Nun (letter)
Ḍ
| Nun | |
|---|---|
| Phoenician | nun |
| Hebrew | נ,ן |
| Aramaic | nun |
| Syriac | ܢܢ |
| Arabic | ﻧ,ﻥ |
| Phonemic representation | n |
| Position in alphabet | 14 |
| Numerical value | 50 |
| Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician | |
Nun is the fourteenth letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Template:Ivrit and Arabic alphabet Template:ArabDIN Template:Ar (in abjadi order). It is the third letter in Thaana(ނ)- pronounced as "noonu". Its sound value is Template:IPA2.
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek nu (Ν), Etruscan 
𐌍, Latin N, and Cyrillic Н.
Origins
Nun is thought to have come from a pictogram of a snake (the Hebrew word for snake, nachash begins with a Nun and snake in Aramaic is nun) or eel. Some have hypothesized a hieroglyph of a fish in water for its origin (in Arabic, nūn means large fish or whale). The Phoenician letter was named Template:Semxlit "fish", but the glyph likely descends from Proto-Canaanite Template:Semxlit "snake", ultimately from a hieroglyph representing a snake,
|
(see Middle Bronze Age alphabets). Template:Semxlit in modern Arabic literally means "bad luck". The cognate letter in Ge'ez and descended Semitic languages of Ethiopic is nehas, which also means "brass".
Hebrew Nun
| Arabic alphabet |
|---|
| ا ب ت ث ج ح خ د ذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ك ل م ن ه و ي |
|
Arabic script |
| Syriac alphabet (200 BCE–present) |
| ܐ ܒ ܓ ܕ ܗ ܘ |
| ܙ ܚ ܛ ܝ ܟܟ ܠ |
| ܡܡ ܢܢ ܣ ܥ ܦ |
| ܨ ܩ ܪ ܫ ܬ |
'Pronunciation' Nun represents an alveolar nasal, (IPA: /n/), like the English letter N.
Variations
Nun, like Kaph, Mem, Pe, and Tzadi, has a final form, used at the end of words. Its shape changes from נ to ן.
Significance
In gematria, Nun represents the number 50. Its final form represents 700 but this is rarely used, Tav and Shin (400+300) being used instead.
Nun as an abbreviation can stand for neqevah, feminine. In medieval Rabbinic writings, Nun Sophit (Final Nun) stood for "Son of" (Hebrew ben or ibn).
Nun is also one of the seven letters which receive a special crown (called a tagin) when written in a Sefer Torah. See Shin, Ayin, Teth, Gimel, Zayin, and Tzadi.
In modern Israeli slang, the word Nun has come to mean "failure" (from Hebrew Nichshal, he lost).
During the traditional Hanukkah game of dreidel, if you roll a "nun", then nothing happens and it's the next player's turn.
See also
4.229.63.131 02:08, 30 June 2007 (UTC)