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Nun (letter)

Nun is the fourteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician nūn 𐤍, Hebrew nūn נ, Aramaic nūn 𐡍‎, Syriac nūn ܢ, and Arabic nūn ن (inabjadi order). Its numerical value is 50. It is the third letter in Thaana (ނ), 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[edit]

Nun is believed to be derived from an Egyptian hieroglyph of a snake (the Hebrew word for snake, nachash begins with a Nun) or eel. Some^{[citation needed]} have hypothesized a hieroglyph of fish in water as its origin (In Aramaic and Akkadian nun means fish, and in Arabic, nūn means large fish or whale). The Phoenician letter was named nūn "fish", but the glyph has been suggested to descend from a hypothetical Proto-Canaanite naḥš "snake", based on the name in Ethiopic, ultimately from a hieroglyph representing a snake,

(see Middle Bronze Age alphabets).

Arabic nūn[edit]

The letter is named nūn, 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 feminine plural verb conjugations; for example هِيَ تَكْتُب hiya taktub ("she writes") becomes هُنَّ يَكْتُبْنَ hunna yaktubna ("they [feminine] write").

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

Punjabi/Saraiki nūn[edit]

It is retroflex nasal consonantal sound symbol, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɳ⟩, 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 ⟨ɲ⟩, the letter for the palatal nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the left stem, and to ⟨ŋ⟩, 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 /ɳ/. It is a compound of nūn and rre (⟨ڑ⟩). For example:

کݨ مݨ، چھݨ چھݨ، ونڄݨ۔

Social media campaign (2014)[edit]

After the fall of Mosul, ISIL demanded Assyrian Christians in the city to convert to Islam, pay tribute, or face execution.^[1] ISIL begun marking homes of Christian residents with the letter nūn for Nassarah ("Nazarene").^[2][3] 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 ن (nun)—the mark that ISIL troops spray painted on properties owned by Christians.^[4] Some Christians changed their profile pictures on Facebook and Twitter to pictures of the letter ن as a symbol of support.^[5] The letter ن, in relation to this social media campaign, is being called the "Mark of the Nazarene" from naṣrānī (نصراني; plural naṣārā نصارى), a normative Arabic term disparagingly used by ISIL to brand Christians.^[5]

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

Jawi nya[edit]

In the Jawi alphabet, the letter nya is a modified form of the letter nūn with two additional dots. However, if nya is initial or medial, its dots will be three dots below instead of three dots above, similarly how the Persian letter pe works on medial or initial form due to its similar looking. This letter also looks like tsa in general. This letter is thus written as:

The letter nya is also a suffix for indirect object belonging to him/her/it. The example is رومهڽ (rumahnya in Rumi alphabet), which means his/her/its house.

Hebrew nun[edit]

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

Hebrew spelling: נוּן

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[edit]

Nun represents an alveolar nasal, (IPA: /n/), like the English letter N.

Variations[edit]

Nun, like Kaph, Mem, Pe, and Tzadi, has a final form, used at the end of words. Its shape changes from נtoן. There are also nine instances of an inverted nun (׆) in the Tanakh.

Significance[edit]

Ingematria, 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.

Character encodings[edit]

See also[edit]

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

References[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nun (letter).