Sudden Clarity Clarence

4 Ninjas.....

are there any words that begin with Q that don't have U as a 2nd letter?

There are none in English, but there are a ton in other languages, mostly Hebrew, Chinese and Arabic.
Example:
"Qanun" is an Arabic word referring to a type of harp.
"Qi" is a Chinese word referring to a physical life force.
"Qaddish" is a Hebrew word referring to a prayer of mourning.

But how are they pronounced and if the Q sounds like a K...why bother spelling with a Q since the other languages don't use "latin alphabet" letters like we do in English anyway....the words could be spelled phonetically in English.

Well, these aren't English words, so their spelling isn't the same as English. I believe it's only English words that have the qu- and sound like "kyoo". Pretty much everything else has the "k" sound.

That was my point. They are not English words so their spelling should be phonetic. Ahhhh English. You never "cease" to amaze me.

(Why isn't it "sees?" Oh because that is pronounced "seez"...like "I sailed the 7 seez"...no, wait...like "whatever he seez is his" but "seas" is pronounced the same way. Right that's it...)

But qu- is pronouned "kwuh" like Queen, quake, quack, quiver....
It would be a whole lot easier if they were spelled kw?n, kw?k, kwak, kwivr
Russian is phonetic (really shouldn't they spell it "fonetic?") and is easy to read and speak.

MY MIND