Zayin
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (August 2009) |
| Zayin | |
|---|---|
| Phoenician |  |
| Hebrew | ז |
| Aramaic |  |
| Syriac | ܙ |
| Arabic | ز |
| Phonemic representation | z |
| Position in alphabet | 7 |
| Numerical value | 7 |
| Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician | |
| Greek | Ζ |
| Latin | Z, Ʒ, ẞ |
| Cyrillic | З |
Zayin (also spelled zain or zayn or simply zay) is the seventh letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Zayin , Hebrew 'Zayin ז, Yiddish Zoyen ז, Aramaic Zain , Syriac Zayn ܙ, and Arabic Zayn or Zāy ز. It represents the sound [z].
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek zeta (Ζ), Etruscan z 
, Latin Z, and Cyrillic Ze З.
Original and modern meaning of the noun 'zayin'[edit]
In Modern Hebrew slang, zayin (זין) means "penis" and lezayen (לזין) is a vulgar term which generally means to perform sexual intercourse,[1][2] 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").
The Proto-Sinaitic glyph may have been called ziqq, based on a hieroglyph depicting a "manacle".[3]
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.
| Persian alphabet |
|---|
| ا ب پ ت ث ج چ ح خ د ذ ر ز ژ س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ک گ ل م ن و ه ی |
|
Perso Arabic script |
The same letter has another name – ze – in a number of languages, such as Persian.
Že[edit]
It also has a modified version: ژ Persian pronunciation: [ʒe], which is used in 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,[4] 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 is also one of the seven letters which receive a special crown (called a tagin) when written in a Sefer Torah (Torah scroll), besides ʻayin, gimel, teth, nun, shin, and tzadi.
Meaning as a noun[edit]
For the Biblical and Modern Hebrew meaning of 'zayin' as a noun, see above.
It is one of several Hebrew letters that have an additional meaning as a noun. The others are: bet [ב, the 2nd letter], whose name is a grammatical form of the word for 'house' (בית); vav [ו, the 6th letter], whose name means 'hook' (וו); kaf [כ, the 11th], whose name means 'palm [of the hand]' or 'tablespoon' (כף); ʻayin [ע, the 16th], whose name means 'eye' (עין); pe [פ, the 17th], whose name means 'mouth' (פה); qof [ק, the 19th], whose name means 'monkey' or "eye of needle" (קוף); tav [ת, the 22nd], whose name means 'mark' (תו), and several other Hebrew letters, whose names are ancient Hebrew forms of nouns still used, with a slight change of form or pronunciation, as nouns in modern Hebrew.[5]
Syriac zain[edit]
Zain is a consonant with the /z/ sound which is a voiced alveolar fricative.
Character encodings[edit]
| Preview | ז | ز | ܙ | ࠆ | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | HEBREW LETTER ZAYIN | ARABIC LETTER ZAIN | SYRIAC LETTER ZAIN | SAMARITAN LETTER ZEN | ||||
| Encodings | decimal | hex | decimal | hex | decimal | hex | decimal | 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 |
| Preview | 𐎇 | 𐡆 | 𐤆 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | UGARITIC LETTER ZETA | IMPERIAL ARAMAIC LETTER ZAYIN | PHOENICIAN LETTER ZAI | |||
| Encodings | decimal | hex | decimal | hex | decimal | 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]
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Zayin (letter). |
- ^ "Definition of זין in Modern Hebrew, Milon Morfix (en)".
- ^ Michael Handelzalts (15 October 2013). "How a Hebrew letter came to mean both "penis" and "weapon"". Haaretz. Retrieved 11 November 2018.
- ^ Brian E. Colless, Cuneiform Alphabet
- ^ "Gematria Chart".
- ^ "Milon Morfix (en)".
| Overviews | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alphabet | |||||||||
| Letters | |||||||||
| Notable varieties |
| ||||||||
| Pidgins/Creoles | |||||||||
| Academic | |||||||||
| Linguistics | |||||||||
| Technical |
| ||||||||
links 1 and 4 are dead