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 (in abjadi 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/. It is related to the Ancient North Arabian 𐪌, South Arabian 𐩬, and Ge'ez ነ. 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, נָחָשׁ (nakhash), 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 on 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. IIt is similar to ݨ, combining nūn and rre ڑ: for example کݨ مݨ، چھݨ چھݨ، ونڄݨ۔, which is the velar nasal ⟨ŋ⟩.
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 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
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, Liberation Sans, Arimo: ן Tahoma, Noto Sans Hebrew, Alef, Heebo: ן
Pronunciation Nun represents an alveolar nasal, (IPA: /n/), 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.
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.
Syriac nun
Character encodings
See also Nunation Setaceous Hebrew Character (Xestia c-nigrum) - a moth of the family Noctuidae.
References
