Product Code Database
Shin (also spelled Šin ( ') or Sheen ') is the twenty-first and penultimate letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician šīn 𐤔, Hebrew alphabet šīn , Aramaic alphabet šīn 𐡔, Syriac alphabet šīn ܫ, and Arabic script sīn'' .
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Sigma () (which in turn gave rise to the Latin S, the German ẞ and the Cyrillic С), and the letter Sha in the Glagolitic and Cyrillic script scripts (, ).
The South Arabian and Ethiopian letter Śawt is also cognate. The letter šīn is the only letter of the Arabic alphabet with three dots with a letter corresponding to a letter in the Northwest Semitic abjad or the Phoenician alphabet.
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". However, the Proto-Semitic word for "tooth" has been reconstructed as * šinn-.
The Phoenician letter expressed the continuants of two Proto-Semitic phonemes, and may have been based on a pictogram of a tooth (in Hebrew language shen).
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 nine Proto-Semitic coronal fricative phonemes that evolved into the various sibilants of its daughter languages, as follows:
Notes
|
In the Arabic alphabet, according to McDonald (1986), "there can be no doubt that ش is a formal derivative of س and that س is descended from 𐡔." but unlike the Hebrew Sīn/Šīn and Aramaic Sīn/Šīn, Arabic س Sīn is considered a completely separate letter from ش Šīn .
The Arabic letter shīn was an acronym for "something" (شيء shayʾ(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. Terry Moore: Why is 'x' the unknown? Online Etymological Dictionary However, according to other sources, there is no historical evidence for this. In Modern Arabic mathematical notation, س sīn, i.e. shīn Rasm, 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 the Maghreb abjad sequence :
To express an etymological *, 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: The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon
| Syrian Inscriptions | Idumaean Ostraca, Egyptian, Egyptian-Persian, Ezra | Qumran | Galilean | Gaonic, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic | |
| 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, * in spoken Aramaic seems to have universally resolved to /s/.
| ש | ש | ש |
Hebrew spelling: שִׁין
The Hebrew version according to the reconstruction shown above is descended from Proto-Semitic *, a phoneme thought to correspond to a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative , similar to Welsh Ll in "Llandudno" ().
See also Hebrew phonology, Śawt.
| Sin dot (left) | s | sour | ||
| Shin dot (right) | sh | shop |
| U+05C1 | SHIN DOT | |
| U+05C2 | SIN DOT |
Shin as a prefix commonly used in late-Biblical and Modern Hebrew language carries similar meaning as specificity faring 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 Tzade).
According to Judges 12:6, the tribe of Ephraim could not differentiate between Shin and Samekh; when the were at war with the Ephraimites, they would ask suspected Ephraimites to say the word shi bboleth ; an Ephraimite would say sibboleth and thus be exposed. This episode is the origin of the English term shibboleth.
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 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.
A Shin-Shin clash is Israeli military parlance for a battle between two tank divisions (from ).
Sh'at haShin ('Shin hour') is the last possible moment for any action, usually in a military context. Corresponds to the English expression .
|
|
