NUN

NUN (Heb. נ, ן ;נוּן), the fourteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet; its numerical value is 50. The earliest representation of this letter is a pictograph of a serpent \!ejud\_0002\_0015\_0\_img1708 , which developed into the early Phoenician \!ejud\_0002\_0015\_0\_img1709 . The later variants are Hebrew \!ejud\_0002\_0015\_0\_img1710 (Samaritan \!ejud\_0002\_0015\_0\_img1711 ),Phoenician \!ejud\_0002\_0015\_0\_img1712 , and Aramaic \!ejud\_0002\_0015\_0\_img1713 . During the late fifth century B.C.E. and after, in Aramaic cursive in the medial position the downstroke bent leftward \!ejud\_0002\_0015\_0\_img1714 . Thus the Jewish medial \!ejud\_0002\_0015\_0\_img1715 and final \!ejud\_0002\_0015\_0\_img1716 nun forms developed. The Nabatean cursive medial nun \!ejud\_0002\_0015\_0\_img1717 became more and more similar to medial bet, yod, and taw; in Arabic diacritic marks distinguish nun \!ejud\_0002\_0015\_0\_img1718 from ba ( \!ejud\_0002\_0015\_0\_img1719 ), ya ( \!ejud\_0002\_0015\_0\_img1720 ), and ta ( \!ejud\_0002\_0015\_0\_img1721 ). The ancestor of the Latin "N", the Archaic Greek \!ejud\_0002\_0015\_0\_img1722 , developed from the early Phoenician nun. See alphabet , Hebrew. (Joseph Naveh)