Nun is the fourteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Arabic nūn, Aramaic nūn 𐡍, Hebrew nūn , Phoenician nūn 𐤍‎, and Syriac nūn ܢ,. 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

Nun is believed to descend from an Egyptian hieroglyph of a snake (the Hebrew word for snake, nachash begins with Nun) or eel. Some 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 also named nūn "fish", but this name has been suggested to descend from a hypothetical Proto-Canaanite word naḥš "snake", based on the letter name in Ethiopic, ultimately from a hieroglyph representing a snake,

Arabic nūn

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

It is retroflex nasal consonantal sound in some languages. Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is ⟨ɳ⟩, formed by adding a rightward hook to the bottom of ⟨n⟩, the symbol for the corresponding alveolar consonant. The X-SAMPA symbol is. It is similar to the palatal nasal ⟨ɲ⟩ with a leftward hook from the left stem. Another similar sound is the velar nasal ⟨ŋ⟩ with a leftward hook from the right stem; in Saraiki, this is ݨ, combining 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 troops begun spray painting homes of Christian residents with the letter nūn for naṣrānī (نصراني; plural naṣārā نصارى, "Nazarene"), a disparaging Arabic term for Christians. Thousands were forced to abandon their homes and land, including Christians, Yazidis (given the choice of conversion or death), Shi'a Muslims, and Muslims loyal to other Islamic nations considered apostates by ISIL. In response to the persecution of Christians and Yazidis by ISIL, an international social media campaign was launched to raise global awareness, symbolized by the letter ن (nun)—the mark painted by ISIL. Some Christians changed their profile pictures to the letter ن as a symbol of support, calling it the "Mark of the Nazarene". Naṣārā/nosrim designates Christians in Arabic, Aramaic and Hebrew, although the more common term for Christians in Modern Standard Arabic is masihi (مسيحي, plural مسيحيون).

Jawi nya

In the Jawi alphabet, the letter ڽ|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 ث|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

Hebrew spelling: נוּן

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 to. There are also nine instances of an inverted nun in the Tanakh.

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). 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