Nun (letter)

Nun is the fourteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Nūn , Hebrew Nun , Aramaic Nun , Syriac Nūn ܢܢ, and Arabic Nūn (in abjadi order). Its numerical value is 50. It is the third letter in Thaana (), pronounced as "noonu". In all languages, it represents the alveolar nasal /n/.

The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek nu (Ν), Etruscan , Latin N, and Cyrillic Н.

Origins

Nun is believed to be derived from an Egyptian hieroglyph 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 fish in water as its origin (in Arabic, ' means large fish or whale). The Phoenician letter was named "fish", but the glyph has been suggested to descend from a hypothetical Proto-Canaanite "snake", based on the name in Ethiopic, ultimately from a hieroglyph representing a snake, I10
(see Middle Bronze Age alphabets).

Hebrew Nun

Hebrew spelling:

;The letter in its final position appears with or without a top hook on different sans-serif fonts, for example:
* Arial, DejaVu Sans, Arimo, Open Sans: ן
* Tahoma, Noto Sans Hebrew, Alef, Heebo: ן

Pronunciation

Nun represents an alveolar nasal, (IPA: ), 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, 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'').

Nun is also one of the seven letters which receive a special crown (called a ''tag'': plural ''tagin '' ) when written in a Sefer Torah. See Tag (Hebrew writing), Shin, Ayin, Teth, Gimmel, Zayin, and Tzadi.

In the game of dreidel, a rolled Nun passes play to the next player with no other action.

Arabic nūn

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

Some examples on its uses in Modern Standard Arabic:

Nūn is used as a suffix indicating present-tense plural feminine nouns; for example ''hiya taktub'' ("she writes") becomes ''hunna yaktubna'' ("they emininewrite").

Nūn is also used as the prefix for first-person plural imperfective/present tense verbs. Thus ''huwwa yaktub'' ("he writes") → ''naḥnu naktub'' ("we write").

Punjabi/Saraiki nūn

It is retroflex nasal consonantal sound symbol, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is n`. Like all the retroflex consonants, the IPA symbol is formed by adding a rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of an en (the letter used for the corresponding alveolar consonant). It is similar to , the letter for the palatal nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the left stem, and to , the letter for the velar nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem.
Saraiki uses the letter ⟨ݨ⟩ for . It is a compound of nūn and rre (⟨ڑ⟩). For example:
:کݨ مݨ، چھݨ چھݨ، ونڄݨ۔

Social media campaign (2014)

After the fall of Mosul, ISIL demanded Assyrian Christians in the city to convert to Islam, pay tribute, or face execution. ISIL begun marking homes of Christian residents with the letter ''nūn'' for ''Nassarah'' (" Nazarene"). Thousands of Christians, Yazidis (the latter of whom were given only the choice of conversion or death) and other, mostly Shi'a, Muslims, as well as any Muslim whose allegiance was to their home country (whom ISIL consider to be apostates) abandoned their homes and land.

In response to the persecution of Christians and Yazidis by ISIL, an international social media campaign was launched to raise global awareness of the plight of religious minorities in Mosul, making use of the letter (''nun'')—the mark that ISIL troops spray painted on properties owned by Christians. Some Christians changed their profile pictures on Facebook and Twitter to pictures of the letter as a symbol of support. The letter , in relation to this social media campaign, is being called the "Mark of the Nazarene" from (; plural ), a normative Arabic term disparagingly used by ISIL to brand Christians.

The word ''naṣārā''/''nosrim'' designates Christians in both Arabic, Aramaic and Hebrew. The more common term used to refer to Christians in Modern Standard Arabic is ''masihi'' (, plural ).

Character encodings

See also

*Nunation
* Setaceous Hebrew Character (''Xestia c-nigrum'') - a moth of the family Noctuidae.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nun (Letter)
Phoenician alphabet
Arabic letters
Hebrew letters
Letters with final form