Samekh

Samekh (Phoenician sāmek 𐤎‎ ; Hebrew samekh סָמֶךְ‎, Syriac semkaṯ) is the fifteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including the Hebrew alphabet.

Samekh
Phoenician
Hebrew
ס‎
Aramaic
Syriac
ܣ
Arabic
س, ‎[note]
Phonemic representations
Position in alphabet15
Numerical value60
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician
GreekΞ
Latin-
CyrillicѮ

Samekh represents a voiceless alveolar fricative /s/. Unlike most Semitic consonants, the pronunciation of /s/ remains constant between vowels and before voiced consonants.

The numerical value of samekh is 60.

History

The Phoenician letter may continue a glyph from the Middle Bronze Age alphabets, either based on a hieroglyph for a tent peg or support, possibly the djed "pillar" hieroglyph[1] (c.f. Hebrew root סמך s-m-kh 'support', סֶמֶךְ semekh 'support, rest', סוֹמֵךְ somekh 'support peg, post', סוֹמְכָה somkha 'armrest', סָמוֹכָה smokha 'stake, support', indirectly s'mikhah סמיכה; Aramaic סַמְכָא samkha 'socket, base', סְמַךְ smakh 'support, help'; Syriac ܣܡܟܐ semkha 'support').

The shape of samek undergoes complicated developments. In archaic scripts, the vertical stroke can be drawn either across or below the three horizontal strokes. The closed form of Hebrew samek is developed only in the Hasmonean period.[2]

Phoenician/Paleo-Hebrew
(c. 800 BC)		 Samaritan
(c. 400 BC)		 Imperial Aramaic
(c. 400 BC)		 Hebrew
(from ca. 50 BC)
ࠎ‎


The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek xi (Ξ),[3] whereas its name may also be reflected in the name of the otherwise unrelated Greek letter sigma.[4]

The archaic "grid" shape of Western Greek xi () was adopted in the early Etruscan alphabet (𐌎 esh), but was never included in the Latin alphabet.

Syriac semkat

The Syriac letter semkaṯ ܣܡܟܬ develops from the Imperial Aramaic "hook" shape 𐡎 into a rounded form by the 1st century. The Old Syriac form further develops into a connected cursive both in the Eastern and Western script variants.

Aramaic Old Syriac Eastern Western

Hebrew samekh

Hebrew samekh develops a closed cursive form in the middle Hasmonean period (1st century BC). This becomes the standard form in early Herodian hands.[2]

Orthographic variants
Various print fonts Cursive
Hebrew		 Rashi
script
SerifSans-serifMonospaced
ס ס ס

Talmudic legend

In Talmudic legend, samekh is said to have been a miracle of the Ten Commandments. Exodus 32:15 records that the tablets "were written on both their sides." The Jerusalem Talmud interprets this as meaning that the inscription went through the full thickness of the tablets. The stone in the center parts of the letters ayin and teth should have fallen out, as it was not connected to the rest of the tablet, but it miraculously remained in place. The Babylonian Talmud (tractate Shabbat 104a) also cites the opinion that these closed letters included samekh, attributed to Rav Chisda (d. ca. 320).[5]


Arabic Sīn & Nabataean Simkath

Samekh has no continuant in the Arabic alphabet, its numerical value is taken by Arabic Šīn. However the Nabataean alphabet, which is the direct ancestor to the Arabic alphabet, contained the letter Simkath .

Moreover, the letter Sīn takes over the place of Simkath/Samekh at the 15th position of the Arabic abjadi sequence.

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

Character encodings
Character information
Previewסܣܤࠎ
Unicode nameHEBREW LETTER SAMEKHSYRIAC LETTER SEMKATHSYRIAC LETTER FINAL SEMKATHSAMARITAN LETTER SINGAAT
Encodingsdecimalhexdecimalhexdecimalhexdecimalhex
Unicode1505U+05E11827U+07231828U+07242062U+080E
UTF-8215 161D7 A1220 163DC A3220 164DC A4224 160 142E0 A0 8E
Numeric character referenceססܣܣܤܤࠎࠎ
Character information
Preview𐎒𐡎𐤎
Unicode nameUGARITIC LETTER SAMKAIMPERIAL ARAMAIC LETTER SAMEKHPHOENICIAN LETTER SEMKA
Encodingsdecimalhexdecimalhexdecimalhex
Unicode66450U+1039267662U+1084E67854U+1090E
UTF-8240 144 142 146F0 90 8E 92240 144 161 142F0 90 A1 8E240 144 164 142F0 90 A4 8E
UTF-1655296 57234D800 DF9255298 56398D802 DC4E55298 56590D802 DD0E
Numeric character reference𐎒𐎒𐡎𐡎𐤎𐤎
Character information
Preview𐢖س
Unicode nameNABATAEAN LETTER SAMEKHARABIC LETTER SEEN
Encodingsdecimalhexdecimalhex
Unicode67734U+108961587U+0633
UTF-8240 144 162 150F0 90 A2 96216 179D8 B3
UTF-1655298 56470D802 DC9615870633
Numeric character reference𐢖𐢖سس

References
  1. Betro, M. C. (1996). Hieroglyphics. Abbeyville Press, NY, p. 209.
  2. Frank Moore Cross, Leaves from an Epigrapher's Notebook: Collected Papers in Hebrew and West Semitic Palaeography and Epigraphy (2018), p. 30.
  3. Muss-Arnolt, W. (1892). On Semitic Words in Greek and Latin. Transactions of the American Philological Association v. 23, p. 35-156. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
  4. Jeffery, Lilian H. (1961). The local scripts of archaic Greece. Oxford: Clarendon. pp. 25–27.
  5. The William Davidson Talmud , Shabbat 104a.
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