Letter Shin (Sin) and Mount Sin-Ai and Letter Sigma, X and Chi

Shin (also spelled Šin (šīn) or Sheen) literally means "teeth", "press", and "sharp"; It is the twenty-first letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician 𐤔, Aramaic/Hebrew ש, and Arabic ش‎ (in abjadi order, 13th in modern order). Its sound value is avoiceless sibilant, [ʃ] or [s].

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

The South Arabian and Ethiopian letter Śawt is also cognate.

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Origins[edit]

Egyptian hieroglyph
tusk

Phoenician
shin

Greek
Sigma

Roman
S

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".^{[1] (Thout??)}

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 a bit complicated, due to different mergers between Proto-Semitic phonemes. As usually reconstructed, there are five Proto-Semitic phonemes that evolved into various voiceless sibilants in daughter languages, as follows:

Proto-Semitic	Akkadian	Arabic			Hebrew		Aramaic		Ge'ez
š	s̠	س‎	s	š	שׁ	š	שׁ	š	ሰ	s
s	s	س‎	s	s	ס	s	ס	s	ሰ	s
ṣ	ṣ	ص‎	ṣ	ṣ	צ	ṣ	צ	ṣ	ጸ	ṣ
ś	s̠	ش‎	š	š	שׂ	s	שׂ or ס	s	ሠ	ś
ṣ́	ṣ	ض‎	ḍ	ṣ	צ	ṣ	ע	ʿ	ፀ	ṣ́

Hebrew Shin / Sin[edit]

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[edit]

Sin and Shin dot
שׁ שׂ
IPA	s, ʃ
Transliteration	s, sh
English example	sought, shot
Sin Dot
יִשְׂרָאֵל
The word Israel in Hebrew, Yisrael. The upper left hand dot on the Sin is a Sin dot.
Shin Dot
יֵשׁ
The Hebrew word yesh, there is. The upper right hand dot on the Shin is a Shin dot.
Other niqqud
Shva · Hiriq · Zeire · Segol · Patach ·Kamatz · Holam · Dagesh · Mappiq · Shuruk ·Kubutz · Rafe · Sin/Shin Dot

The Hebrew letter represents two different phonemes: a sibilant /s/, like English sour, and a /ʃ/, like English shoe. 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 nameIssachar (Hebrew: יִשָּׂשכָר) only, the second sin/shin letter is always written without any dot, even in fully vocalized texts.

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

Unicode encoding[edit]

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

Significance[edit]

In gematria, Shin represents the number 300.

Shin, as a prefix, bears the same meaning as the relative pronouns "that", "which" and "who" in English. In colloquial Hebrew, Kaph and Shin together have the meaning of "when". This is a contraction of כּאשר, ka'asher (as, when).

Shin is also one of the seven letters which receive special crowns (called tagin) when written 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 shibolet; an Ephraimite would say sibolet and thus be exposed. From this episode we get the English word Shibboleth.

In Judaism[edit]

Shin also stands for the word Shaddai, a name for God. Because of this, a kohen (priest) forms the letter Shin with 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.^[2]^[3]

The letter Shin is often inscribed on the case containing a mezuzah, a scroll of parchment with Biblical text written on it. The text contained in the mezuzah is the Shema Yisrael prayer, which calls the Israelites to love their God with all their heart, soul and strength. The mezuzah is situated upon all the doorframes in a home or establishment. 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 which 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.

Sayings with Shin[edit]

The Shin-Bet was an old acronym for the Israeli Department of Internal General Security.

A Shin-Shin Clash is Israeli military parlance for a battle between two tank divisions ("armour" in Hebrew is שִׁרְיוֹן - shiryon).

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

Arabic šīn/sīn[edit]

In the Arabic alphabet, šīn is at the original (21st) position in Abjadi order. A letter variant sīn takes the place of Samekh at 15th position.

In Modern Standard Arabic, initial sīn-fatḥa (though, normally diacritics are omitted) (سَـ, pronounced /sa-/) is used as a prefix to imperfective verbs to indicate the future tense. Arab grammarians generally consider this prefix to be an abbreviation of سوف sawfa, meaning (in this sense) "will." Thus سَـ sa-prefixed to يكتب yaktub ("he writes") becomes سيكتب sayaktub ("he will write").

sīn represents /s/. It is the 12th letter of the modern alphabet order and is written thus:

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

šīn represents /ʃ/, and is the 13th letter of the modern alphabet order and is written thus:

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

The Arabic letter shin was an acronym for "something" 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. According to some sources, this is the origin of <x> used for the unknown in the equations.^[4]^[5]

Aramaic Shin/Sin[edit]

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:^[6]

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/.

Sigma (disambiguation).

Look up Σ, σ, or ς in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Greek alphabet

Αα	Alpha	Νν	Nu
Ββ	Beta	Ξξ	Xi
Γγ	Gamma	Οο	Omicron
Δδ	Delta	Ππ	Pi
Εε	Epsilon	Ρρ	Rho
Ζζ	Zeta	Σσς	Sigma
Ηη	Eta	Ττ	Tau
Θθ	Theta	Υυ	Upsilon
Ιι	Iota	Φφ	Phi
Κκ	Kappa	Χχ	Chi
Λλ	Lambda	Ψψ	Psi
Μμ	Mu	Ωω	Omega

History

Archaic local variants

Numerals

Use in other languages

History[edit]

The shape and alphabetic position of Sigma is derived from Phoenician shin 𐤔

Etymology[edit]

The name of sigma, according to one hypothesis,^[1] may continue that of Phoenician Samekh. According to a different theory,^[2] its original name may have been "San " (the name today associated with another, obsolete letter), while "sigma" was a Greek innovation that simply meant "hissing", based on a nominalization of a verb σίζω (sízō, from earlier *sig-jō, meaning 'I hiss').

Uppercase of esh[edit]

The uppercase form of sigma was re-borrowed into the Latin alphabet to serve as the uppercase of modern esh (lowercase: ʃ).

Lunate sigma[edit]

The Madaba Map, a sixth-century mosaic map of Jerusalem ("Η ΑΓΙΑ ПОΛΙΣ") uses the lunate sigma.

A plaque reading "Μετόχιον Γεθσημανῆς", i.e.Metochion of Gethsemane, in Jerusalem with a lunate sigma both at the end and in the middle of the word

In handwritten Greek during the Hellenistic period (4th and 3rd centuries BC), the epigraphic form of Σ was simplified into a C-like shape.^[3] It is also found on coins from the fourth century BC onward.^[4] This became the universal standard form of sigma during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. It is today known as lunate sigma (upper-case Ϲ, lower-case ϲ), because of its crescent-like shape.

It is still widely used in decorative typefaces in Greece, especially in religious and church contexts, as well as in some modern print editions of classical Greek texts. The forms of the Cyrillic letter С (representing /s/) and Coptic letter Ⲥ sima are derived from lunate sigma.

A dotted lunate sigma (sigma periestigmenon, encoded at U+03FE Ͼ) was used by Aristarchus of Samothrace as an editorial sign indicating that the line so marked is at an incorrect position. Similarly, an antisigma or reversed sigma (Ͻ) may mark a line that is out of place. A dotted antisigma or dotted reversed sigma (antisigma periestigmenon: Ͽ) may indicate a line after which rearrangements should be made, or to variant readings of uncertain priority.

Uses[edit]

Greek[edit]

In both Ancient and Modern Greek, the sigma represents the voiceless alveolar fricative /s/. Both in Ancient and Modern Greek, this sound is voiced to /z/ before /m/ or /n/.

Berber[edit]

Upper-case Σ may be used in the Berber Latin alphabet for [ʕ], though the INALCO standard uses Ɛ instead.

Science and mathematics[edit]

Upper-case[edit]

Upper-case Σ is used as a symbol for:

the summation operator
a class of baryons in particle physics
macroscopic cross sections in nuclear and particle physics
self-energy in condensed matter physics
the balance of the invoice classes and the overall amount of the debts and demands in economics
the set of symbols that form an alphabet in linguistics and computer science
the covariance matrix of a set of random variables in probability theory and statistics, sometimes in the form $|\!\!\!\Sigma$ to distinguish it from the summation operator.
The busy beaver function

Lower-case[edit]

Lower-case σ is used for:

sigma bonds in chemistry
to represent an unknown angle in mathematics
Velocity dispersion in astronomy
Sigma constant in science
the sigma receptor in biology
the standard deviation of a population or probability distribution in statistics
a quality model for business, Six Sigma, based on the standard deviation, often referred to as "6σ"
sigma-algebras, sigma-fields, and sigma-finiteness in measure theory; in general terms, the symbol σ serves as a shorthand for "countably", e.g. a σ-compact topological space is one that can be written as a countable union of compact subsets.
the generated sigma-algebra of a set $A$ is denoted $\sigma(A)$
the sum-of-divisors function in number theory
the Stefan–Boltzmann constant
the "sigma factor" of RNA polymerase
a measure of electrical conductivity
the Surface charge density in electrostatics
Normal stress in continuum mechanics
volatility of a stock generally needed for options pricing
a syllable in phonology
the spectrum of a matrix $A$ , denoted as $\sigma(A)$ , in applied mathematics
surface tension
the unary operation of selection on a database relation in relational algebra
the Pauli matrices in quantum mechanics
a target's radar cross-section (RCS) in radar jamming or Electronic Warfare (EW)
the life span of a basic multicellular unit (BMU) in bone remodeling
the Damping Parameter in Signal processing
a millisecond in early 20th-century physiology literature.^[5]
The Weierstrass sigma-function

Politics[edit]

During the 1930s, an upper-case Σ was in use as the symbol of the Ação Integralista Brasileira, a fascist political party in Brazil.

Companies[edit]

Sigma Corporation uses the name of the letter but not the letter itself, however in many Internet forums photographers refer to the company or its lenses using the sigma letter. Sigma Aldrich incorporate both the name and the character in their logo.

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Sha has its earliest origins in Phoenician Shin and is linked closely to Shin's Greek equivalent: Sigma (Σ, σ, ς). (Note the similar form of the modern Hebrew Shin (ש), which is probably the origin of this letter, deriving from the same Proto-Canaanite source). Sha already possessed its current form in Saints Cyril and Methodius's Glagolitic alphabet. Most Cyrillic letter-forms were derived from the Greek, but as there was no Greek sign for the Sha sound (modern Greek uses simply "Σ/σ/ς" to spell the sh-sound in foreign words and names), Glagolitic Sha was adopted unchanged. There is a possibility that Sha was taken from the Coptic alphabet, which was the same as the Greek alphabet but had a few letters added at the end, including one called "shai" which somewhat resembles both sha and shcha (Щ, щ) in appearance.

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