Shin (letter)

← Resh
Shin
Taw →
← Resh Shin Taw →
Phoenician	𐤔
Hebrew	ש
Aramaic	𐡔
Syriac	ܫ
Arabic	س
Phonemic representation	ʃ (s)
Position in alphabet	21
Numerical value	300
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician
Greek	Σ
Latin	S, ß
Cyrillic	С, Ш, Щ

Shin (also spelled Šin (šīn) or Sheen) is the twenty-first and penultimate letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician šīn 𐤔, Hebrew šīn ש, Aramaic šīn 𐡔, Syriac šīn ܫ, and Arabic sīn س .^[a] Its sound value is a voiceless sibilant, [ʃ] or [s].

The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Sigma (Σ) (which in turn gave Latin S and the German letter ẞ and Cyrillic С), and the letter Sha in the Glagolitic and Cyrillic scripts (, Ш).

The South Arabian and Ethiopian letter Śawt is also cognate.

Origins

Egyptian hieroglyph

Proto-Sinaitic

Phoenician

Paleo-Hebrew

The Proto-Sinaitic glyph, according to William Albright, was based on a "tooth" and with the phonemic value š "corresponds etymologically (in part, at least) to original Semitic ṯ (th), which was pronounced s in South Canaanite".^[2]

The Phoenician šin letter expressed the continuants of two Proto-Semitic phonemes, and may have been based on a pictogram of a tooth (in modern Hebrew shen). The Encyclopaedia Judaica, 1972, records that it originally represented a composite bow.

The history of the letters expressing sibilants in the various Semitic alphabets is somewhat complicated, due to different mergers between Proto-Semitic phonemes. As usually reconstructed, there are seven Proto-Semitic coronal voiceless fricative phonemes that evolved into the various voiceless sibilants of its daughter languages, as follows:

Plain consonants
Proto-Semitic	Akkadian	Phoenician		Hebrew		Aramaic		Arabic		Old South Arabian		Ge'ez
s [s] / [ts]	s	𐤎‎	s	ס‎	s	ס‎	s	س	s	𐩯	s₃ (s)	ሰ	s
š [ʃ] / [s]	š	𐤔‎	š	שׁ‎	š	ש‎	š	س	s	𐩪	s₁ (š)
ṯ [θ]				שׁ‎	š	ש‎, later ת‎	*ṯ, š later t	ث	ṯ	𐩻	ṱ
ś [ɬ] / [tɬ]				שׂ‎	*ś, s	ש‎, later ס‎	*ś, s	ش	š	𐩦	s₂ (ś)	ሠ	ś
Emphatic consonants
Proto-Semitic	Akkadian	Phoenician		Hebrew		Aramaic		Arabic		Old South Arabian		Ge'ez
ṣ [sʼ] / [tsʼ]	ṣ	𐤑‎	ṣ	צ‎	ṣ	צ‎	ṣ	ص	ṣ	𐩮	ṣ	ጸ	ṣ
ṯ̣ [θʼ]						צ‎, later ט‎	*ṱ, ṣ later ṭ	ظ	ẓ	𐩮	ṣ	ጸ	ṣ
ṣ́ [ɬʼ] / [tɬʼ]						ק‎, later ע‎	*ṣ́, q/ḳ later ʿ	ض	ḍ	𐩳	ḍ	ፀ	ṣ́

Arabic shīn/sīn

In the Arabic alphabet, sīn is at the original (21st) position in the supposedly older Maghrebian abjadi order, represents /s/, and is the 12th letter of the modern hijā’ī (هِجَائِي) or alifbāʾī (أَلِفْبَائِي) order and is written thus:

Position in word	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	س‎	ـس‎	ـسـ‎	سـ‎

In the Mashriqi abjadi order س sīn takes the place of Samekh at 15th position;^[b] meanwhile, the letter variant shīn is placed at the original (21st) position, represents /ʃ/, and is the 13th letter of the modern hijā’ī (هِجَائِي) or alifbāʾī (أَلِفْبَائِي) order and is written thus:

Position in word	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	ش‎	ـش‎	ـشـ‎	شـ‎

The Arabic letter shīn was an acronym for "something" (شيء shayʾ(un) [ʃajʔ(un)]) meaning the unknown in algebraic equations. In the transcription into Spanish, the Greek letter chi (χ) was used which was later transcribed into Latin x. The letter shīn, along with Ṯāʾ, are the only two surviving letters in Arabic with three dots above. According to some sources, this is the origin of x used for the unknown in the equations.^[3]^[4] However, according to other sources, there is no historical evidence for this.^[5]^[6] In Modern Arabic mathematical notation, س sīn, i.e. shīn without its dots, often corresponds to Latin x. This led a debate to many Semitic linguists that the letter shīn is Arabic for samekh, although many Semitic linguists argue this debate as samekh has no surviving descendant in the Arabic alphabet.

In Moroccan Arabic, the letter ڜ, šīn with an additional three dots below, is used to transliterate the /t͡ʃ/ sound in Spanish loan words.^[7]

Position in word	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	ڜ‎	ـڜ‎	ـڜـ‎	ڜـ‎

In Unicode, this is U+069C ڜ ARABIC LETTER SEEN WITH THREE DOTS BELOW AND THREE DOTS ABOVE.

Females in the Middle East predominantly use and prefer [s] and س over /sˤ/ ص, suggesting a potential indexing of femininity within their community of practice, aligning with theories of indexicality in sociolinguistics.^[8]^[9]

Aramaic shin/sin

In Aramaic, where the use of shin is well-determined, the orthography of sin was never fully resolved.

To express an etymological *ś, a number of dialects chose either sin or samek exclusively, where other dialects switch freely between them (often 'leaning' more often towards one or the other). For example:^[10]

ʿaśar "ten"	Old Aramaic	Imperial Aramaic	Middle Aramaic	Palestinian Aramaic	Babylonian Aramaic
עשר‎	Syrian Inscriptions	Idumaean Ostraca, Egyptian, Egyptian-Persian, Ezra	Qumran	Galilean	Gaonic, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic
עסר‎	Tell Halaf	(none recorded)	Palmyrene, Syriac	Zoar, Christian Palestinian Aramaic	Mandaic
both	(none recorded)	(none recorded)	(none recorded)	Targum Jehonathan, Original Manuscript Archival Texts, Palestinian Targum (Genizah), Samaritan	Late Jewish Literary Aramaic

Regardless of how it is written, *ś in spoken Aramaic seems to have universally resolved to /s/.

Hebrew shin/sin

Orthographic variants
Various print fonts			Cursive Hebrew	Rashi script
Serif	Sans-serif	Monospaced	Cursive Hebrew	Rashi script
ש	ש	ש

Hebrew spelling: שִׁין

The Hebrew /s/ version according to the reconstruction shown above is descended from Proto-Semitic *ś, a phoneme thought to correspond to a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative /ɬ/, similar to Welsh Ll in "Llandudno".

Sin and Shin dot

The Hebrew letter represents two different phonemes: a sibilant /s/, like English sour, and a /ʃ/, like English shoe. Prior to the advent and ascendancy of Tiberian orthography, the two were distinguished by a superscript samekh, i.e. ש vs. ש^ס, which later developed into the dot. The two are distinguished by a dot above the left-hand side of the letter for /s/ and above the right-hand side for /ʃ/. In the biblical name Issachar (Hebrew: יִשָּׂשכָר) only, the second sin/shin letter is always written without any dot, even in fully vocalized texts. This is because the second sin/shin is always silent.

Name	Symbol	IPA	Transliteration	Example
Sin dot (left)	שׂ‎	/s/	s	sour
Shin dot (right)	שׁ‎	/ʃ/	sh	shop

Unicode encoding

Glyph	Unicode	Name
ׁ‎	U+05C1	SHIN DOT
ׂ‎	U+05C2	SIN DOT

Significance

forms of letter shin phoenician — The rapid evolution of kaf, mem, shin from the 13th-8th c are especially helpful to date "les écritures phéniciennes archaïques."^[11]^[12]

In gematria, Shin represents the number 300. The breakdown of its namesake, Shin[300] - Yodh[10] - Nunh[50] gives the geometrical meaningful number 360, which can be interpreted as encompassing the fullness of the degrees of circles.

Shin as a prefix commonly used in late-Biblical and Modern Hebrew language carries similar meaning as specificity faring relative pronouns in English: "that (..)", "which (..)" and "who (..)". When used this way, it is pronounced as 'sheh-' (IPA /ʃɛ-/. In colloquial Hebrew, Kaph and Shin together are a contraction of כּאשר, ka'asher (as, when).

Shin is also one of the seven letters which receive “crowns” (called tagin) in a Sefer Torah. (See Gimmel, Ayin, Teth, Nun, Zayin, and Tzadi).

According to Judges 12:6, the tribe of Ephraim could not differentiate between Shin and Samekh; when the Gileadites were at war with the Ephraimites, they would ask suspected Ephraimites to say the word shibboleth; an Ephraimite would say sibboleth and thus be exposed. This episode is the origin of the English term shibboleth.

In Judaism

Shin also stands for the word Shaddai, a Name of God. A kohen forms the letter Shin with each of his hands as he recites the Priestly Blessing. In the mid-1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan hand salute for his character, Mr. Spock, on Star Trek.^[13]^[14]

The letter Shin is often written on the case of a mezuzah, a scroll of parchment containing select Biblical texts. Sometimes the whole word Shaddai will be written.

The Shema Yisrael prayer also commands the Israelites to write God's commandments on their hearts (Deut. 6:6); the shape of the letter Shin mimics the structure of the human heart: the lower, larger left ventricle (which supplies the full body) and the smaller right ventricle (which supplies the lungs) are positioned like the lines of the letter Shin.

A religious significance has been applied to the fact that there are three valleys that comprise the city of Jerusalem's geography: the Valley of Ben Hinnom, Tyropoeon Valley, and Kidron Valley, and that these valleys converge to also form the shape of the letter shin, and that the Temple in Jerusalem is located where the dagesh (horizontal line) is. This is seen as a fulfillment of passages such as Deuteronomy 16:2 that instructs Jews to celebrate the Pasach at "the place the LORD will choose as a dwelling for his Name" (NIV).

In the Sefer Yetzirah the letter Shin is King over Fire, Formed Heaven in the Universe, Hot in the Year, and the Head in the Soul.

The 13th-century Kabbalistic text Sefer HaTemunah, holds that a single letter of unknown pronunciation, held by some to be the four-pronged shin on one side of the teffilin box, is missing from the current alphabet. The world's flaws, the book teaches, are related to the absence of this letter, the eventual revelation of which will repair the universe.

In Russian

The corresponding letter for the /ʃ/ sound in Russian is nearly identical in shape to the Hebrew shin. Given that the Cyrillic script includes borrowed letters from a variety of different alphabets such as Greek and Latin, it is often suggested that the letter sha is directly borrowed from the Hebrew letter shin (other hypothesized sources include Coptic and Samaritan).

Hebrew terms containing Shin

Shin Bet is a commonly used acronym for the Israeli Department of Internal General Security. Despite referring to a former name of the department, it remains the term usually used in English. In Modern Hebrew and Palestinian Arabic, the security service is known as the Shabak.

A Shin-Shin clash is Israeli military parlance for a battle between two tank divisions (from Hebrew: שִׁרְיוֹן, romanized: shiryon, lit. 'armour').

Sh'at haShin ('Shin hour') is the last possible moment for any action, usually in a military context. Corresponds to the English expression eleventh hour.

Character encodings

Character information
Preview	ש		س		ش		ܫ		שׁ		שׂ		שּׁ		שּׂ
Unicode name	HEBREW LETTER SHIN		ARABIC LETTER SEEN		ARABIC LETTER SHEEN		SYRIAC LETTER SHIN		HEBREW LETTER SHIN WITH SHIN DOT		HEBREW LETTER SHIN WITH SIN DOT		HEBREW LETTER SHIN WITH DAGESH AND SHIN DOT		HEBREW LETTER SHIN WITH DAGESH AND SIN DOT
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	1513	U+05E9	1587	U+0633	1588	U+0634	1835	U+072B	64298	U+FB2A	64299	U+FB2B	64300	U+FB2C	64301	U+FB2D
UTF-8	215 169	D7 A9	216 179	D8 B3	216 180	D8 B4	220 171	DC AB	239 172 170	EF AC AA	239 172 171	EF AC AB	239 172 172	EF AC AC	239 172 173	EF AC AD
Numeric character reference	ש	ש	س	س	ش	ش	ܫ	ܫ	שׁ	שׁ	שׂ	שׂ	שּׁ	שּׁ	שּׂ	שּׂ

Character information
Preview	ࠔ		⅏		𐎌		𐡔		𐤔		𐪆		𐩦		ሠ
Unicode name	SAMARITAN LETTER SHAN		SYMBOL FOR SAMARITAN SOURCE		UGARITIC LETTER SHEN		IMPERIAL ARAMAIC LETTER SHIN		PHOENICIAN LETTER SHIN		OLD NORTH ARABIAN LETTER ES-2		OLD SOUTH ARABIAN LETTER SHIN		ETHIOPIC LETTER SZA
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	2068	U+0814	8527	U+214F	66444	U+1038C	67668	U+10854	67860	U+10914	68230	U+10A86	68198	U+10A66	4640	U+1220
UTF-8	224 160 148	E0 A0 94	226 133 143	E2 85 8F	240 144 142 140	F0 90 8E 8C	240 144 161 148	F0 90 A1 94	240 144 164 148	F0 90 A4 94	240 144 170 134	F0 90 AA 86	240 144 169 166	F0 90 A9 A6	225 136 160	E1 88 A0
UTF-16	2068	0814	8527	214F	55296 57228	D800 DF8C	55298 56404	D802 DC54	55298 56596	D802 DD14	55298 56966	D802 DE86	55298 56934	D802 DE66	4640	1220
Numeric character reference	ࠔ	ࠔ	⅏	⅏	𐎌	𐎌	𐡔	𐡔	𐤔	𐤔	𐪆	𐪆	𐩦	𐩦	ሠ	ሠ

Notes

^ The position of Arabic sīn س is 21st in the Maghrebian abjadi order (quoted by apparently earliest authorities and considered older), 15th in the common abjadi order, 12th in the common hijāʾī order, & 24th in the Maghrebian hijāʾī order; its numerical value is 300 in the Maghrebian abjad order and 60 in the common abjadi order.^[1]
^ Which is occupied by ص ṣad in the Maghrebian abjadi order.

References

^ Macdonald 1986, pp. 117, 130, 149.
^ Albright, W. F. (1948). "The Early Alphabetic Inscriptions from Sinai and their Decipherment". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 110 (110): 6–22 [p. 15]. doi:10.2307/3218767. JSTOR 3218767. S2CID 163924917.
^ Terry Moore: Why is 'x' the unknown?
^ Online Etymological Dictionary
^ Cajori, Florian (1993). A History of Mathematical Notation. Courier Dover Publications. pp. 382–383. ISBN 9780486677668. Retrieved 11 October 2012. Nor is there historical evidence to support the statement found in Noah Webster's Dictionary, under the letter x, to the effect that 'x was used as an abbreviation of Ar. shei (a thing), something, which, in the Middle Ages, was used to designate the unknown, and was then prevailingly transcribed as xei.'
^ Oxford Dictionary (2nd ed.). There is no evidence in support of the hypothesis that x is derived ultimately from the mediaeval transliteration xei of shei "thing", used by the Arabs to denote the unknown quantity, or from the compendium for L. res "thing" or radix "root" (resembling a loosely-written x), used by mediaeval mathematicians.
^ de Lerchundi, José (1872). Rudimentos del árabe vulgar que se habla en el Imperio de Marruecos (PDF) (in Spanish). Madrid. pp. 5, 26, 95.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^ Silverstein, Michael (2003-07-01). "Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life". Language & Communication. 23 (3–4): 193–229. doi:10.1016/S0271-5309(03)00013-2.
^ Zibin, Aseel; Daoud, Sumaya; Altakhaineh, Abdel Rahman Mitib (2024-02-07). "Indexical meanings of the realization of /sˤ/ ص as [s] س in spoken and written Jordanian Arabic: a language change in progress?". Folia Linguistica. 58 (2): 267–290. doi:10.1515/flin-2024-2003. ISSN 1614-7308.
^ The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon
^ Dussaud 1924
^ Two distinct forms of the Phoenician shin are shown, the later more resembling Hebrew's.
^ Star Trek: The Original Series, episode #30 "Amok Time" (production #34), and I Am Not Spock, Leonard Nimoy, 1977.
^ Nimoy, Leonard (Narrator) (February 6, 2014). Live Long and Prosper: The Jewish Story Behind Spock, Leonard Nimoy's Star Trek Character. Yiddish Book Center. Archived from the original on 2021-12-13. Retrieved February 27, 2015.

Sources

Macdonald, Michael C. A. (1986). "ABCs and letter order in Ancient North Arabian". Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies (16): 101–168.

External links

[2] The position of Arabic sīn س is 21st in the Maghrebian abjadi order (quoted by apparently earliest authorities and considered older), 15th in the common abjadi order, 12th in the common hijāʾī order, & 24th in the Maghrebian hijāʾī order; its numerical value is 300 in the Maghrebian abjad order and 60 in the common abjadi order.^[1]

[4] Which is occupied by ص ṣad in the Maghrebian abjadi order.

[FOOTNOTEMacdonald1986117,_130,_149-1] Macdonald 1986, pp. 117, 130, 149.

[3] Albright, W. F. (1948). "The Early Alphabetic Inscriptions from Sinai and their Decipherment". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 110 (110): 6–22 [p. 15]. doi:10.2307/3218767. JSTOR 3218767. S2CID 163924917.

[5] Terry Moore: Why is 'x' the unknown?

[6] Online Etymological Dictionary

[7] Cajori, Florian (1993). A History of Mathematical Notation. Courier Dover Publications. pp. 382–383. ISBN 9780486677668. Retrieved 11 October 2012. Nor is there historical evidence to support the statement found in Noah Webster's Dictionary, under the letter x, to the effect that 'x was used as an abbreviation of Ar. shei (a thing), something, which, in the Middle Ages, was used to designate the unknown, and was then prevailingly transcribed as xei.'

[8] Oxford Dictionary (2nd ed.). There is no evidence in support of the hypothesis that x is derived ultimately from the mediaeval transliteration xei of shei "thing", used by the Arabs to denote the unknown quantity, or from the compendium for L. res "thing" or radix "root" (resembling a loosely-written x), used by mediaeval mathematicians.

[9] Lerchundi, José (1872). Rudimentos del árabe vulgar que se habla en el Imperio de Marruecos (PDF) (in Spanish). Madrid. pp. 5, 26, 95.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

[10] Silverstein, Michael (2003-07-01). "Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life". Language & Communication. 23 (3–4): 193–229. doi:10.1016/S0271-5309(03)00013-2.

[11] Zibin, Aseel; Daoud, Sumaya; Altakhaineh, Abdel Rahman Mitib (2024-02-07). "Indexical meanings of the realization of /sˤ/ ص as [s] س in spoken and written Jordanian Arabic: a language change in progress?". Folia Linguistica. 58 (2): 267–290. doi:10.1515/flin-2024-2003. ISSN 1614-7308.

[12] The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon

[13] Dussaud 1924

[14] Two distinct forms of the Phoenician shin are shown, the later more resembling Hebrew's.

[15] Star Trek: The Original Series, episode #30 "Amok Time" (production #34), and I Am Not Spock, Leonard Nimoy, 1977.

[16] Nimoy, Leonard (Narrator) (February 6, 2014). Live Long and Prosper: The Jewish Story Behind Spock, Leonard Nimoy's Star Trek Character. Yiddish Book Center. Archived from the original on 2021-12-13. Retrieved February 27, 2015.

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