The letter Ayin () historically represented a voiced pharyngeal fricative.

It is voiced pharyngeal fricative, sometimes associated with a guttural glottal breath exuded in a low tone.

Additionally, the Arabic letter ع has been borrowed to indicate the voiced pharyngeal fricative as well as the glottal stop.

It is very closely related to Abkhaz, but it preserves a few phonemes which Abkhaz lacks, such as a voiced pharyngeal fricative.

(Here, ' represents the ayin sound, the voiced pharyngeal fricative, and ' represents the hamza sound, the glottal stop, and L is spelled and pronounced once.

Most striking is the loss of the glottal stop, or aleph, and the voiced pharyngeal fricative, or ayin, both of which are prominent features of West Semitic languages (for example, Akk.

The letter was derived from the Semitic "Ayin' (eye), which represented a consonant, probably the voiced pharyngeal fricative (), the sound represented by the Arabic alphabet letter ع called "Ayn'.

This connection has been rejected by linguists in modern times, however, due to the lack of the middle voiced pharyngeal fricative in the triliteral root, which is usually preserved in Tigrinya (the main language in Akkele Guzay).