ayin

Ayin is the 16th letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It is written as ע and is named ayin, which means "eye" in Hebrew. In gematria, its numerical value is 70. The letter belongs to the family of Semitic scripts, and its Phoenician ancestor was a pictograph representing an eye.

In pronunciation, ayin is a consonant that historically represented a glottal stop or a pharyngeal sound. In Biblical Hebrew, it is often realized as a voiced pharyngeal or glottal stop; in Modern Hebrew, it is typically silent or realized as a glottal stop by some speakers.

Graphically, ayin has no separate final form and is written the same way at the end of a word as elsewhere. It is widely used in Hebrew words, including personal names and common vocabulary.

Unicode and encoding: The Hebrew letter ayin is U+05E2. In typing, it corresponds to the character with code point 0x05E2.

Cognates and relatives: The letter is cognate with the Arabic letter 'Ayn (ع) and with other Semitic alphabets. The names of the letters in these families are traditionally linked to the ancient word for "eye."