Resh
Encyclopedia : R : RE : RES : Resh
| Resh | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arabic | Syriac | Hebrew | Aramaic | Phoenician |
| ﺭ | ܪ | ר |
|
|
| Pronunciation (IPA): | ||||
| Position in alphabet: | 20 | |||
| Gematria/Abjad value: | 200 | |||
In most Semitic abjads, 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
Resh is usually assumed to have come from a pictogram of a head (in modern Hebrew rosh; in Arabic, ra's).Resh in Hebrew
| Hebrew alphabet | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| א | ב | ג | ד | ||
| ה | ו | ז | ח | ט | י |
| כך | ל | מם | נן | ס | ע |
| פף | צץ | ק | ר | ש | ת |
| History · Transliteration Niqqud · Dagesh · Gematria Cantillation · Numeration | |||||
| The Arabic alphabet | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| History · Transliteration Diacritics · hamza {{ar Numerals · Numeration | ||||||
| Syriac alphabet | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aleph (letter)>ܐ | Beth (letter)>ܒ | Gimel (letter)>ܓ | Dalet>ܕ | ||
| He (letter)>ܗ | Waw (letter)>ܘ | Zayin>ܙ | Heth (letter)>ܚ | Teth>ܛ | Yodh>ܝ |
| Kaph>ܟܟ | Lamedh>ܠ | Mem>ܡܡ | Nun (letter)>ܢܢ | Samekh>ܣ | Ayin>ܥ |
| Pe (letter)>ܦ | Tsade>ܨ | Qoph>ܩ | Resh>ܪ | Shin (letter)>ܫ | Taw (letter)>ܬ |
Resh, along with Ayin, Aleph, He, and Heth, cannot receive a dagesh.
Resh in gematria represents the number 200.
Resh as an abbreviation can stand for Rabbi (or Rav, Rebbe, Rabban, Rabbenu, and other similar constructions).
Resh is used in an Israeli phrase: after a child will say something false, one might say "B'Shin Qoph, Resh" (With Shin, Qoph, 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-I-E."
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.