Proto-Sinaitic letter ʿayin

E424582

Proto-Sinaitic letter ʿayin is an early consonantal sign in the Proto-Sinaitic script that represents a voiced pharyngeal or glottal sound and is the ancestor of the Semitic letter ʿayin found in later alphabets such as Phoenician and Hebrew.

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All labels observed (3)

Statements (44)

Predicate Object
instanceOf Proto-Sinaitic letter
consonantal sign
grapheme
ancestorOf Semitic letter ʿayin
associatedLanguageFamily Northwest Semitic
surface form: Northwest Semitic languages
category Semitic epigraphy
chronology Middle Bronze Age
correspondsToInArabic Arabic ʿayn (ع)
correspondsToInHebrew HEBREW LETTER AYIN
surface form: Hebrew ʿayin (ע)
correspondsToInPhoenician HEBREW LETTER AYIN
surface form: Phoenician ʿayin (𐤏)
dateRange circa 19th–15th century BCE
derivedFrom Egyptian hieroglyphic sign for eye
function consonant marker
graphemicStatus distinct consonant sign
graphemicType pictographic-derived letter
influenced Arabic alphabet
Aramaic alphabet (historically)
surface form: Aramaic alphabet

Hebrew alphabet
Phoenician alphabet
linguisticDomain historical linguistics
nameEtymology from Proto-Semitic *ʕayn ‘eye’
originOf Arabic letter ʿayn (ع)
HEBREW LETTER AYIN
surface form: Aramaic letter ʿayin

Geʿez letter ʿayn (ዐ)
Hebrew letter ʿayin
Proto-Sinaitic letter ʿayin self-linksurface differs
surface form: Phoenician letter ʿayin

South Arabian letter ʿayin
phoneticValue /ʕ/
pharyngeal fricative
pictographicOrigin eye
region Levant region
surface form: Levant

Sinai Peninsula
represents glottal consonant
voiced pharyngeal consonant
scriptFamily Proto-Canaanite script
surface form: Proto-Canaanite scripts
scriptType consonantal alphabet
semanticValue eye
studyField Semitic philology
epigraphy
paleography
usedIn Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions
writingDirection right-to-left
writingSystem Proto-Canaanite script
surface form: Proto-Sinaitic script
writingSystemStage early alphabetic

Referenced by (4)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Ayin derivedFrom Proto-Sinaitic letter ʿayin
Omicron derivedFrom Proto-Sinaitic letter ʿayin
this entity surface form: Phoenician letter Ayin
Proto-Sinaitic letter ʿayin originOf Proto-Sinaitic letter ʿayin self-linksurface differs
this entity surface form: Phoenician letter ʿayin
HEBREW LETTER AYIN hasHistoricalOrigin Proto-Sinaitic letter ʿayin
subject surface form: Hebrew letter Ayin
this entity surface form: Phoenician letter ʿayin