Editing M (section)

==History==
{| class="wikitable"
! Egyptian hieroglyph<br/>"n"
! Phoenician<br/>[[Mem]]
! Western Greek<br/>[[Mu (letter)|Mu]]
! Etruscan<br/>M
! Latin<br/>M
|--- align=center
|<hiero>n</hiero>
| [[File:PhoenicianM-01.svg|class=skin-invert-image|25x25px]]
| [[File:Greek Mu 04.svg|class=skin-invert-image|35px]]
| [[File:EtruscanM-01.svg|class=skin-invert-image|25px]]
| [[File:Capitalis monumentalis M.SVG|class=skin-invert-image|x30px|Latin M]]
|}
The letter M is derived from the [[Phoenician alphabet|Phoenician]] [[Mem]] via the [[Greek alphabet|Greek]] [[Mu (letter)|Mu]] (Μ,&nbsp;μ). [[Semitic alphabets|Semitic]] Mem is most likely derived from a "[[Proto-Sinaitic script|Proto-Sinaitic]]"  ([[Bronze Age]]) adoption of the [[N-water ripple (n hieroglyph)|"water" ideogram]] in [[Egyptian hieroglyphs|Egyptian writing]]. The Egyptian sign had the [[acrophonic]] value {{IPA|/n/}}, from the Egyptian word for "water", ''nt''; the adoption as the Semitic letter for {{IPA|/m/}} was presumably also on acrophonic grounds, from the [[Semitic languages|Semitic]] word for "water", ''[[:wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Semitic/maʾ-|*mā(y)-]]''.<ref>See F. Simons, "Proto-Sinaitic — Progenitor of the Alphabet" ''Rosetta'' 9 (2011):
Figure Two: "Representative selection of proto-Sinaitic characters with comparison to Egyptian hieroglyphs", (p. 38)
Figure Three: "Chart of all early proto-Canaanite letters with comparison to proto-Sinaitic signs" (p. 39),
Figure Four: "Representative selection of later proto-Canaanite letters with comparison to early proto-Canaanite and proto-Sinaitic signs" (p. 40). See also: Goldwasser (2010), following Albright (1966), "Schematic Table of Proto-Sinaitic Characters" ([https://www.apocalypse2008-2015.com/images/Proto-Sinaitic_Table.gif fig. 1] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160703163923/http://apocalypse2008-2015.com/images/Proto-Sinaitic_Table.gif |date=2016-07-03 }}).</ref>