Zayin

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Zayin
PhoenicianZayin
Hebrew
ז
AramaicZayin
Syriac
ܙ
Arabic
ز
Phonemic representationz
Position in alphabet7
Numerical value7
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician
GreekΖ
LatinZ
CyrillicЗ

Zayin (also spelled zain or zayn or simply zay) is the seventh letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician zayn 𐤆, Hebrew zayīn ז, Aramaic zain 𐡆, Syriac zayn ܙ, and Arabic zāy ز. It represents the sound [z].

The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek zeta (Ζ), Etruscan z Z, Latin Z, and Cyrillic Ze З.

Origin[edit]

The Proto-Sinaitic glyph may have been called ziqq, may not have been based on a hieroglyph, and may have depicted a "fetter".[1]

An alternative view is that it is based on the "copper ingot" hieroglyph (𓈔) in the form of an axeblade, after noting that the name "zayin" has roots in Aramaic to refer to "Arms," "Armor," and "Metal used for arms."[2]

The Phoenician letter appears to be named after a sword or other weapon. In Mishnaic Hebrew, zayin (זין‎) means "sword", and the verb lezayen (לזיין‎) means "to arm". In Modern Hebrew slang, zayin (זין‎) means "penis" and lezayen (לזין‎) is a vulgar term which generally means to perform sexual intercourse,[3][4] although the older meaning survives in maavak mezuyan ("armed struggle") (מאבק מזוין‎), kokhot mezuyanim ("armed forces") (כוחות מזוינים‎), and beton mezuyan (בטון מזוין‎) ("armed, i.e., reinforced concrete").

Arabic zāy[edit]

The letter is named zāy. It has two forms, depending on its position in the word:

Position in word Isolated Final Medial Initial
Glyph form:
(Help)
ز ـز ـز ز

The similarity to rāʼ  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 jīm and ḥāʼ.

The same letter has another name – že (Persian pronunciation: [ʒe]) – in a number of languages, such as Persian, Pashto, Kurdish, Urdu and Uyghur (see K̡ona Yezik̡).

Position in word Isolated Final Medial Initial
Glyph form:
(Help)
ژ ـژ ـژ ژ

Hebrew zayin[edit]

Orthographic variants
Various print fonts Cursive Hebrew Rashi script
Serif Sans-serif Monospaced
ז ז ז

In modern Hebrew, the frequency of the usage of zayin, out of all the letters, is 0.88%.

Hebrew spelling: זַיִן

In modern Hebrew, the combination ז׳‎ (zayin followed by a geresh) is used in loanwords and foreign names to denote [ʒ] as in vision.

Significance[edit]

Numerical value (gematria)[edit]

In gematria, zayin represents the number seven,[5] and when used at the beginning of Hebrew years it means 7000 (i.e. זתשנד in numbers would be the future date 7754).

Use in Torah scroll[edit]

Zayin, in addition to ʻayin, gimel, teth, nun, shin, and tzadi, is one of the seven letters which receive a special crown (called a tagin) when written in a Sefer Torah (Torah scroll).

Syriac zain[edit]

Zain is a consonant with the /z/ sound which is a voiced alveolar fricative.

Character encodings[edit]

Character information
Preview ז ز ܙ
Unicode name HEBREW LETTER ZAYIN ARABIC LETTER ZAIN SYRIAC LETTER ZAIN SAMARITAN LETTER ZEN
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 1494 U+05D6 1586 U+0632 1817 U+0719 2054 U+0806
UTF-8 215 150 D7 96 216 178 D8 B2 220 153 DC 99 224 160 134 E0 A0 86
Numeric character reference ז ז ز ز ܙ ܙ ࠆ ࠆ


Character information
Preview 𐎇 𐡆 𐤆
Unicode name UGARITIC LETTER ZETA IMPERIAL ARAMAIC LETTER ZAYIN PHOENICIAN LETTER ZAI
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 66439 U+10387 67654 U+10846 67846 U+10906
UTF-8 240 144 142 135 F0 90 8E 87 240 144 161 134 F0 90 A1 86 240 144 164 134 F0 90 A4 86
UTF-16 55296 57223 D800 DF87 55298 56390 D802 DC46 55298 56582 D802 DD06
Numeric character reference 𐎇 𐎇 𐡆 𐡆 𐤆 𐤆

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Colless, Brian E. (2014). "The origin of the alphabet: an examination of the Goldwasser hypothesis" (PDF). Antiguo Oriente. 12: 71–104.
  2. ^ Cross, F. M. (1980) Newly Found Inscriptions in Old Canaanite and Early Phoenician Scripts. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 238, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.2307/1356511
  3. ^ "Definition of זין in Modern Hebrew, Milon Morfix (en)".
  4. ^ Michael Handelzalts (15 October 2013). "How a Hebrew letter came to mean both "penis" and "weapon"". Haaretz. Retrieved 11 November 2018.
  5. ^ "Gematria Chart".