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| ← Mem Nun Samekh → | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phoenician | Hebrew | Aramaic | Syriac | Arabic |
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נ,ן |  |
ܢܢ | ن,ن |
| Phonemic representation: | n | |||
| Position in alphabet: | 14 | |||
| Numerical (Gematria/Abjad) value: | 50 | |||
Nun is the fourteenth letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew נ and Arabic alphabet nūn ن (in abjadi order). It is the third letter in Thaana(ނ)- pronounced as "noonu". Its sound value is IPA: [n].
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek nu (Ν), Etruscan 
𐌍, Latin N, and Cyrillic Н.
Contents |
Origins
| Phoenician alphabet (ca. 1050–200 BCE) |
| 𐤀 𐤁 𐤂 𐤃 𐤄 𐤅 |
| 𐤆 𐤇 𐤈 𐤉 𐤊 𐤋 |
| 𐤌 𐤍 𐤎 𐤏 𐤐 |
| 𐤑 𐤒 𐤓 𐤔 𐤕 |
| Semitic abjads · Genealogy |
| Hebrew alphabet (1000 BCE–present) |
| א ב ג ד ה ו |
| ז ח ט י כך |
| ל מם נן ס ע פף |
| צץ ק ר ש ת |
| History · Transliteration Niqqud · Dagesh · Gematria Cantillation · Numeration |
| 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 |
| Arabic alphabet (400 CE–present) |
| 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 |
| History · Transliteration Diacritics · Hamza ء Numerals · Numeration |
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 nūn "fish", but the glyph likely descends from Proto-Canaanite naḥš "snake", ultimately from a hieroglyph representing a snake,
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(see Middle Bronze Age alphabets). Naḥš in modern Arabic literally means "bad luck". The cognate letter in Ge'ez and descended Semitic languages of Ethiopia is nehas, which also means "brass".
Hebrew Nun
| Orthographic variants | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| position in word |
Various Print Fonts | Cursive Hebrew |
Rashi Script |
||
| Serif | Sans-serif | Monospaced | |||
| non final | נ | נ | נ |  |
 |
| final | ן | ן | ן |  |
 |
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. There are also nine instances of an inverted nun (׆) in the Tanakh.
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.
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 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, Gimmel, 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.
Arabic nūn
The letter is named nūn, and is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:
| Position in word: | Isolated | Initial | Medial | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Form of letter: | ن | نـ | ـنـ | ـن |
Nūn is used as a suffix indicating present-tense plural feminine nouns; for example هي تكتب hiya taktub ("she writes") becomes هنّ تكتبن hunna taktabna ("they [feminine] write").
Nūn is also used as the prefix for first-person plural imperfective/present tense verbs. Thus هو يكتب huwwa yaktub ("he writes") → نحن نتب naḥnu naktub ("we write").
See also
- Nunation
- Setaceous Hebrew Character (Xestia c-nigrum) - a moth of the family Noctuidae.
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