Resh

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Resh

Resh is the twentieth letter of many Semitic

Semitic

In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages....
alphabets

History of the alphabet

The history of the alphabet begins in Ancient Egypt, more than a millennium into the history of writing. The first pure alphabet emerged around 2000 BCE to represent the language of Semitic workers in Egypt , and was derived from the alphabetic principles of the Egyptian hieroglyphs....
, including Phoenician, Aramaic

Aramaic language

Aramaic is a Semitic languages with a 3,000-year history. It has been the language of administration of empires and the language of divine worship....
, Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
and Arabic alphabet

Arabic alphabet

The Arabic alphabet is the writing system used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic language, Persian language, and Urdu language....
. Its sound value is one of a number of rhotic consonant

Rhotic consonant

Rhotic consonants, or "R"-like sounds, are non-lateral liquid consonants. This class of sounds is difficult to characterise phonetically, though most of them share some acoustic peculiarities, most notably a lowered third formant in their sound spectrum....
s: usually or but also or in Hebrew.

In most Semitic alphabets, the letter resh (and its equivalents) is quite similar to the letter dalet

Dalet

Dalet is the fourth Letter of many Semitic languages alphabets, including Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic alphabet, Hebrew alphabet , Syriac alphabet and Arabic alphabet ....
(and its equivalents). In the Syriac alphabet

Syriac alphabet

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Encyclopedia

Resh is the twentieth letter of many Semitic

Semitic

In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages....
alphabets

History of the alphabet

Aramaic language

Aramaic is a Semitic languages with a 3,000-year history. It has been the language of administration of empires and the language of divine worship....
, Hebrew

Hebrew language

Arabic alphabet

Rhotic consonant

Dalet

Syriac alphabet

The Syriac alphabet is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language from around the 2nd century BC. It is one of the Semitic languages abjads directly descending from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet and shares similarities with the Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic alphabet, and Hebrew alphabet alphabets....
, 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, has a longer tail than . 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
Nebuchadnezzar

Nebuchadnezzar was the name of several kings of Babylonia.* Nebuchadrezzar I, who ruled the Babylonian Empire in the 1100s BC. His death causes the Chaldean Empire to crumble and fall 30 years after his death....
and Nebuchadrezzar.

The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek

Greek alphabet

The Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th century BC or early 8th century BCE....
Rho

Rho

Rho may refer to:*Rho , a letter of the Greek alphabet, upper case ?, lower case ?...
, Etruscan r , Latin

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
R

R is the eighteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled ar ....
, and Cyrillic

Cyrillic alphabet

The Cyrillic alphabet is a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by five Slavic languages national languages as well as non-Slavic . It is also used by many other languages of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Siberia and other languages in the past....
?

or is a letter derived from the Latin alphabet. Both glyphs of the majuscule and Lower case forms of this letter are based on the rotated form of a minuscule e; a similar letter with identical minuscule is used in the Pan-Nigerian Alphabet, but has the capital form majuscule , based on a horizontally flipped majuscule E....
.

Origins of Resh

The word resh is usually assumed to have come from a pictogram of a head, ultimately reflecting Proto-Semitic *ra?(i)š-. The word's East Semitic cognate, riš, was one possible phonetic reading of the Sumerian cuneiform

Cuneiform

Cuneiform can refer to:*Cuneiform script, an ancient writing system originating in Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC*Cuneiform , three bones in the human foot...
sign for "head" (SAG ??, ) in Akkadian

Akkadian language

Akkadian or Assyrian-Babylonian is a Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian language, an unrelated language isolate....
.

Resh in Hebrew

Orthographic Orthography The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Orthography is derived from Greek language ????? orth?s and ???fe?? gr?phein .... variants
Various Print Fonts			Cursive Hebrew	Rashi Script Rashi script Rashi script is a semi-Hebrew cursive typeface for the Hebrew alphabet, in which Rashi#Works are printed both in the Talmud and Tanakh . This does not mean that Rashi himself used such a script: the typeface is based on a 15th century Sephardi Jews semi-cursive hand and was called by the Ashkenazic Rishonim - the Hachmei Provence script....
Serif	Sans-serif Sans-serif In typography, a sans-serif or sans serif typeface is one that does not have the small features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. The term comes from the French word sans, meaning "without"....	Monospaced	Cursive Hebrew
?	?	?

In Hebrew

Hebrew language

In modern Hebrew, a voiced uvular fricative
Voiced uvular fricative

The voiced uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is R....
.
In Ashkenazi pronunciations, either an alveolar approximant
Alveolar approximant

The alveolar approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents alveolar consonant and postalveolar consonant approximant consonant is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r....
(as in English) or sometimes a uvular trill
Uvular trill

The uvular trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a small capital R....
.
In Mizrahi
Mizrahi Jews

Mizrahi Jews or Mizrahim, , also referred to as Adot HaMizrach are Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and the Caucasus....
pronunciations, either an alveolar trill
Alveolar trill

The alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental consonant, alveolar consonant, and postalveolar consonant trill consonant is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r....
, or flap .

Resh, along with Ayin

Ayin

' or ' is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic language, Hebrew language and Arabic alphabet ....
, Aleph, Hei

He (letter)

He is the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician alphabet , Aramaic alphabet, Hebrew alphabet , Syriac alphabet and Arabic alphabet ....
, and Het

Heth (letter)

or is the reconstructed name of the eighth letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, continued in descended Semitic alphabets as Phoenician alphabet , Syriac alphabet , Hebrew alphabet chet , Arabic alphabet , and Tifinagh ....
, cannot receive a dagesh

Dagesh

The dagesh is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It was added to the Hebrew language orthography at the same time as the Masoretic system of niqqud ....
.

Resh in gematria

Gematria

Gematria or gimatria is a system of assigning number to an alphabet. The word "gematria" is generally held to derive from Greek geometria, "geometry", which was used a translation of gema?riya....
represents the number 200.

As an abbreviation

Resh as an abbreviation can stand for Rabbi

Rabbi

Rabbi , in Judaism, means a religious ?teacher?, or more literally, ?my great one?, when addressing any master. The word rabbi derives from the Hebrew root word , rav, which in biblical Hebrew means ?great?, used in many senses, including the sense of a ?master? and apprentice, whence someone who is a distinguished ?teacher?....
(or Rav

Rav

Rav is the Hebrew word for rabbi. For a more nuanced discussion see semicha. The term is also frequently used by Orthodox Jews to refer to one's own rabbi....
, Rebbe

Rebbe

Rebbe which means master, teacher, or mentor is a Yiddish word derived from the identical Hebrew language word Rabbi. It mostly refers to the leader of a Hasidic Judaism Jewish movement....
, 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

Rav

Rav is the Hebrew word for rabbi. For a more nuanced discussion see semicha. The term is also frequently used by Orthodox Jews to refer to one's own rabbi....
, 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

Shin

Shin may refer to:* Shinbone, the larger of the two bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates* Shin Buddhism, a widely practiced branch of Buddhism...
Kuf

Qoph

Qoph or Qop is the nineteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician language, Aramaic language, Hebrew language and Arabic alphabet ....
, 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 an L

L or l, described in English language as L with stroke, is a letter of the Polish alphabet, Kashubian alphabet, Sorbian alphabet, Lacinka alphabet , Wymysorys, Navajo language, Dene Suline language, Inupiaq language and Dogrib language alphabets, and of several proposed alphabets for the Venetian language....
-I

I is the ninth Letter of the Latin alphabet. Its English language name is i ....
-E

E is the fifth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled e , plural ees . The letter E is the most commonly used letter in the Czech language, Danish language, Dutch language, English language, French language, German language, Hungarian language, Latin language, Norwegian language, Spanish language...
."

Arabic

The letter is named in Arabic, and is written is several ways depending in its position in the word: