Нүн әрпі: тарихы, мағынасы және қазіргі қолданысы

Fourteenth letter of many Semitic alphabets

Nun is the fourteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician nūn 𐤍, Hebrew nūn נ, Aramaic nūn 𐡍‎, Syriac nūn ܢ, and Arabic nūn ن (in abjadi order). Its numerical value is 50. It is the third letter in Thaana (ނ), pronounced as "noonu". In all languages, it represents the alveolar nasal /n/. The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek nu (Ν), Etruscan , Latin N, and Cyrillic Н.

Nun is believed to be derived from an Egyptian hieroglyph of a snake (the Hebrew word for snake, nachash begins with a Nun) or eel. Some have hypothesized a hieroglyph of fish in water as its origin (In Aramaic and Akkadian nun means fish, and in Arabic, means large fish or whale). The Phoenician letter was named "fish", but the glyph has been suggested to descend from a hypothetical Proto Canaanite "snake", based on the name in Ethiopic, ultimately from a hieroglyph representing a snake, I10
(see Middle Bronze Age alphabets).

After the fall of Mosul, ISIL demanded Assyrian Christians in the city to convert to Islam, pay tribute, or face execution. ISIL begun marking homes of Christian residents with the letter nūn for Nassarah ("Nazarene"). 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 persecution of Christians and 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. Some Christians changed their profile pictures on Facebook and Twitter to pictures of the letter ن as a symbol of support. The letter ن, in relation to this social media campaign, is being called the "Mark of the Nazarene" from (نصراني; plural نصارى), a normative Arabic term disparagingly used by ISIL to brand Christians. 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).

Nun represents an alveolar nasal, (IPA: ), like the English letter N.

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.

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" (Hebrew ben). Nun is also one of the seven letters which receive a special crown (called a tag: plural tagin ) when written in a Sefer Torah. See Tag (Hebrew writing), Shin, Ayin, Teth, Gimmel, Zayin, and Tzadi. In the game of dreidel, a rolled Nun passes play to the next player with no other action.