Tzade

Tsade (also spelled , , , , tzadi, sadhe, tzaddik) is the eighteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ṣādē , Hebrew ṣādi , Aramaic ṣāḏē , Syriac ṣāḏē ܨ, Ge'ez ṣädäy ጸ, and Arabic . Its oldest phonetic value is under debate, although there is a variety of pronunciations in different modern Semitic languages and their dialects. It represents the coalescence of three Proto-Semitic "emphatic consonants" in Canaanite. Arabic, which kept the phonemes separate, introduced variants of and to express the three (see , ). In Aramaic, these emphatic consonants coalesced instead with ''ʿayin'' and '' ṭēt'', respectively, thus Hebrew ''ereṣ'' ארץ (earth) is ''araʿ'' ארע in Aramaic.

The Phoenician letter is continued in the Greek san (Ϻ) and possibly sampi (Ϡ), and in Etruscan 𐌑 ''Ś''. It may have inspired the form of the letter tse in the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets.

The corresponding letter of the Ugaritic alphabet is 𐎕 ''ṣade''.

The letter is named "tsadek" in Yiddish, and Hebrew speakers often give it a similar name as well. This name for the letter probably originated from a fast recitation of the alphabet (i.e., "''tsadi'', ''qoph''" → "''tsadiq'', ''qoph''"), influenced by the Hebrew word ''tzadik'', meaning "righteous person".

Origins

The origin of is unclear. It may have come from a Proto-Sinaitic script based on a pictogram of a plant, perhaps a papyrus plant, or a fish hook (in Modern Hebrew, ' means " ehunt d, and in Arabic ' means " ehunted").

Hebrew tsadi

Hebrew spelling: or .

Name

In Hebrew, the letter's name is ''tsadi'' or ''ṣadi'', depending on whether the letter is transliterated as Modern Israeli "ts" or Tiberian "ṣ". Alternatively, it can be called ''tsadik'' or ''ṣadik'', spelled צָדִּיק, influenced by its Yiddish name ''tsadek'' and the Hebrew word ''tzadik''.

Variations

, like kaph, mem, pe, and nun, has a final form, used at the end of words. Its shape changes from to .

Pronunciation

In Modern Hebrew, צ ''tsade'' represents a voiceless alveolar affricate . This is the same in Yiddish. Historically, it likely represented a pharyngealized ; which became in Ashkenazi pronunciation. A geresh can also be placed after ''tsade'' (), giving it the sound (or, in a hypercorrected pronunciation, a pharyngealized ), e.g. chips.

Ṣade appears as amongst Yemenite Jews and other Jews from the Middle East.

Some Sephardi Jews pronounce צ like a regular s, and this is the sound value it has in Judaeo-Spanish, as in "masa" (matzo) or "sadik" (tzadik).

Significance

In gematria, represents the number 90. Its final form represents 900, but this is rarely used, taw, taw, and qof (400+400+100) being used instead.

As an abbreviation, it stands for ''ṣafon'', north.

is also one of the seven letters that receive a special crown (called ''tagin'') when written in a Sefer Torah. See shin, ‘ayin, , nun, zayin, and gimmel.

Arabic ṣād

The letter is named ' and in Modern Standard Arabic is pronounced .

It is written in several ways depending in its position in the word:

Chapter ''Ṣād'' of the Quran is named for this letter, which begins the chapter.

The phoneme is not native to Persian, Ottoman Turkish, or Urdu