The Ancient Hebrew Alphabet

Early Hebrew	Middle Hebrew

Late Hebrew	Modern Hebrew

Ancient Name:	Nun
Pictograph:	Sprouting Seed
Meanings:	Continue, Heir, Son
Sound:	N

History & Reconstruction

The ancient pictograph is a picture of a seed sprout representing the idea of continuing to a new generation. This pictograph has the meanings of "continue," "perpetuation," "offspring" and "heir."

The Modern Hebrew name is nun, a Hebrew word meaning to "continue," "offspring" and "heir." This two-letter word is the original name for the letter. The phonetic sound for this letter is "n," as it is in all other languages.

The Early Semitic

evolved into

in the Middle Semitic script and continued to evolve into

in the Late Semitic script. The Late Semitic script became the Modern Hebrew נ and ן (final nun). The Middle Semitic script became the N (written in reverse direction from the Hebrew) in both the Greek and Roman alphabets.

Semitic Script Charts