Ayin (alsoayn orain; transliterated⟨ʿ⟩) is the sixteenthletter of theSemitic scripts, includingPhoenicianʿayin 𐤏,Hebrewʿayinע‎,Aramaicʿē 𐡏,Syriacʿē ܥ, andArabicʿaynع‎ (where it is sixteenth inabjadi order only).^{[note 1]} It is related to theAncient North Arabian 𐪒‎‎,South Arabian𐩲, andGe'ezዐ.

The letter represents avoiced pharyngeal fricative (/ʕ/) or a similarly articulated consonant. In some Semitic languages and dialects, the phonetic value of the letter has changed, or the phoneme has been lost altogether. In the revivedModern Hebrew it is reduced to aglottal stop or is omitted entirely, in part due to Ashkenazi European influence and their difficulty in pronouncing the consonant.^{[citation needed]}

The Phoenician letter is the origin of the Greek, Latin and Cyrillic lettersO,O andO. It is also the origin of the Armenian lettersՈ andՕ.

The Arabic character is the origin of the Latin-script letterƸ.

The letter name is derived fromProto-Semitic*ʿayn- "eye", and the Phoenician letter had the shape of a circle or oval, clearly representing an eye, perhaps ultimately (viaProto-Sinaitic) derived from theı͗rhieroglyph𓁹 (Gardiner D4).^[1]

{{cnspan|The Phoenician letter gave rise to theGreekΟ, LatinO, andCyrillicО, all representing vowels. It is also gave rise to the Greek letteromega as well as itsCyrillic counterpart. The sound represented by ayin is common to much of theAfroasiatic language family, such as in theEgyptian language, theCushitic languages and theSemitic languages.|date=March 2025}}

ʿayn عين
ع
Usage
Writing system	Arabic script
Type	Abjad
Language of origin	Arabic language
Sound values	ʕ
Alphabetical position	18
History
Development	ع
Other
Writing direction	Right-to-left
This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

The Arabic letterﻉﻋَﻴْﻦْʿayn/ʕajn/ is the eighteenth letter of thealphabet. It is written in one of several ways depending on its position in the word:

Arabic ʿayn is one of the most common letters in Arabic.^{[citation needed]} Depending on the region, it ranges from apharyngeal[ʕ] to anepiglottal[ʢ].^[2] It isvoiced, its voiceless counterpart beingح. Due to its position as the innermost letter to emerge from the throat,al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi, who wrote the first Arabic dictionary, actually started writing hisKitab al-'Ayn ('The Book of ʿAyn') withʿayn as the first letter instead of the eighteenth; he viewed its origins deep down in the throat as a sign that it was the first sound, the essential sound, the voice and a representation of the self.^[3]

In the Persian language and other languages using the Persian alphabet, this letter has a different function and is pronounced as /ʔ/ (glottal stop), and rarely as /ʁ/ in some languages. As in Hebrew, the letter originally stood for two sounds, /ʕ/ and /ʁ/. When pointing was developed, the sound /ʁ/ was distinguished with a dot on top (غ), to give the letter ghayn. In Maltese, which is written with the Latin alphabet, the digraph għ, called għajn, is used to write what was originally the same sound. Because the sound is difficult for most non-Arabs to pronounce, it is often used as a shibboleth by Arabic speakers; other sounds, such as Ḥā and Ḍād are also used. It is typically represented with a 3 in the Arabic chat alphabet.^{[citation needed]}

In some languages of Southeast Asia, the letternga is used. The letter is derived from the letterʿayn, which latter is derived from the letterghayn, and it is thus written as:

This letter, derived fromghayn (غ‎), is used to represent/ŋ/ in:

• theJawi script,^[4] for
  • Acehnese
  • Banjarese
  • Kerinci
  • Maguindanaon
  • Malay
  • Minangkabau
  • Tausūg
  • Ternate
• thePegon script, for
  • Javanese
  • Sundanese
• Arabic Afrikaans, forAfrikaans historically, calledngīn ([ŋiːn])

In theWolofal alphabet, for writingWolof in Arabic script, the letterngōn is used, and it is thus written as:

This letter also derived from the letterʿayn, which latter is derived from the letterghayn. This leter is to represent/ŋ/ in the Wolof language, aNiger-Congo language.

This letter also derived from the letterʿayn, which latter is derived from the letterghayn, with three dots inside the descender, to represent/ŋ/ in theArwi script used forTamil.

For the related characters, seeng (Arabic letter) andghayn.

Hebrew spelling:עַיִן‎

ʿayin has traditionally been described^{[by whom?]} as avoiced pharyngeal fricative ([ʕ]). However, this may be imprecise. Although a pharyngeal fricative has occasionally been observed for ʿayin in Arabic and so may occur in Hebrew as well, the sound is more commonlyepiglottal ([ʢ]),^[2] and may also be apharyngealized glottal stop ([ʔˤ]).^{[citation needed]}

In some historical Sephardi and Ashkenazi pronunciations, ʿayin represented avelar nasal ([ŋ]).^[5] Remnants can be found in the Yiddish pronunciations of some words such as /ˈjaŋkəv/ and /ˈmansə/ from Hebrewיַעֲקֹב‎ (yaʿăqōḇ, "Jacob") andמַעֲשֶׂה‎ (maʿăse, "story"), but in other cases^[which?], the nasal has disappeared and been replaced by /j/, such as /ˈmajsə/ and /ˈmajrəv/ from Hebrewמַעֲשֶׂה‎ andמַעֲרָב‎ (maʿărāḇ, "west"). In Israeli Hebrew (except for Mizrahi pronunciations), it represents a glottal stop in certain cases^[which?] but is usually silent (it behaves the same asaleph).However, changes in adjoining vowels often testify to the former presence of a pharyngeal or epiglottal articulation. Additionally, it may be used as a shibboleth to identify the ethnolinguistic background of a Hebrew-speaker, as most Israeli Arab and some of Israel's Mizrahi Jews (mainly Yemenite Jews) use the more traditional pronunciation, while other Hebrew-speakers pronounce it similar to Aleph.^{[citation needed]}

Ayin is also one of the three letters that can take a furtive patach (patach ganuv). In Hebrew loanwords in Greek and Latin, ʿayin is sometimes reflected as /g/, since the biblical phonemes /ʕ/ (or "ʿ") and /ʁ/ (represented by "g") were both represented in Hebrew writing by the letter ʿayin (see Ġain). Gomorrah is from the original /ʁamora/ (modern ʿAmora) and Gaza from the original /ʁazza/ (ʿaza) (cf. Arabic غزة Ġazzah, IPA: [ˈɣazza].) In Yiddish, the ʿayin is used to write the vowel e when it is not part of the diphthong ey.^{[citation needed]}

Ingematria, ʿayin represents the number 70.

ʿayin is also one of the seven letters which receive special crowns (calledtagin) when written in asefer Torah.

InSemitic philology, there is a long-standing tradition of rendering Semitic ayin with the Greekrough breathing mark⟨῾⟩ (e.g.῾arabعَرَبArabs).Depending on typography, this could look similar to either an articulate single openingquotation mark⟨ʻ⟩ (e.g.ʻarabعَرَب).or as a raised semi-circle open to the right⟨ʿ⟩ (e.g.ʿarabعَرَب).^{[note 2]}

This is by analogy to the transliteration ofalef (glottal stop,hamza) by the Greeksmooth breathing mark⟨᾽⟩, rendered as single closing quotation mark or as raised semi-circle open to the left. This convention has been adopted by DIN in 1982 and by ISO in 1984 for Arabic (DIN 31635,ISO 233) and Hebrew (DIN 31636,ISO 259).

The shape of the "raised semi-circle" for ayin⟨ʿ⟩ and alef⟨ʾ⟩ was adopted by theEncyclopedia of Islam (edited 1913–1938, 1954–2005, and from 2007), and from there by theInternational Journal of Middle East Studies.^[6]This convention has since also been followed by ISO (ISO 233-2 andISO 259-2, 1993/4) and by DIN^{[year needed]}.A notable exception remains,ALA-LC (1991), the system used by theLibrary of Congress, continues to recommend modifier letter turned comma⟨ʻ⟩ (for Hebrew) or left single quotation mark⟨‘⟩ (for Arabic).^[7]

The symbols for the corresponding phonemes in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet,⟨ʕ⟩ forpharyngeal fricative (ayin) and⟨ʔ⟩ forglottal stop (alef) were adopted in the1928 revision.

In anglicized Arabic or Hebrew names or in loanwords, ayin is often omitted entirely:Iraqʿirāqعراق,Arabʿarabعرب,Saudisuʿūdīسعودي , etc.;Afulaʿăfūlāעֲפוּלָה,Aradʿărādעֲרָד, etc.

Maltese, which uses a Latin alphabet, the only Semitic language to do so in its standard form, writes the ayin as ⟨għ⟩. It is usually unvocalized in speech. The Somali Latin alphabet and Cypriot Arabic alphabet represents the ayin with the letter ⟨c⟩. The informal way to represent it in Arabic chat alphabet uses the digit ⟨3⟩ as transliteration.^{[citation needed]}

InUnicode, the recommended character for the transliteration of ayin isU+02BFʿMODIFIER LETTER LEFT HALF RING (a character in theSpacing Modifier Letters range, even though it is here not used as a modifier letter but as a full grapheme).^{[note 3][clarification needed]} This convention has been adopted byISO 233-2 (1993) for Arabic andISO 259-2 (1994) for Hebrew.

There are a number of alternative Unicode characters in use, some of which are easily confused or even considered equivalent in practice:^[8]

• U+1FFE῾GREEK DASIA, the character used to represent Greekrough breathing,
• U+02BDʽMODIFIER LETTER REVERSED COMMA,
• U+2018‘LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK,^{[note 4]}
• U+02BBʻMODIFIER LETTER TURNED COMMA,
• U+0060`GRAVE ACCENT, from its use as single opening quotation mark inASCII environments, used for ayin inArabTeX.

Letters used to represent ayin:

• a superscript "c" (U+1D9CᶜMODIFIER LETTER SMALL C),
• theIPA symbol forpharyngealization (U+02C1ˁMODIFIER LETTER REVERSED GLOTTAL STOP orU+02E4ˤMODIFIER LETTER SMALL REVERSED GLOTTAL STOP)^{[note 5]} or^ʕ, a superscriptU+0295ʕLATIN LETTER PHARYNGEAL VOICED FRICATIVE, the IPA symbol forvoiced pharyngeal fricative,

The phonemes corresponding to alef and ayin inAncient Egyptian are by conventiontransliterated by more distinctive signs:Egyptian alef is rendered bytwo semi-circles open to the left, stacked vertically, andEgyptian ayin is rendered by a single full-width semi-circle open to the right. These characters were introduced in Unicode in version 5.1 (2008,Latin Extended-D range),U+A723ꜣLATIN SMALL LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL ALEF andU+A725ꜥLATIN SMALL LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL AIN.

• Transliteration of Ancient Egyptian
• Ng (Arabic letter)
• Ghayn
• Gaf
• Għ
• Cyrillic Ghayn, used for several Central Asian languages

•   Media related toAyin (letter) at Wikimedia Commons