Chi (letter) Chi (letter) Chi (uppercase Χ, lowercase χ; ) is the 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet, pronounced or in English. Its value in Ancient Greek was an aspirated velar stop (in the Western Greek alphabet: /ks/). In Koine Greek and later dialects it became a fricative (/) along with Θ and Φ. In Modern Greek, it has two distinct pronunciations: In front of high or front vowels ( or ) it is pronounced as a voiceless palatal fricative , as in German "ich" or like the "h" in some pronunciations of the English words "hew" and "human". In front of
History of the Greek alphabet and "qōph" represented sounds that were not distinctive in Greek—at most, they may have been identified with allophones determined by the following vowel. The letter qoppa was used in certain Greek dialects (notably the western dialects, which ultimately gave rise to Etruscan and eventually the Latin alphabet), but elsewhere dropped out of general use. It is possible that qoppa had been assigned to the Ancient Greek , and when that sound shifted to , the letter qoppa continued as the letter phi. Phoenician had three letters, "sāmekh, ṣādē" and "šin", representing three or probably four voiceless sibilant sounds, whereas Greek