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Chi (
uppercase Χ,
lowercase χ;
Greek: Χι
[xiː] He) is the 22nd letter of the
Greek alphabet. Its value in
Ancient Greek was an aspirated
velar stop /kʰ/ (in the
Western Greek alphabet: /ks/).
In
Koine Greek and later dialects it became a
fricative along with
Θ and
Φ. In
Modern Greek, is has two distinct pronunciations: In front of high or
front vowels (e, i, oi, ai, y) it is pronounced as a
voiceless palatal fricative [ç], as in
German ich or like the 'h' in some pronunciations of the
English words 'hew' and 'human'. In front of low or
back vowels (a, o, ou) and
consonants, it is pronounced as a
voiceless uvular fricative [χ].
In the system of
Greek numerals it has a value of 600.
In ancient times, some dialects of Greek used the chi instead of
xi to represent the /ks/ sound. This was borrowed into the early
Latin language, which led to the letter X being used for the same sound in Latin, and the modern languages which use the
Latin alphabet.
Chi also was included into
Cyrillic alphabet (as letter
Х), with the phonetic value /x/ or /h/.
Chi is the basis for the name
Chiastic structure and the name of
Chiasmus.
In
Plato's
Timaeus, it is explained that the two bands which form the
soul of the world cross each other like the letter Χ.
Chi or
X is often used to abbreviate the name
Christ, as in the holiday
Christmas (
Xmas).
The
optic chiasm, an x-shaped connection of the
optic nerves leading to the eye, got its name from the letter chi because of its shape;
[1] likewise, the shape of the letter chi is the origin of the
rhetorical device chiasmus.
