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This article is about the Semitic letter. For the town in Nepal, see Resh, Nepal.
Phonemic representation r (ɾ, ʁ, ʀ)
Position in alphabet 20
Numerical value 200
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician

Resh is the twentieth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Rēsh Phoenician res.svg, Hebrew Rēsh ר‎, Aramaic Rēsh Resh.svg, Syriac Rēsh ܪ, and Arabic Rāʾ ر. Its sound value is one of a number of rhotic consonants: usually [r] or [ɾ], but also [ʁ] or [ʀ] in Hebrew.


The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Rho (Ρ), Etruscan EtruscanR-01.svg, Latin R, and Cyrillic Р.


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, rēš-, was one possible phonetic reading of the Sumerian cuneiform sign for "head" (SAG 𒊕, B184ellst.png) in Akkadian.

Arabic rāʾ[edit]

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

Position in word: Isolated Final Medial Initial
Glyph form: ر‎ ـر‎ ـر‎ ر‎

It ranges between an alveolar trill [r] and an alveolar 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]

In Hebrew[edit]

Orthographic variants
Various print fonts Cursive
Serif Sans-serif Monospaced
ר ר ר Hebrew letter Resh handwriting.svg Hebrew letter Resh Rashi.png

Hebrew spelling: רֵישׁ

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

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 may say something false, one may say "B'Shin Quf, Resh" (With Shin, Quf, 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."

Character encodings[edit]

Character ר ر ܪ
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 1512 U+05E8 1585 U+0631 1834 U+072A 2067 U+0813
UTF-8 215 168 D7 A8 216 177 D8 B1 220 170 DC AA 224 160 147 E0 A0 93
Numeric character reference &#1512; &#x5E8; &#1585; &#x631; &#1834; &#x72A; &#2067; &#x813;
Character 𐎗 𐡓 𐤓
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 66455 U+10397 67667 U+10853 67859 U+10913
UTF-8 240 144 142 151 F0 90 8E 97 240 144 161 147 F0 90 A1 93 240 144 164 147 F0 90 A4 93
UTF-16 55296 57239 D800 DF97 55298 56403 D802 DC53 55298 56595 D802 DD13
Numeric character reference &#66455; &#x10397; &#67667; &#x10853; &#67859; &#x10913;


  1. ^ Allen, Julie D.; Anderson, Deborah; et al. (eds.). The Unicode Standard, Version 6.2 (PDF). Unicode Consortium. p. 265. 

External links[edit]