Nun is believed to descend from an Egyptian hieroglyph of a snake (the Hebrew word for snake, nachash begins with Nun) or eel. Some[citation needed] have hypothesized a hieroglyph of fish in water as its origin (In Aramaic and Akkadian nun means fish, and in Arabic, nūn means large fish or whale). The Phoenician letter was also named nūn "fish", but this name has been suggested to descend from a hypothetical Proto-Canaanite word naḥš "snake", based on the letter name in Ethiopic, ultimately from a hieroglyph representing a snake,
Nūn is used as a suffix indicating feminine plural verb conjugations; for example هِيَ تَكْتُبhiya taktub ("she writes") becomes هُنَّ يَكْتُبْنَhunna yaktubna ("they [feminine] write").
Nūn is also used as the prefix for first-person plural imperfective/present tense verbs. Thus هُوَ يَكْتُبhuwa yaktub ("he writes") → نَحْنُ نَكْتُبnaḥnu naktub ("we write").
It is similar to the palatal nasal ⟨ɲ⟩ with a leftward hook from the left stem. Another similar sound is the velar nasal ⟨ŋ⟩ with a leftward hook from the right stem; in Saraiki, this is ݨ, combining nūn and rre ڑ: for example کݨ مݨ، چھݨ چھݨ، ونڄݨ۔ .
After the fall of Mosul, ISIL demanded Assyrian Christians in the city to convert to Islam, pay tribute, or face execution.[1] ISIL troops begun spray painting homes of Christian residents with the letter nūn for naṣrānī (نصراني; plural naṣārāنصارى, "Nazarene"), a disparaging Arabic term for Christians.[2][3] Thousands were forced to abandon their homes and land, including Christians, Yazidis (given the choice of conversion or death), Shi'a Muslims, and Muslims loyal to other Islamic nations considered apostates by ISIL.
In response to the persecution of Christians and Yazidis by ISIL, an international social media campaign was launched to raise global awareness, symbolized by the letter ن (nun)—the mark painted by ISIL.[4] Some Christians changed their profile pictures to the letter ن as a symbol of support, calling it the "Mark of the Nazarene".[5]
Naṣārā/nosrim designates Christians in Arabic, Aramaic and Hebrew, although the more common term for Christians in Modern Standard Arabic is masihi (مسيحي, plural مسيحيون).
Jawi nya
In the Jawi alphabet, the letter nya is a modified form of the letter nūn with two additional dots. However, if nya is initial or medial, its dots will be three dots below instead of three dots above, similarly how the Persian letter pe works on medial or initial form due to its similar looking. This letter also looks like tsa in general. This letter is thus written as:
The letter nya is also a suffix for indirect object belonging to him/her/it. The example is رومهڽ (rumahnya in Rumi alphabet), which means his/her/its house.
Hebrew nun
Calligraphic example of a terminal nun at a Polish synagogue: הדוכן (ha-dukhan, "the pulpit")
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 Kaph, Mem, Pe, and 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 inverted nun (׆) in the Tanakh.
Significance
In gematria, Nun represents the number 50. Its final form represents 700 but this is rarely used, 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" (Hebrewben).
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