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

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

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

Orthographic variants
Various print fonts Cursive Hebrew Rashi script
SerifSans-serifMonospaced
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

Numerical value (gematria)

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

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

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

Character encodings

Character information
Previewזزܙࠆ
Unicode name HEBREW LETTER ZAYIN ARABIC LETTER ZAIN SYRIAC LETTER ZAIN SAMARITAN LETTER ZEN
Encodingsdecimalhexdechexdechexdechex
Unicode1494U+05D61586U+06321817U+07192054U+0806
UTF-8215 150D7 96216 178D8 B2220 153DC 99224 160 134E0 A0 86
Numeric character referenceזזززܙܙࠆࠆ
Character information
Preview𐎇𐡆𐤆
Unicode name UGARITIC LETTER ZETA IMPERIAL ARAMAIC LETTER ZAYIN PHOENICIAN LETTER ZAI
Encodingsdecimalhexdechexdechex
Unicode66439U+1038767654U+1084667846U+10906
UTF-8240 144 142 135F0 90 8E 87240 144 161 134F0 90 A1 86240 144 164 134F0 90 A4 86
UTF-1655296 57223D800 DF8755298 56390D802 DC4655298 56582D802 DD06
Numeric character reference𐎇𐎇𐡆𐡆𐤆𐤆

See also

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Zayin (letter).
  1. ↑ Colless, Brian E. (2010). "The origin of the alphabet: an examination of the Goldwasser hypothesis". Antiguo Oriente. 12: 71–104. Cuneiform Alphabet
  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".
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