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Zayin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| ← Waw Zayin Heth → | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phoenician | Hebrew | Aramaic | Syriac | Arabic |
 |
ז |  |
ܙ | ﺯ |
| Phonemic representation: | z | |||
| Position in alphabet: | 7 | |||
| Numerical (Gematria/Abjad) value: | 7 | |||
Zayin (also spelled Zain or Zayn) is the seventh letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew ז, Syriac ܙ and Arabic alphabet zāī ﺯ. It represents a voiced alveolar fricative, IPA /z/.
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Zeta (Ζ), Etruscan z 
, Latin Z, and Cyrillic Ze З.
The Proto-Canaanite glyph appears to be named after a sword or other weapon. The Proto-Sinaitic glyph according to Brian Colless may have been called ziqq, based on a hieroglyph depicting a "manacle".
Contents |
| Phoenician alphabet (1050 BCE–unknown) |
| 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 |
| ﺵ ﺹ ﺽ ﻁ ﻅ ﻉ |
| ﻍ ﻑ ﻕ ﻙ ﻝ |
| ﻡ ﻥ ه ﻭ ﻱ |
| History · Transliteration Diacritics · Hamza ء Numerals · Numeration |
An apostrophe can be placed in front of Zayin ('ז), making it represent /ʒ/.
In gematria, Zayin represents the number seven, and when used at the beginning of Hebrew years, it means 7000 (i.e. זתשנד in numbers would be the date 7754).
Zayin 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, Nun, Gimel, and Tzadi.
Zain is a consant with the "z" sound which is a voiced alveolar fricative.
The letter is named zaynʼ, and is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:
| Position | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Isolated | Initial | Medial | Final | |
| ز | زـ | ـزـ | ـز | |
.
The similarity to ر is likely a function of the original Syriac forms converging to a single symbol, requiring that one of them be distinguished as a dot; a similar process occurred to ǧim and ḥa'.
A variant of Arabic ﺯ. is ژ /ʒ/, used in e.g. the Uyghur language (see K̡ona Yezik̡).