For "?", see Long s. For "S?arp", see S?arp. For other uses, see S . S is the nineteenth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled ess or occasionally es (), generally es- when part of a compound word, plural esses."S" Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "ess," op. cit. History Semitic ?în ("teeth") represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative (as in ship).Greek did not have this sound, so the Greek sigma (?) came to represent . The name "sigma" probably comes from the Semitic letter "Sâmek" (fish; spine) and not "?în". In Etruscan and Latin, the value was maintained, and only in modern languages has the letter been used to represent other sounds, such as voiceless postalveolar fricative in Hunga