Ayin
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| ← Samekh Ayin Pe → | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phoenician | Hebrew | Aramaic | Syriac | Arabic |
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ע |  |
ܥ | ﻋ,ﻉ |
| Phonemic representation: | ʕ | |||
| Position in alphabet: | 16 | |||
| Numerical (Gematria/Abjad) value: | 70 | |||
ʿÁyin or ʿayin is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew ע and Arabic ʿayn ع (in abjadi order). It originally represented a sound approximately like a voiced pharyngeal fricative (IPA /ʕ/), which has no equivalent in English.
Ayin is usually transliterated into the Latin alphabet with ʿ, (U+02BF) "modifier letter left half ring", a symbol based on the Greek spiritus asper ʽ, for example in the name of the letter itself, ʿayin. The grave accent ` is sometimes used as a substitute. The Maltese language, which uses a Latin alphabet (and is the only Semitic language to do so) writes the ayin as "għ".
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[edit] Origins
| Phoenician alphabet (ca. 1050–200 BCE) |
| 𐤀 𐤁 𐤂 𐤃 𐤄 𐤅 |
| 𐤆 𐤇 𐤈 𐤉 𐤊 𐤋 |
| 𐤌 𐤍 𐤎 𐤏 𐤐 |
| 𐤑 𐤒 𐤓 𐤔 𐤕 |
| Semitic abjads · Genealogy |
| Hebrew alphabet (1000 BCE–present) |
| א ב ג ד ה ו |
| ז ח ט י כך |
| ל מם נן ס ע פף |
| צץ ק ר ש ת |
| History · Transliteration Niqqud · Dagesh · Gematria Cantillation · Numeration |
| Syriac alphabet (200 BCE–present) |
| ܐ ܒ ܓ ܕ ܗ ܘ |
| ܙ ܚ ܛ ܝ ܟܟ ܠ |
| ܡܡ ܢܢ ܣ ܥ ܦ |
| ܨ ܩ ܪ ܫ ܬ |
| Arabic alphabet (400 CE–present) |
| ﺍ ﺏ ﺕ ﺙ ﺝ ﺡ |
| ﺥ ﺩ ﺫ ﺭ ﺯ س |
| ﺵ ﺹ ﺽ ﻁ ﻅ ﻉ |
| ﻍ ﻑ ﻕ ﻙ ﻝ |
| ﻡ ﻥ ه ﻭ ﻱ |
| History · Transliteration Diacritics · Hamza ء Numerals · Numeration |
The letter name is derived from West Semitic ʿen "eye", and the Proto-Canaanite letter had an eye-shape, ultimately derived from the ı͗r hieroglyph
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To this day, 'ayin in Hebrew and Arabic means "eye".
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Omicron (Ο), the Latin O, and Cyrillic (О), all representing vowels.
The sound represented by ayin is common to much of the Afrasiatic language family, such as the Egyptian, Cushitic, and Semitic languages. Some scholars believe that that the sound in Proto-Indo-European transcribed h3 was similar, though this is debatable. (See Laryngeal theory#Pronunciation.)
[edit] Transliteration
In Semitic romanization and the Egyptologist transliteration of "Egyptian ayin", ayin is represented by a character based on Greek spiritus asper, similar in shape to superscript c: ʿ (U+02BF) "modifier letter left half ring", a character of the Unicode Spacing Modifier Letters range. This character has not been encoded by Unicode (as of version 5.0), and it is common practice to use a superscript semicircle ("combining half ring" ʿ), a superscript cee (c), or an IPA pharyngeal symbol (ʕ or ˁ) in its place.
Less precise transcriptions may use an apostrophe, failing to distinguish the ayin from the glottal stop consonant, Hamza. Even this representation is often omitted, as these symbols are often misinterpreted as punctuation instead of actual consonants.
The Somali language represents the ayin with the ordinary Roman letter c.
[edit] Hebrew Ayin
| Orthographic variants | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Various Print Fonts | Cursive Hebrew |
Rashi Script |
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| Serif | Sans-serif | Monospaced | ||
| ע | ע | ע |  |
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Ayin, along with Aleph, Resh, He, and Heth, cannot receive a dagesh.
[edit] Phonetic representation
Ayin has traditionally been described as a voiced pharyngeal fricative ([ʕ]). However, this may be imprecise. Although a pharyngeal fricative have occasionally been observed for ayin in Arabic, and so therefore may occur in Hebrew as well, the sound is more commonly epiglottal ([ʢ]),[1] and may also be a pharyngealized glottal stop ([ʔˤ]).
In some historical Sephardi pronunciations, `ayin represented a velar nasal ([ŋ]) sound, as in English singing, while in non-"Mizrahi" modern Israeli Hebrew represents a glottal stop in certain cases, but is mostly silent (that is, it behaves the same as aleph). However, often changes in adjoining vowels testify to the former presence of a pharyngeal or epiglottal articulation.
In Yiddish, the ‘Áyin is used as a vowel, rather than a consonant, and represents /e/.
Ayin is also one of the three letters that can take a vowel at the end of a word, and the vowel it takes is chataf patach.
[edit] Transliteration
In Hebrew transliteration, the letter Ayin may be transliterated <`>. In Greek and Latin it was sometimes represented as <g>, since the biblical phonemes /ʕ/ (or "`") and /ʁ/ (represented by "g") were both represented in Hebrew writing by the letter ayin (see Ġayn). Because of this, we get Gomorrah from the original /ʁamora/ (modern `Amora) and Gaza from the original /ʁazza/ (`Aza), which eventually gave us the English word gauze.
[edit] Significance
In gematria, ayin represents the number 70.
Ayin is also one of the seven letters which receive a special crown (called a tagin) when written in a Sefer Torah. See Shin, Gimmel, Teth, Nun, Zayin, and Tzadi.
[edit] Arabic ʿayn
The Arabic ʿayn is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:
| Position in word: | Isolated | Initial | Medial | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Form of letter: | ع | عـ | ـعـ | ـع |
As in Hebrew, the letter originally stood for two sounds, the other being /ʁ/. When pointing was developed, ghayin was distinguished with a dot.
[edit] Pronunciation
ʿAyn is one of the most common letters in Arabic, and one of the most notoriously difficult letters for Western learners to pronounce. One piece of advice for people trying to make the ayin sound is to "sing the lowest possible note, then one lower".
Arabic ayin ranges from a pharyngeal [ʕ] to an epiglottal [ʢ], with the latter being more common.[1] However, this may be imprecise. As in Hebrew, the sound is often not a fricative at all, but either an epiglottal stop [ʡ] or a pharyngealized glottal stop [ʔˤ].
Because the sound is so difficult for most non-Arabs to pronounce, it is often used as a shibboleth by Arabic-speakers; other sounds, such as Ḥa and Ḍād are also used, typically with speakers of other Semitic languages or other dialects of Arabic. (Most Hebrew-speakers should be able to pronounce ʿayn, and Mizrahi Jews and speakers of the Ethiopic languages can typically pronounce Ḥa, but Ḍad appears to be unique to a few dialects of Arabic).
[edit] References
- ^ a b Ladefoged, Peter & Ian Maddieson (1996). The sounds of the world’s languages. Oxford: Blackwells. ISBN 0-631-19814-8
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