The modifier letter right half ring (ʾ) is a character found in Unicode in the Spacing Modifier Letters range (although it is not a modifier, but a standalone grapheme). It is used in romanization to transliterate the Semitic abjad letter aleph and the Arabic letter hamza after it was used by The Encyclopedia of Islam (later the International Journal of Middle East Studies), representing the sound ⟨ʔ⟩ (a glottal stop, as in Arabic ء hamza). In informal contexts, the backtick ⟨`⟩ or the apostrophe ⟨'⟩ is commonly used as a substitute; but this can lead to confusion with the modifier letter left half ring.
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ʾ in the context of Aleph
Aleph (or alef or alif, transliterated ʾ) is the first letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ʾālep 𐤀, Hebrew ʾālef א, Aramaic ʾālap 𐡀, Syriac ʾālap̄ ܐ, Arabic ʾalif ا, and North Arabian 𐪑. It also appears as South Arabian 𐩱 and Ge'ez ʾälef አ.
These letters are believed to have derived from an Egyptian hieroglyph depicting an ox's head to describe the initial sound of *ʾalp, the West Semitic word for ox (compare Biblical Hebrew אֶלֶף ʾelef, "ox"). The Phoenician variant gave rise to the Greek alpha (Α), being re-interpreted to express not the glottal consonant but the accompanying vowel, and hence the Latin A and Cyrillic А and possibly the Armenian letter Ա.