Nun (letter)

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

Nun (letter)

Nun is the fourteenth letter of many Semitic abjad

Abjad

An abjad is a type of writing system in which each symbol stands for a consonant; the reader must supply the appropriate vowel. It is a term suggested by Peter T....
s, including Phoenician, Aramaic

Aramaic language

Aramaic is a Semitic languages with a 3,000-year history. It has been the language of administration of empires and the language of divine worship....
, Hebrew

Hebrew language

Arabic alphabet

The Arabic alphabet is the writing system used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic language, Persian language, and Urdu language....
(in abjadi order). It is the third letter in Thaana

Thaana

Thaana, Taana or Tana is the modern writing system of the Divehi language spoken in the Maldives. Taana has characteristics of both an abugida and a true alphabet , with consonants derived from indigenous and Arabic numerals, and vowels derived from the vowel diacritics of the Arabic alphabet....
(?)- pronounced as "noonu". Its sound value is .

The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek

Greek alphabet

The Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th century BC or early 8th century BCE....
nu

Nu (letter)

Nu , is the 13th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 50. Its Latin Alphabet equivalent is N, though the lowercase resembles the Roman lowercase v....
, Etruscan , Latin

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
N

N is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled en ....
, and Cyrillic

Cyrillic alphabet

The Cyrillic alphabet is a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by five Slavic languages national languages as well as non-Slavic . It is also used by many other languages of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Siberia and other languages in the past....
?

or is a letter derived from the Latin alphabet. Both glyphs of the majuscule and Lower case forms of this letter are based on the rotated form of a minuscule e; a similar letter with identical minuscule is used in the Pan-Nigerian Alphabet, but has the capital form majuscule , based on a horizontally flipped majuscule E....
.

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.

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Nun (letter)'

Start a new discussion about 'Nun (letter)'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

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, nun means large fish or whale). The Phoenician letter was named "fish", but the glyph likely descends from Proto-Canaanite "snake", ultimately from a hieroglyph

Egyptian hieroglyphs

Egyptian hieroglyphs was a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that contained a combination of logographic and alphabetic elements....
representing a snake, I10 (see Middle Bronze Age alphabets

Middle Bronze Age alphabets

The Middle Bronze Age alphabets are two similar undeciphered scripts, dated to be from the Middle Bronze Age , and believed to be ancestral to nearly all modern alphabets:...
). in modern Arabic literally means "bad luck". The cognate letter in Ge'ez

Ge'ez language

Ge'ez is an ancient South Semitic language that developed in the current region of Eritrea and northern Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa. It later became the official language of the Kingdom of Aksum and Ethiopian imperial court....
and descended Semitic languages of Ethiopia is nehas, which also means "brass".

Hebrew Nun

Orthographic Orthography The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Orthography is derived from Greek language ????? orth?s and ???fe?? gr?phein .... variants
position in word	Various Print Fonts			Cursive Hebrew	Rashi Script Rashi script Rashi script is a semi-Hebrew cursive typeface for the Hebrew alphabet, in which Rashi#Works are printed both in the Talmud and Tanakh . This does not mean that Rashi himself used such a script: the typeface is based on a 15th century Sephardi Jews semi-cursive hand and was called by the Ashkenazic Rishonim - the Hachmei Provence script....
position in word	Serif	Sans-serif Sans-serif In typography, a sans-serif or sans serif typeface is one that does not have the small features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. The term comes from the French word sans, meaning "without"....	Monospaced	Cursive Hebrew
non final	?	?	?
final	?	?	?

Pronunciation

Nun represents an alveolar nasal

Alveolar nasal

The alveolar nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in numerous spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental consonant, alveolar consonant, and postalveolar consonant nasal consonant is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is n....
, (IPA

International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic....
: ), like the English letter N

N is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled en ....
.

Variations

Nun, like Kaph

Kaph

Kaph is the eleventh letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician language, Aramaic language, Hebrew language Kaf , Arabic alphabet , Persian alphabet ....
, Mem

Mem

Mem is the thirteenth letter of many Semitic languages abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic alphabet, Hebrew alphabet and Arabic alphabet ....
, Pe

Pe (letter)

Pe is the seventeenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician language, Aramaic language, Hebrew language Pei , Persian alphabet Pe and Arabic alphabet ....
, and Tzadi, has a final form, used at the end of words. Its shape changes from ? to ?. There are also nine instances of an inverted nun

Inverted nun

Inverted nun is a rare character - the letter Nun in mirror image - which appears in the Masoretic text of the Tanakh in nine different places:...
in the Tanakh

Tanakh

The Tanakh is the Bible used in Judaism. The name "Tanakh" is a Hebrew language Acronym and initialism formed from the initial Hebrew alphabet of the Tanakh's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim - hence TaNaKh....
.

Significance

In gematria

Gematria

Gematria or gimatria is a system of assigning number to an alphabet. The word "gematria" is generally held to derive from Greek geometria, "geometry", which was used a translation of gema?riya....
, Nun represents the number 50. Its final form represents 700 but this is rarely used, Tav and Shin

Shin

Shin may refer to:* Shinbone, the larger of the two bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates* Shin Buddhism, a widely practiced branch of Buddhism...
(400+300) being used instead.

As in Arabic, nun as an abbreviation can stand for neqevah, feminine. In medieval Rabbinic writings, Nun Sophit (Final Nun) stood for "Son of" (Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
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

Sefer Torah

A Sefer Torah is a specially hand-written copy of the Torah or Pentateuch, which is the holiest book within Judaism and venerated by Jews. It must meet extremely strict standards of production....
. See Shin

Shin (letter)

Shin is the twenty-first letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician language, Aramaic language, Hebrew language , and Arabic alphabet ....
, Ayin

Ayin

' or ' is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic language, Hebrew language and Arabic alphabet ....
, Teth

Teth

is the ninth letter of many Semitic abjads , including Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic alphabet, Hebrew alphabet 'Tet' , Syriac alphabet and Arabic alphabet ; it is 9th in abjadi order and 16th in modern Arabic order....
, Gimmel, Zayin

Zayin

Zayin is the seventh letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician language , Aramaic language , Hebrew language , Syriac alphabet and Arabic alphabet []....
, and Tzadi.

In the game of dreidel

Dreidel

A dreidel is a four-sided spinning top, played with during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. The dreidel is used for a gambling game similar to Teetotum....
, a rolled Nun passes play to the next player with no other action.

Arabic nun

The letter is named nun, and is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:

Nun is used as a suffix indicating present-tense plural feminine nouns; for example ?? ???? hiya taktub ("she writes") becomes ??? ????? hunna taktabna ("they [feminine] write").

Nun is also used as the prefix for first-person plural imperfective/present tense

Present tense

The present tense is the Grammatical tense that may be used to express:* action at the present* a state of being;* a habitual action;* an occurrence in the near future; or...
verbs. Thus ?? ???? huwwa yaktub ("he writes") ? ??? ??? ("we write").

Nun (letter)

Origins

Hebrew Nun

Pronunciation

Variations

Significance

Arabic nun

See also