Resh

← Qoph Resh Shin →
Phoenician Hebrew ר Aramaic Syriac ܪ Arabic ر
Phonemic representation	r (ɾ, ʁ, ʀ)
Position in alphabet	20
Numerical value	200
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician
Greek Ρ Latin R Cyrillic Р

Resh is the twentieth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Rēsh , Hebrew Rēsh ר‬, Aramaic Rēsh , Syriac Rēsh ܪ, and Arabic Rāʾ ر. Its sound value is one of a number of rhotic consonants: usually [r] or [ɾ], but also [ʁ] or [ʀ] in Hebrew and North Mesopotamian Arabic.

In most Semitic alphabets, the letter resh (and its equivalents) is quite similar to the letter dalet (and its equivalents). In the Syriac alphabet, the letters became so similar that now they are only distinguished by a dot: resh has a dot above the letter, and the otherwise identical dalet has a dot below the letter. In the Arabic alphabet, rāʼ has a longer tail than dāl. In the Aramaic and Hebrew square alphabet, resh is a rounded single stroke while dalet is a right-angle of two strokes. The similarity led to the variant spellings of the name Nebuchadnezzar and Nebuchadrezzar.

The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Rho (Ρ), Etruscan , Latin R, and Cyrillic Р.

Origins

The word resh is usually assumed to have come from a pictogram of a head, ultimately reflecting Proto-Semitic *raʾ(i)š-. The word's East Semitic cognate, rēš-, was one possible phonetic reading of the Sumerian cuneiform sign for "head" (SAG 𒊕, ) in Akkadian.

Arabic rāʾ

The letter is named rāʾ/"rāy"/"rays" راء in Arabic. It is written in several ways depending on its position in the word:

It ranges between an alveolar trill [r], an alveolar tap [ɾ], and an uvular trill [ʀ] (the last of which is only found in some modern varieties).

The Unicode standard for Arabic scripts also lists a variant with a full stroke (Unicode character U+075b: ݛ), suggesting that this form is used in certain Northern and Western African languages and some dialects in Pakistan.^[1]

Hebrew Resh

Orthographic variants
Various print fonts			Cursive Hebrew	Rashi script
Serif	Sans-serif	Monospaced
ר	ר	ר

Hebrew spelling: רֵישׁ

In Hebrew, Resh (רֵישׁ) represents a rhotic consonant that has different realizations for different dialects:

• In Modern Hebrew, the most common pronunciation is the voiced uvular fricative [ʁ].
• Ashkenazi use sometimes a uvular trill [ʀ] or an alveolar trill [r]. English-speakers replace it sometimes it with an alveolar approximant [ɹ], as in English.
• Sephardic and Mizrahi use either an alveolar trill [r] or tap [ɾ].

Resh, along with Ayin, Aleph, Hei, and Het, does not receive a dagesh by convention. In the Yemenite tradition, Resh is treated as most other consonants in that it can receive a dagesh hazak under certain circumstances. In the most widely accepted version of the Hebrew Bible, there are 17 instances of Resh being marked with a dagesh.

In gematria, Resh represents the number 200.

Character encodings

References

External links

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