ZAYIN

ZAYIN (Heb. ז; זַיִן), the seventh letter of the Hebrew alphabet: its numeral value is therefore 7. The earliest form of the zayin, in the c. 1500 B.C.E. Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions, consisted of two parallel strokes \!ejud\_0002\_0021\_0\_img2307 , which were later joined by a third stroke \!ejud\_0002\_0021\_0\_img2308 , \!ejud\_0002\_0021\_0\_img2309 . In the tenth century B.C.E. the letter was relatively high \!ejud\_0002\_0021\_0\_img2310 (thus also in the Archaic Greek script), but later became squat. In the Hebrew script it was written \!ejud\_0002\_0021\_0\_img2311 → \!ejud\_0002\_0021\_0\_img2312 , which developed into Samaritan \!ejud\_0002\_0021\_0\_img2313 , while in the Phoenician script it turned into \!ejud\_0002\_0021\_0\_img2314 (cf. Greek and Latin "Z") and \!ejud\_0002\_0021\_0\_img2315 . In the Aramaic script it was written as a wavy line \!ejud\_0002\_0021\_0\_img2316 which later dropped its extremities \!ejud\_0002\_0021\_0\_img2317 and then it turned into a vertical stroke \!ejud\_0002\_0021\_0\_img2318 . The vertical zayin was preserved in both the Nabatean and Jewish scripts. In Arabic – in order to distinguish it from the ra – a diacritic point was added to the za \!ejud\_0002\_0021\_0\_img2319 ; in the Jewish script, as the vertical stroke was interchangeable with the waw, a rightward hook was added to the letter top. From this form the \!ejud\_0002\_0021\_0\_img2320 developed. See alphabet , Hebrew. (Joseph Naveh)