Resh

Resh
Phoenician
𐤓
Hebrew
ר
Aramaic
𐡓
Syriac
ܪ
Arabic
ر
Phonemic representationr (ɾ, ʁ, ʀ)
Position in alphabet20
Numerical value200
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician
GreekΡ
LatinR
CyrillicР

Resh (IPA: /ɹɛʃ/) is the twentieth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Arabic rāʾ ر‎, Aramaic rēš 𐡓‎, Hebrew rēš ר‎, Phoenician rēš 𐤓, and Syriac rēš ܪ. 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 Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek rho (Ρ/ρ), Etruscan , Latin R, Glagolitic ,[1] and Cyrillic Р.

  1. ^ Schenker, Alexander M. (1995), The Dawn of Slavic: An Introduction to Slavic Philology, New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 179, ISBN 0-300-05846-2

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