Shin (letter)

Based on Semitic linguists (hypothesized), Samekh has no surviving descendant in the Arabic alphabet, and that sīn is derived from Phoenician ''šīn'' 𐤔 rather than Phonecian ''sāmek'' 𐤎, but it corresponds exclusively to Arabic ''Sīn'' when comparing etymologically to other Semitic languages. In the Mashriqi abjadi order ' takes the place of Samekh at 15th position; ' in the Maghrebian abjadi order.}} meanwhile, the '''' is placed at the 21st position, represents , and is the 13th letter of the modern ''hijā’ī'' () or ''alifbāʾī'' () order and is written thus:

In the Arabic alphabet, according to McDonald (1986), "there can be no doubt that is a formal derivative of and that is descended from 𐡔." but unlike the Hebrew Sīn/Šīn and Aramaic Sīn/Šīn, Arabic Sīn is considered a completely separate letter from Šīn .

The Arabic letter ''shīn'' was an acronym for "something" ( ''shayʾ(un)'' ) meaning the unknown in algebraic equations. In the transcription into Spanish, the Greek letter ''chi'' (χ) was used which was later transcribed into Latin ''x''. The letter ''shīn'', along with ''Ṯāʾ'', are the only two surviving letters in Arabic with three dots above. According to some sources, this is the origin of ''x'' used for the unknown in the equations. However, according to other sources, there is no historical evidence for this. In Modern Arabic mathematical notation, ''sīn'', i.e. ''shīn'' without its dots, often corresponds to Latin ''x''. This led a debate to many Semitic linguists that the letter ''shīn'' is Arabic for samekh, although many Semitic linguists argue this debate as samekh has no surviving descendant in the Arabic alphabet.

In the Maghrebian abjad sequence :

* ''Ṣād'' replaces Samekh at 15th position and retains the numerical value of 60; * Sīn replaces Šīn at 21st position and retains the numerical value of 300. * Šīn takes the places of the 28th letter with a numerical value of 1000. Provided by Wikipedia