The meaning of the letter name ayin is clear – an eye, however as was the case with zayin and chet, we find that in the earliest forms of the Hebrew alphabet there were in fact two different letters where later Hebrew has the ayin due to there originally being two different sounds.

The sign from which the later single ayin is primarily derived depicted an eye of course. The Egyptians had used this for the consonantal frame ‘-r as well as a determinative marking words related to seeing, and subsequently also for the consonantal frame m-R. In early Hebrew it was used for a “soft ayin” sound that corresponds to the sound in related Arabic words that is written in Arabic with the letter “`ayn” (which is derived from the Hebrew letter ayin). It is usually transcribed by a backwards apostrophe. In modern mainstream Arabic this sound tends to vary slightly with dialect and even with different context within a dialect but English speakers perceive it as a type of rasping guttural accent applied to the accompanying vowel. The sound in early Hebrew was probably more like the `ayn of the Zabidi dialect of Arabic spoken in parts of Yemen – not rasping and closer to the way Israelis tend to pronounce the ayin (as well as the aleph) as a click of the vocal cords, but more forceful.

The other sign that we find where later Hebrew has the ayin, depicted a harness for yoking oxen. [Misidentified by some as a kaph or a precursor of shin, however it survived in the South Arabian alphabet where its form is identical to that of the cursive version of the Egyptian yoke sign.] The Egyptians had used this for the sound scholars write as “tj” which was probably a type of ts sound, but in Hebrew it was used for a “hard ayin” sound typically transcribed “gh” which corresponds to the sound in related Arabic words written with the Arabic letter “ghayn” (which was derived from `ayn by adding a dot). In modern mainstream Arabic this sound is pronounced like modern Greek gamma, similar to a Dutch g but with vibrating vocal cords. This was also the sound of the later soft gimel (without dagesh) that exists in some Hebrew pronunciation traditions. In modern Arabic, as the equivalent of Hebrew resh is pronounced like Spanish rr, there is freedom for the ghayn sound to slip into sounding like the Hebrew resh without causing confusion and so too in Mizrachi dialects that have the soft gimel. However the gh sound of early Hebrew would not have had an r-like tendency and was probably pronounced differently to the Arabic gh. (Perhaps like an English ng which is one of the pronunciations of ayin found in both Sephardi and Ashkenazi traditions.) The name of the letter was probably ghol meaning yoke (pronounced ol in modern Hebrew).

As was the case with zayin and chet, the two sounds ended up being pronounced the same in some dialects and the decision was made to have only a single letter – the ayin. The single ayin was based on the eye sign which gave it its name. As in the case of zayin and chet it is possible that its form was a compromise as it was no longer written in the shape of an eye but was circular. As with zayin and chet the decision to have only one sign was biased towards certain dialects, in other dialects two distinct sounds remained. This was reflected in the way Hebrew names are transliterated into Greek in the Septuagint – the soft ayin is simply dropped in Greek (and subsequent English) but the hard ayin was written with a gamma (and thus a G in English) – compare English spelling of Amram vs Gaza both of which start with ayin in Hebrew. It seems that the Jewish communities of Arabia kept two distinct pronunciations right up to the time of the Islamic conquest, at least for Hebrew place names, as we find later Arabic versions of Biblical place names correctly representing soft ayin with `ayn and hard ayin with ghayn. Indeed in the Arabic language itself two sounds remained resulting in the need for Arabic to invent the new letter ghayn by adding a dot to distinguish it from `ayn. However eventually all Hebrew pronunciation traditions ended up with a single sound for the ayin although what this was differed according to dialect. In some Sephardi dialects the single ayin sound came to be pronounced like the English ng sound while in others it became the same as the Arabic rasping `ayn. In Ashkenazi pronunciation it tended to become a null consonant like the aleph, although some Ashkenazi dialects had the ng sound when the ayin was at the end of a syllable. In Israel, both the aleph and ayin have become a slight click of the vocal cords – a glottal stop.

Why does ayin come after samekh? Samekh made up a single letter series – the single hissing sound felt between the teeth. Continuing forward in the mouth the next series consists of sounds felt at the lips – the spitting sounds! The placement of the ayin at the start of the spitting sounds was based on the sound of the original eye sign (articulated at the throat) not the yoke sign and suggests that it had a strong stop sound quality in the dialect that the order of the alphabet was based on – the more forceful click of the vocal cords we mentioned above. Such a sound although articulated at the throat, produces a puff of air at the lips and is thus the appropriate sound to start the series of spitting sounds.