Shin (letter) languages, as follows: In the Arabic alphabet, ' is at the original (21st) position in Abjadi order. A letter variant ' takes the place of Samekh at 15th position. "" represents , and is the 13th letter of the modern alphabet order and is written thus: The Arabic letter "šīn" was an acronym for "something" ( "šayʾ(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". According to some sources, this is the origin of "x" used for the unknown in the equations.
History of the Greek alphabet foreshadowed the development of vowel letters with a limited use of "matres lectionis", that is, consonants that pulled double duty as vowels, which for historical reasons occurred mostly at the ends of words. For example, the two letters "wāw" and "yōdh" stood for both the approximant consonants and , and the long vowels and in Phoenician. By this point in time, Greek had lost its sound, so Phoenician "yōdh" was used only for its vocalic value, becoming the Greek vowel letter iota . However, several Greek dialects still had a sound, and here "wāw" was used for both of its