K

K is the eleventh letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled kay (pronounced /keɪ/).

The letter K comes from the Greek Κ (kappa), which was taken from the Semitic kap, the symbol for an open hand. This in turn was likely adapted by Semites who had lived in Egypt from the hieroglyph for "hand" representing D in the Egyptian word for hand, d-r-t. The Semites evidently assigned it the sound value /k/ instead, because their word for hand started with that sound.