Resh

for the town in Nepal see Resh, Nepal

Resh (Arabic: look below) 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

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

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 spelling in Hebrew.
• In Ashkenazi pronunciations, either an alveolar approximant [ɹ] (as in English), a uvular trill [ʀ], or an alveolar trill [r].
• In Sephardic and Mizrahi pronunciations, either an alveolar trill [r], or flap [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.

Resh in gematria represents the number 200.

As an abbreviation

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

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

The letter is named rāʾ راء in Arabic. It is commonly known in Egypt as [ɾe]. It is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:

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