NUN (LETTER)

'Nun' is the fourteenth letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic alphabet (in abjadi order). It is the third letter in Thaana(ނ)- pronounced as "noonu". Its sound value is .
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek nu (Ν), Etruscan , Latin N, and Cyrillic Н.

Contents

Origins

Arabic nūn

Hebrew Nun

Pronunciation

Variations

Significance

See also

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, ''nūn'' means large fish or whale). The Phoenician letter was named "fish", but the glyph likely descends from Proto-Canaanite "snake", ultimately from a hieroglyph representing a snake, I10
(see Middle Bronze Age alphabets). 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".

Arabic nūn

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

Hebrew Nun

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'.

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 '''Ni'chshal'', 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.

See also

★ Nunation