapted only recently, x has been used for various sounds, in some cases inspired by European usage, but in others, for consonants uncommon in Europe. For these no Latin letter stands out as an obvious choice, and since most of the various European pronunciations of x can be written by other means, the letter becomes available for more unusual sounds.

No words in the Basic English vocabulary begin with X, but it occurs in words beginning with other letters. It is often found in a word with an E before it. X is the third most rarely used letter in the English language.

Codes for computing

In Unicode the capital X is codepoint U+0058 and the lower case x is U+0078.

The ASCII code for capital X is 88 and for lowercase x is 120; or in binary 01011000 and 01111000, correspondingly.

The EBCDIC code for capital X is 231 and for lowercase x is 167.

The numeric character references in HTML and XML are "X" and "x" for upper and lower case respectively.

See also





References

  1. "X" Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "ex," op. cit.



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