Geresh

Geresh (׳ in Hebrew: ‎ or ‎Even-Shoshan Dictionary, 2003; Shoshana Bahat and Mordechay Mishor, Dictionary of Contemporary Hebrew, 2007. ˈɡeʁeʃ, or medieval ˈɡeːɾeːʃ) is a sign in Hebrew writing. It has two meanings. An apostrophe-like sign (also known colloquially as a chupchik) placed after a letter: as a diacritic that modifies the pronunciation of some letters (only in modern Hebrew), as a diacritic that signifies Yiddish origin of a word or suffix, (examples below) as a punctuation mark to denote initialisms or abbreviations, or to denote a single-digit Hebrew numeral A note of cantillation in the reading of the Torah and other Biblical books, taking the form of a curved diagonal stroke placed above a letter. As a diacritic, the Geresh is written immediately after (left of) the letter it modifies. It indicates three sounds native to speakers of modern Hebrew that are common in loan words and slang: [dʒ] as in judge, [ʒ] as in measure and [tʃ] as in church. In transliteration of Arabic, it indicates Arabic phonemes which are usually allophones in modern Hebrew: [ɣ] is distinguished from [r] and [ħ] is distinguished from [χ]. Finally, it indicates other sounds foreign to the phonology of modern Hebrew speakers and used exclusively for the transliteration of foreign words: [ð] as in then, [θ] as in thin, [sʕ]; and, in some transliteration systems, also [tʕ], [dʕ] and [ðʕ]. It may be compared to the usage of a following h'' in various Latin digraphs to form other consonant sounds not supported by the basic Latin alphabet, such as "sh", "th", etc. The geresh is used as a punctuation mark in initialisms and to denote numerals. In initialisms, the Geresh is written after the last letter of the initialism. For example: the title גְּבֶרֶת (literally "lady") is abbreviated גב׳, equivalent to English "Mrs" and "Ms". A Geresh can be appended after (left of) a single letter to indicate that the letter represents a Hebrew numeral. For example: ק׳‎ represents 100. A multi-digit Hebrew numeral is indicated by the Gershayim .