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| ← Waw Zayin Heth → | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phoenician | Hebrew | Aramaic | Syriac | Arabic |
 |
ז |  |
ܙ | ﺯ |
| Phonemic representation: | z | |||
| Position in alphabet: | 7 | |||
| Numerical (Gematria/Abjad) value: | 7 | |||
Zayin (also spelled Zain or Zayn) is the seventh letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician 𐤆, Aramaic , Hebrew ז, Syriac ܙ and Arabic alphabet ﺯ zāī. It represents a voiced alveolar fricative, IPA /z/.
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Zeta (Ζ), Etruscan z 
, Latin Z, and Cyrillic Ze З.
The Proto-Canaanite glyph appears to be named after a sword or other weapon. (In Hebrew, "Zayin" means sword, and the verb "Lezayen" means to arm). The Proto-Sinaitic glyph according to Brian Colless may have been called ziqq, based on a hieroglyph depicting a "manacle".
Contents |
Hebrew Zayin
| Phoenician alphabet (ca. 1050–200 BCE) |
| 𐤀 𐤁 𐤂 𐤃 𐤄 𐤅 |
| 𐤆 𐤇 𐤈 𐤉 𐤊 𐤋 |
| 𐤌 𐤍 𐤎 𐤏 𐤐 |
| 𐤑 𐤒 𐤓 𐤔 𐤕 |
| Semitic abjads · Genealogy |
| Hebrew alphabet (1000 BCE–present) |
| א ב ג ד ה ו |
| ז ח ט י כך |
| ל מם נן ס ע פף |
| צץ ק ר ש ת |
| History · Transliteration Niqqud · Dagesh · Gematria Cantillation · Numeration |
| Syriac alphabet (200 BCE–present) |
| ܐ ܒ ܓ ܕ ܗ ܘ |
| ܙ ܚ ܛ ܝ ܟܟ ܠ |
| ܡܡ ܢܢ ܣ ܥ ܦ |
| ܨ ܩ ܪ ܫ ܬ |
| Arabic alphabet (400 CE–present) |
| ا ب ت ث ج ح |
| خ د ذ ر ز س |
| ش ص ض ط ظ ع |
| غ ف ق ك ل |
| م ن ه و ي |
| History · Transliteration Diacritics · Hamza ء Numerals · Numeration |
| Orthographic variants | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Various Print Fonts | Cursive Hebrew |
Rashi Script |
||
| Serif | Sans-serif | Monospaced | ||
| ז | ז | ז |  |
 |
An apostrophe can be placed in front of Zayin ('ז), making it represent /ʒ/.
Significance
In gematria, Zayin represents the number seven, and when used at the beginning of Hebrew years, it means 7000 (i.e. זתשנד in numbers would be the date 7754).
Zayin 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, Nun, Gimel, and Tzadi.
Syriac Zain
Zain is a consant with the "z" sound which is a voiced alveolar fricative.
Arabic Zayn
The letter is named, variously, zaynʼ, zāi, and za', and is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:
| Position in word: | Isolated | Initial | Medial | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Form of letter: | ز | (None) | (None) | ـز |
.
The similarity to ر is likely a function of the original Syriac forms converging to a single symbol, requiring that one of them be distinguished as a dot; a similar process occurred to ǧim and ḥa'.
Zāī
A variant of Arabic ﺯ. is ژ /ʒ/, used in Persian, Urdu and Uyghur (see K̡ona Yezik̡).
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Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 15 October 2008, at 08:12.
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