x
is the 24th letter in the modern English alphabet as well as in the Latin alphabet. It is pronounced as “Chi”. Frequency of “X” usage in words among all other alphabet is 0.150%. X is the third least used letter in latin as well as other languages.
Historical trace
In between the 9th to 6th centuries BC, X and Ψ were used in Greek language to represent /kʰ.Later some western areas like Arcadia has started to use symbol ΧΣ for /ks/.Finally is made to represent /kʰ/.The Etruscans has borrowed from Western Greek and it represents the phoneme /ks/.Χ and Ψ were used to denote the sound /kʰ/. It is actually the Greek addition to Modern Greek alphabet which was placed along with the letter Φ pronounced as phi. Later the letter Ψ was substituted for ΦΣ. Thus omega was the later addition.
Pictorial representations
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Etruscan X |
Greek xi |
old roman |
Half uncial |
New roman cursive |
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Linguistic usage
In Latin language X stands for the phoneme [ks].
Dutch
In Dutch X stands for [ks] but when it is used for Texel
(represents the island) it will be pronounced as Tessel. In Dutch Due to some historical sound-changes all -x-phonemes (sounds) were replaced with -s- phonemes (sounds). Words those are appeared with x are actually the borrowed words.
English
In English “X” is treated as a sign for the compound consonants [ks]; If it is followed by a syllable that starts with a vowel then it will represents the compound consonant.
Some compound words keep the sound [z] just like in (Example meta-xylene).It also creates the phoneme [kʃ] in all words ending with –xion.In front of I or u , X also denotes [ɡʒ] or [kʃ].(Example: luxury). These are the results derived from [ksj] & [ɡzj].Finally X is represented as [ks]. In English there are very few words that actually start with X.Mostly they are used in abbreviations. X is used to denote either acronym (XC) Trademarks. You can’t find any word that start with “x” in the Basic English vocabulary.
Italian
In Italian when x is followed by a consonant, it is pronounced either as [gz] or [ks].
In northern regional languages like Venetian and in some other languages X denotes he voiced sibilant [z].in this language “X” denotes the multiplication sign.
Norwegian
From the nineteenth century X is pronounced as ks. But the general phoneme of X is [ks].pronouncing x as ks is still continued in names of people and SMS languages. “X” has similar representation in German, Finnish, Swedish and Danish.
Galician
Galacian language is related to the language Portuguese and it is spoken In Northwestern Spain. X is pronounced with the sound [ʃ] .in some words like ‘taxativo’ the x is pronounced like [ks].but Galician orators used to pronounce as [s].
Portuguese
In Portuguese “x” has nearly 4 sounds. Among all these most frequently used one is [ʃ],(e.g ‘xícara’ denotes cup).The other three sounds are [ks] , [s], [z].
Character Encoding
The following table specifies value of “X” in some character Encodings
Character Latin Latin
Encoding capital letter X small letter X
Decimal hex Decimal hex
Unicode 88 0058 120 0078
ASCII 88 58 120 78
UTF-8 88 58 120 78
EBCDIC 231 E7 167 A7
What Does “X” Stand for in various fields?
General
X stands for extra.
X specifies the multiplication sign.
X specifies the unknown quantity (variable).
X specifies former (Example: wife).
X is the representation of Extreme (games).
X gives the meaning Ecstasy.
Ⓧ is used as representation of resale price maintenance (in Japan)
Science
X represents X-ray (aviation letter code).
X is the representation of Female Chromosome.
Mathematics
X denotes Ten (Numeral).
X specifies the horizontal axis in the Cartesian coordinate system.
Cartoon
In cartoons if X is drawn in the place of eyes it will represent the death of the particular character.