Nun (letter)

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Н

Nun is the fourteenth

alveolar nasal
/n/.

The Phoenician letter gave rise to the

Н
.

Origins

Nun is believed to be derived from an Egyptian

Ethiopic, ultimately from a hieroglyph
representing a snake,

I10

(see

Middle Bronze Age alphabets
).

Arabic nūn

Nūn
ن
Usage
Writing system
𐤫
  • 𐡍
    • 𐢕
      • ں
        • ن
Descendantsݨ
ں
ڻ
ڼ
Other
Writing directionRight-to-left
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

The letter is named nūn, and is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:

Position in word Isolated Final Medial Initial
Glyph form:
(Help) 		ن‎ ـن‎ ـنـ‎ نـ‎

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

velar nasal
, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem. Saraiki uses the letter ⟨ݨ⟩ for /ɳ/. It is a compound of nūn and rre (⟨ڑ⟩). For example:

کݨ مݨ، چھݨ چھݨ، ونڄݨ۔

Social media campaign (2014)

See also:
Sectarianism and minorities in the Syrian Civil War § Christians

After the

Assyrian Christians in the city to convert to Islam, pay tribute, or face execution.[1] ISIL begun marking homes of Christian residents with the letter nūn for Nassarah ("Nazarene").[2][3] Thousands of Christians, Yazidis (the latter of whom were given only the choice of conversion or death) and other, mostly Shi'a, Muslims, as well as any Muslim whose allegiance was to their home country (whom ISIL consider to be apostates
) abandoned their homes and land.

In response to the

Yazidis by ISIL, an international social media campaign was launched to raise global awareness of the plight of religious minorities in Mosul, making use of the letter ن (nun)—the mark that ISIL troops spray painted on properties owned by Christians.[4] Some Christians changed their profile pictures on Facebook and Twitter to pictures of the letter ن as a symbol of support.[5] The letter ن, in relation to this social media campaign, is being called the "Mark of the Nazarene" from naṣrānī (نصراني; plural naṣārā نصارى), a normative Arabic term disparagingly used by ISIL to brand Christians.[5]

The word naṣārā/nosrim designates Christians in both Arabic, Aramaic and Hebrew. The more common term used to refer to Christians in Modern Standard Arabic is masihi (مسيحي, plural مسيحيون).

Hebrew nun

Calligraphic example of a terminal nun at a Polish synagogue: הדוכן (ha-dukhan, "the pulpit")
Orthographic variants
position
in
word 		Various print fonts Cursive
Hebrew 		Rashi
script
Serif Sans-serif
Monospaced
non final נ נ נ
final ן ן ן

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, Arimo, Open Sans: ן
  • Tahoma, Noto Sans Hebrew, Alef, Heebo: ן

Pronunciation

Nun represents an

alveolar nasal, (IPA: /n/), like the English letter N
.

Variations

Nun, like

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
Tanakh
.

Significance

In

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

Tzadi
.

In the game of dreidel, a rolled Nun passes play to the next player with no other action.

Character encodings

Character information
Preview נ ן ن ࢽ ܢ ࠍ
Unicode name HEBREW LETTER NUN HEBREW LETTER FINAL NUN ARABIC LETTER NOON ARABIC LETTER AFRICAN NOON SYRIAC LETTER NUN SAMARITAN LETTER NUN
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex dec hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 1504 U+05E0 1503 U+05DF 1606 U+0646 2237 U+08BD 1826 U+0722 2061 U+080D
UTF-8 215 160 D7 A0 215 159 D7 9F 217 134 D9 86 224 162 189 E0 A2 BD 220 162 DC A2 224 160 141 E0 A0 8D
Numeric character reference נ נ ן ן ن ن ࢽ ࢽ ܢ ܢ ࠍ ࠍ


Character information
Preview 𐎐 𐡍 𐤍
Unicode name UGARITIC LETTER NUN IMPERIAL ARAMAIC LETTER NUN PHOENICIAN LETTER NUN
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 66448 U+10390 67661 U+1084D 67853 U+1090D
UTF-8 240 144 142 144 F0 90 8E 90 240 144 161 141 F0 90 A1 8D 240 144 164 141 F0 90 A4 8D
UTF-16 55296 57232 D800 DF90 55298 56397 D802 DC4D 55298 56589 D802 DD0D
Numeric character reference 𐎐 𐎐 𐡍 𐡍 𐤍 𐤍

See also

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nun (letter).
  1. ^ "BBC News - Iraqi Christians flee after Isis issue Mosul ultimatum". BBC News. 18 July 2014. Archived from the original on 24 July 2014. Retrieved 13 February 2015.
  2. ^ "Iraqi Christians flee after Isis issue Mosul ultimatum". BBC News. August 7, 2014. Archived from the original on July 24, 2014. Retrieved August 7, 2014.
  3. ^ Loveluck, Louisa (August 7, 2014). "Christians flee Iraq's Mosul after Islamists tell them: convert, pay or die". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on July 30, 2014. Retrieved August 7, 2014.
  4. ^ "A Christian Genocide Symbolized by One Letter". National Review Online. 23 July 2014. Archived from the original on 2014-08-25. Retrieved 2014-08-22.
  5. ^ a b "#ن: How an Arabic letter was reclaimed to support Iraq's persecuted Christians". euronews. 22 July 2014. Archived from the original on 2014-08-17. Retrieved 2014-08-20.
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