San (letter)

Greek alphabet
Αα Alpha	Νν Nu
Ββ Beta	Ξξ Xi
Γγ Gamma	Οο Omicron
Δδ Delta	Ππ Pi
Εε Epsilon	Ρρ Rho
Ζζ Zeta	Σσς Sigma
Ηη Eta	Ττ Tau
Θθ Theta	Υυ Upsilon
Ιι Iota	Φφ Phi
Κκ Kappa	Χχ Chi
Λλ Lambda	Ψψ Psi
Μμ Mu	Ωω Omega
Obsolete letters
Digamma	Qoppa
San	Sampi
Other characters
Stigma	Sho
Heta
Greek diacritics

San (uppercase Ϻ, lowercase ϻ) was a letter of the Greek alphabet, appearing between Pi and Qoppa in alphabetical order, corresponding in position to the Phoenician Tsade , but its name comes from Shin . It usually had a phonemic value of /s/, but eventually became disused in favour of sigma. The latest attested use is in the 6th century BC. With a somewhat different shape (which has been labelled "Tsan"^[1]) the letter was also used in Arcado-Cypriot as [ts], replacing a previous labio-velar before a front vowel, where other dialects replaced it with Tau.

The Phoenician or the Greek letter was lent into the Old Italic alphabets (𐌑, transcribed as Ś), in the archaic Etruscan alphabet retaining its M-shape but from the 6th century BC changing its aspect to a shape similar to that of the d-rune .

[edit] Computer encoding

The letter san as it appears in four basic fonts: Times New Roman, Lucida Grande, Arial, and Helvetica.

The Tsan variant has a glyph identical to the Pamphylian Greek digamma, U+0376 U+0377, which is included in Unicode since version 5.1.

[edit] References

1. ^ History and representation of Tsan

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