Qaf, or Ka with descender (Қ қ; italics: Қ қ), is a letter of the
Cyrillic script used in a number of non-
Slavic languages spoken in the territory of the former Soviet Union, including:
Iranian languages such as
Tajik and, before 1924,
Ossetic (now superseded by the digraph ⟨Къ⟩). Since /q/ is represented by the letter
ق qāf in the
Arabic alphabet, Қ is sometimes referred to as "Cyrillic Qaf".
Eastern varieties of the
Khanty language, where it also represents /q/.