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for the town in Nepal see Resh, Nepal

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

Resh (Arabic: rāʾ) is the twentieth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew ר and Arabic alphabet rāʾ ر. Its sound value is one of a number of rhotic consonants: usually [r] or [ɾ], but also [ʁ] or [ʀ] in Hebrew.

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 r , Latin R, and Cyrillic Р.

Origins of Resh [edit]

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, riš, was one possible phonetic reading of the Sumerian cuneiform sign for "head" (SAG 𒊕, ) in Akkadian.

Resh in Hebrew [edit]

Orthographic variants
Various Print Fonts			Cursive Hebrew	Rashi Script
Serif	Sans-serif	Monospaced
ר	ר	ר

Hebrew spelling: רֵישׁ

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

• In modern Hebrew: A voiced uvular fricative [ʁ], which is also the most common Resh pronunciation in Hebrew.
• In Ashkenazi pronunciations: Sometimes a uvular trill [ʀ] or alveolar trill [r]. Among English speakers, sometimes an alveolar approximant [ɹ] as in English.
• In Sephardic and Mizrahi pronunciations: Either an alveolar trill [r] or tap [ɾ].

Resh, along with Ayin, Aleph, Hei, and Het, is one of the letters that 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. And in the most widely accepted version of the Hebrew Bible, there exist 17 cases where Resh is marked with a dagesh.^{[citation needed]}

Resh in gematria represents the number 200.

As an abbreviation [edit]

Resh as an abbreviation can stand for Rabbi (or Rav, Rebbe, Rabban, Rabbenu, and other similar constructions).

Resh may be found after a person's name on a gravestone to indicate that they were a Rabbi or to indicate the other use of Rav, as a generic term for a teacher or a personal spiritual guide.

Spelling out [edit]

Resh is used in an Israeli phrase; after a child will say something false, one might say "B'Shin Kuf, Resh" (With Shin, Kuf, Resh). These letters spell Sheqer, which is the Hebrew word for a lie. It would be akin to an English speaker saying "That's a L-I-E."

Arabic rāʾ [edit]

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

It ranges between an alveolar trill [r] or a tap [ɾ].

The Unicode standard for Arabic scripts also lists a variant with a full stroke (Unicode character 0x075b: ݛ), suggesting that this form is used in certain Northern and Western African languages and some dialects in Pakistan.^[1]

Character encodings [edit]

References [edit]

v t e Arabic language   ( عربي ) Overviews Language Alphabet History Romanization Numerology Influence on other languages Alphabet Arabic numerals Eastern numerals Arabic Braille Algerian Diacritics Hamza Tāʾ marbūṭah Letters ʾAlif Bāʾ Tāʾ Ṯāʾ Ǧīm Ḥāʾ Ḫāʾ Dāl Ḏāl Rāʾ Zayn Sīn Šīn Ṣād Ḍād Ṭāʾ Ẓāʾ ʿAyn Ġayn Fāʾ Qāf Kāf Lām Mīm Nūn Hāʾ Wāw Yāʾ Eras Ancient North Arabian Classical Modern Notable varieties Standardized Modern Standard Arabic Regional Egyptian Levantine Maghrebi Mesopotamian Ethnic / religious Judeo-Arabic Academic Literature Names Linguistics Phonology Sun and moon letters ʾIʿrāb (inflection) Grammar Triliteral root Mater lectionis IPA Quranic Arabic Corpus Calligraphy Script Diwani Jawi script Kufic Muhaqqaq Naskh (script) Nastaʿlīq script Ruq`ah script Shahmukhī script Sini (script) Thuluth