Tsade

← Pe Tsade Qoph →
Phoenician Hebrew צ,ץ Aramaic Syriac ܨ Arabic صـ,ص
Phonemic representation	sˤ (t͡s)
Position in alphabet	18
Numerical value	90
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician
Greek Ϻ Ϡ Latin - Cyrillic Ц Џ Ч Ћ Ђ

Tsade (also spelled Ṣade, Ṣādē, Ṣaddi, Ṣad, Tzadi, Sadhe, Tzaddik) is the eighteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Ṣādē , Hebrew Ṣādi צ, Aramaic Ṣāḏē , Syriac Ṣāḏē ܨ, Ge'ez Ṣädäy ጸ, and Arabic Ṣād ص. Its oldest sound value is probably /sˤ/, although there is a variety of pronunciation in different modern Semitic languages and their dialects. It represents the coalescence of three Proto-Semitic "emphatic consonants" in Canaanite. Arabic, which kept the phonemes separate, introduced variants of ṣād and ṭāʾ to express the three (see ḍād, ẓāʾ). In Aramaic, these emphatic consonants coalesced instead with ʿayin and ṭēt, respectively, thus Hebrew ereṣ ארץ (earth) is araʿ ארע in Aramaic.

The Phoenician letter is continued in the Greek San (Ϻ) and possibly Sampi (Ϡ), and in Etruscan 𐌑 Ś. It may have inspired the form of the letter Tse in the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets.

The corresponding letter of the Ugaritic alphabet is 𐎕 ṣade.

The letter is named "tsadek" in Yiddish, and Hebrew speakers often give it a similar name as well. This name for the letter probably originated from a fast recitation of the alphabet (i.e., "tsadi, qoph" → "tsadiq, qoph"), influenced by the Hebrew word tzadik, meaning "righteous person".

Origins

The origin of ṣade is unclear. It may have come from a Proto-Sinaitic script based on a pictogram of a plant, perhaps a papyrus plant, or a fish hook (in Modern Hebrew, צד tsad means "[he] hunt[ed]", and in Arabic صاد ṣād means "[he] hunted").

Hebrew tsadi

Orthographic variants
position in word	Various print fonts			Modern Cursive Hebrew	Rashi script
	Serif	Sans-serif	Monospaced
non-final	צ	צ	צ
final	ץ	ץ	ץ

Hebrew spelling: צָדִי or צָדֵי.

Name

In Hebrew, the letter's name is Tsadi or Ṣadi, depending on whether the letter is transliterated as the common "ts" or the more scientific "ṣ".

Variations

Ṣadi, like Kaph, Mem, Pe, and Nun, has a final form, used at the end of words. Its shape changes from צ to ץ.

Pronunciation

In Modern Hebrew, צ tsade represents a voiceless alveolar affricate /t͡s/. This is the same in Yiddish. Historically, it likely represented a pharyngealized /t͡sˤ/; which became [t͡s] in Ashkenazi pronunciation. A geresh can also be placed after tsade (צ׳ ; ץ׳), giving it the sound [t͡ʃ], e.g. צִ׳יפְּס čips, meaning "chips".

Ṣade appears as [sˤ] amongst Yemenite Jews and other Jews from the Middle East; the loss of affricatisation is likely due to influence from Arabic.

Some Sephardi Jews pronounce צ like a regular s.

Significance

In gematria, Ṣadi represents the number 90. Its final form represents 900, but this is rarely used, Taw, Taw, and Qof (400+400+100) being used instead.

As an abbreviation, it stands for ṣafon, North.

Ṣadi is also one of the seven letters that receive a special crown (called tagin) when written in a Sefer Torah. See Shin, ‘Ayin, Ṭet, Nun, Zayin, and Gimmel.

Arabic ṣād

See also: the derived letter and ض (ḍād).

The letter is named ṣād ; Modern Standard Arabic pronunciation: /sˤ/.

It is written in several ways depending in its position in the word:

Position in word:	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	ص‎	ـص‎	ـصـ‎	صـ‎

Surah Ṣād of the Quran is named for this letter, which begins the surah.

The phoneme is not native to Persian, Ottoman Turkish, or Urdu, and its pronunciation in Arabic loanwords in these languages is not distinguishable from س or ث; all of them are pronounced [s].

Character encodings

Character	צ		ץ		ص		ܨ		ࠑ
Unicode name	HEBREW LETTER TSADI		HEBREW LETTER FINAL TSADI		ARABIC LETTER SAD		SYRIAC LETTER SADHE		SAMARITAN LETTER TSAADIY
Encodings	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex
Unicode	1510	U+05E6	1509	U+05E5	1589	U+0635	1832	U+0728	2065	U+0811
UTF-8	215 166	D7 A6	215 165	D7 A5	216 181	D8 B5	220 168	DC A8	224 160 145	E0 A0 91
Numeric character reference	צ	צ	ץ	ץ	ص	ص	ܨ	ܨ	ࠑ	ࠑ

Character	𐎕		𐡑		𐤑
Unicode name	UGARITIC LETTER SADE		IMPERIAL ARAMAIC LETTER SADHE		PHOENICIAN LETTER SADE
Encodings	decimal	hex	decimal	hex	decimal	hex
Unicode	66453	U+10395	67665	U+10851	67857	U+10911
UTF-8	240 144 142 149	F0 90 8E 95	240 144 161 145	F0 90 A1 91	240 144 164 145	F0 90 A4 91
UTF-16	55296 57237	D800 DF95	55298 56401	D802 DC51	55298 56593	D802 DD11
Numeric character reference	𐎕	𐎕	𐡑	𐡑	𐤑	𐤑

See also

• Ṣ
• Z → Usage
• Tse (Cyrillic)