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The sign is known in English as the "ankh", based on the hypothetical pronunciation of the Egyptian word, or as the "key of life", based on its meaning. In the Egyptian language, these consonants were found in the verb meaning "live", the noun meaning "life", and words derived from them, such as sꜤnḫ, which means "cause to live" or "nourish" Ꜥnḫ evolved into ⲱⲛϩ ( onh) in the Coptic stage of the language. The ankh stood for the sequence Ꜥ-n-ḫ, where n is pronounced like the English letter n, Ꜥ is a voiced pharyngeal fricative, and ḫ is a voiceless or voiced velar fricative (sounds not found in English). In ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, the ankh was a triliteral sign: one that represented a sequence of three consonant sounds.
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The ankh came into widespread use in Western culture in the 1960s, and it is often used as a symbol of African cultural identity, Neopagan belief systems, and the goth subculture. Coptic Christians adapted it into the crux ansata, a shape with a circular rather than oval loop, and used it as a variant of the Christian cross. The ankh was one of the most common decorative motifs in ancient Egypt and was also used decoratively by neighbouring cultures. It was especially commonly held in the hands of ancient Egyptian deities, or being given by them to the pharaoh, to represent their power to sustain life and to revive human souls in the afterlife. In art the symbol often appeared as a physical object representing either life or substances such as air or water that are related to it.
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This sequence was found in several Egyptian words, including the words meaning "mirror", "floral bouquet", and "life". It was used in writing as a triliteral sign, representing a sequence of three consonants, Ꜥ-n-ḫ. The origins of the symbol are not known, although many hypotheses have been proposed. The ankh has a cross shape but with a teardrop-shaped loop in place of a vertical upper bar. The ankh or key of life is an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol that was most commonly used in writing and in Egyptian art to represent the word for "life" and, by extension, as a symbol of life itself.