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Ayin (עין) means "eye" in Hebrew. It is also the 16th Letter of the Hebrew alphabet (ע).

More information about the letter Ayin

Ayin is the sixteenth letter of the various Semitic alphabets, including:

  • Phoenician ʿayin = ?
  • Hebrew ʿayin = ע
  • Aramaic ʿē = ?
  • Ugaritic 'Ain = ?
  • Syriac ʿē = ܥ
  • Arabic ʿayn = ع (where it is sixteenth in abjadi order only). ﻉ comes twenty‐first in the Persian alphabet and eighteenth in the hijaʾi order of Arabic.


The ʿayin glyph in these various languages represents or used to represent a voiced pharyngeal fricative (/ʕ/) or a similarly articulated consonant, of which there is not even an approximate substitute sound in English. There are many possible transliterations. It sounds to English speakers like a gulp or a swallow. In Modern Hebrew, most Israelis treat it as a silent letter. In Iran it is also silent or pronounced like a glottal stop.

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14y ago

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