Ṣād

Tsade (also spelled , , , , tzadi, sadhe, tzaddik) is the eighteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''ṣādē'' 𐤑, Hebrew ''ṣādī'' , Aramaic ''ṣāḏē'' 𐡑, Syriac ''ṣāḏē'' ܨ, Ge'ez ''ṣädäy'' ጸ, and Arabic ''ṣād'' . It is related to the Ancient North Arabian 𐪎‎‎, South Arabian , and Ge'ez . The corresponding letter of the Ugaritic alphabet is 𐎕 ''ṣade''.

Its oldest phonetic value is debated, although there is a variety of pronunciations in different modern Semitic languages and their dialects. It represents the coalescence of three Proto-Semitic "emphatic consonants" in Canaanite. Arabic, which kept the phonemes separate, introduced variants of and to express the three (see , ). In Aramaic, these emphatic consonants coalesced instead with '' ʿayin'' and '' ṭēt'', respectively, thus Hebrew ''ereṣ'' (earth) is ''araʿ'' in Aramaic.

The Phoenician letter is continued in the Greek san (Ϻ) and possibly sampi (Ϡ), and in Etruscan 𐌑 ''Ś''. It may have inspired the form of the letter tse in the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets.

The letter is named "tsadek" in Yiddish, and Hebrew speakers often give it a similar name as well. This name for the letter probably originated from a fast recitation of the alphabet (i.e., "''tsadi'', ''qoph''" → "''tsadiq'', ''qoph''"), influenced by the Hebrew word ''tzadik'', meaning "righteous person".

Origins

The origin of is unclear. It may have come from a Proto-Sinaitic script based on a pictogram of a plant, perhaps a papyrus plant, or a fish hook (in Modern Hebrew, ' means " ehunt d, and in Arabic ' means " ehunted"). The form of the Arabic letter ''ṣād'' may be formed from a ligature of dotless ''nūn'' and the bottom part of the letter ''ṭa''.

Arabic ṣād

The letter is named ' and in Modern Standard Arabic is pronounced .

It is written in several ways depending in its position in the word:

Chapter 38 of the Quran is named for this letter, which begins the chapter.

The phoneme is not native to Persian, Ottoman Turkish, or Urdu, and its pronunciation in Arabic loanwords in those languages is not distinguishable from or , all of which are pronounced .

Hebrew tsadi

Hebrew spelling: or .

Name

In Hebrew, the letter's name is ''tsadi'' or ''ṣadi'', depending on whether the letter is transliterated as Modern Israeli "ts" or Tiberian "ṣ". Alternatively, it can be called ''tsadik'' or ''ṣadik'', spelled צָדִּיק, influenced by its Yiddish name ''tsadek'' and the Hebrew word ''tzadik''.

Variations

, like kaph, mem, pe, and nun, has a final form, used at the end of words. Its shape changes from to .

Pronunciation

In Modern Hebrew, tsade represents a voiceless alveolar affricate . This is the same in Yiddish. Historically, it represented either a pharyngealized or an affricate such as the Modern Hebrew pronunciation or Geʽez ; which became in Ashkenazi Hebrew. A geresh can also be placed after tsade (), which is pronounced (or, in a hypercorrected pronunciation, a pharyngealized ), e.g. chips.

Ṣade appears as in Yemenite Hebrew and other Jews from the Middle East, and sometimes appears in the Modern Hebrew pronunciation of Yemenite Jews.

Sephardi Hebrew pronounces like a regular s, and this is the sound value it has in Judaeo-Spanish, as in "masa" ( matzo) or "sadik" (tzadik), and rarely appears in this form in the Modern Hebrew pronunciation of Sephardic Jews.

Significance

In gematria, represents the number 90. Its final form represents 900, but this is rarely used, taw, taw, and qof (400+400+100) being used instead.

As an abbreviation, it stands for ''ṣafon'', north.

is also one of the seven letters that receive special crowns (called ''tagin'') when written in a Sefer Torah. See shin, ‘ayin, , nun, zayin, and gimmel.

In relation with Arabic

Hebrew corresponds to the letters , , and in Arabic
; Examples:
* : the word for "thirst" in Classical Arabic is and in Hebrew.
* : the word for "Egypt" in Classical Arabic is and in Hebrew.
* : the word for "egg" in Classical Arabic is and in Hebrew.

When representing this sound in transliteration of Arabic into Hebrew, it is written as or samekh with a geresh.

Syriac sade

Character encodings

See also

* Ṣ
* Z → Usage
*Tse (Cyrillic)

Notes

External links

{{Northwest Semitic abjad

Phoenician alphabet
Arabic letters
Hebrew letters
Urdu letters
Letters with final form