In the Japanese numerals system the number “9” is 九, and its name is kyū, or ku, or kokonotsu, identical to the letter “Q”, so that ichi-ku-hachi-yon, 1Q84, Haruki Murakami’s masterpiece, is also “1984”, a reference to George Orwell’s masterpiece.
There are three main alphabets in Japanese: Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji, plus the phonetic version of the western alphabet: “romaji”. Hiragana consists mainly of Chinese syllables, and until the 10th century AD was used solely by women. Katakana is a subset of Kanji, originally developed by monks from the Chinese syllabic alphabet. Kanji is the written alphabet of 5,000 to 10,000 symbols.
Images: 1Q84 ~ © Julien Pacaud Art & Illustration, 1984 ~ © A-GC.com
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Of Glass & Paper 
Very interesting …. Have always been very fascinated by Japan and their culture .. I was taken by Japan in over all. I will always remember that Q = 9 …. Thanks.
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