| Bet | |
|---|---|
| Phoenician | 𐤁 |
| Hebrew | ב |
| Samaritan | ࠁ |
| Aramaic | 𐡁 |
| Syriac | ܒ |
| Nabataean | 𐢃𐢂 |
| Arabic | ب |
| South Arabian | 𐩨 |
| Geʽez | በ |
| North Arabian | 𐪈 |
| Ugaritic | 𐎁 |
| Phonemic representation | b,(v) |
| Position in alphabet | 2 |
| Numerical value | 2 |
| Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician | |
| Greek | Β |
| Latin | B |
| Cyrillic | В,Б |
Bet,Beth,Beh, orVet is the secondletter of theSemitic abjads, includingPhoenicianbēt 𐤁,Hebrewbētב,Aramaicbēṯ 𐡁,Syriacbēṯ ܒ andArabicbāʾب. It is also related to theAncient North Arabian 𐪈,South Arabian𐩨, and Ge'ezበ. Its sound value is thevoiced bilabial stop ⟨b⟩ or thevoiced labiodental fricative ⟨v⟩.
The letter's name means "house" in various Semitic languages (Arabicbayt, Akkadianbītu, bētu, Hebrew:bayīṯ, Phoenicianbēt etc.; ultimately all fromProto-Semitic*bayt-), and appears to derive from anEgyptian hieroglyph of a house byacrophony.
|
The Phoenician letter gave rise to, among others, theGreek beta (Β, β),LatinB (B, b) andCyrillic Be (Б, б) and Ve (В, в), and also the Armenian letterBen (Բ, բ).
The namebet is derived from the West Semitic word for "house" (as inHebrew:בַּיִת,romanized: bayt), and the shape of the letter derives from aProto-Sinaitic glyph that may have been based on theEgyptian hieroglyphPr
|
, which depicts a house.[citation needed]
| Hieroglyph | Proto-Sinaitic | Phoenician | Paleo-Hebrew | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|  |  |  |
| Bāʾ باء, Bayt | |
|---|---|
| ب | |
| Usage | |
| Writing system | Arabic script |
| Type | Abjad |
| Language of origin | Arabic language |
| Sound values | b |
| Alphabetical position | 2 |
| History | |
| Development | 𐤁
|
| Other | |
| Writing direction | Right-to-left |
| This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. | |
The Arabic letterب is namedبَاءْbāʾ (bāʔ). It is written in several ways depending on its position in the word
| Position in word: | Isolated | Final | Medial | Initial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Glyph form: (Help) | ب | ـب | ـبـ | بـ |
The letter normally renders/b/ sound, except in some names andloanwords where it can also render/p/, often Arabized as/b/, as inبَرْسِيلْ (Persil). For/p/, it may be used interchangeably with the Persian letterپ -pe (with 3 dots) in this case.[citation needed]
Bāʾ is the first letter of theQuran[1:1], the first letter ofBasmala.[1] The letter bāʾ as aprefix may function as apreposition meaning "by" or "with". Sometafsirs interpreted the positioning of bāʾ as the opener of the Qur'an with"by My (God's) cause(all is present and happen)".[2]
A variant letter ofbāʾ namedpe is used in Persian with three dots below instead of just one dot below. However, it is not included on one of the 28 letters on the Arabic alphabet. It is thus written as:
| Position in word: | Isolated | Final | Medial | Initial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Glyph form: (Help) | پ | ـپ | ـپـ | پـ |
| Orthographic variants | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Various print fonts | Cursive Hebrew | Rashi script | ||
| Serif | Sans-serif | Monospaced | ||
| ב | ב | ב |  | .svg) |
Hebrew spelling:בֵּית
The Hebrew letter represents two different phonemes: a "b" sound (/b/) (bet) and a "v" sound (/v/) (vet). When Hebrew is writtenKtiv menuqad (withniqqud diacritics) the two are distinguished by a dot (called adagesh) in the centre of the letter for/b/ and no dot for/v/. In modern Hebrew, the more commonly usedKtiv hasar niqqud spelling, which does not use diacritics, does not visually distinguish between the two phonemes.[citation needed]
This letter is namedbet andvet, following the modern Israeli Hebrew pronunciation,bet andvet (/bet/), inIsrael and by mostJews familiar with Hebrew, although some non-IsraeliAshkenazi speakers pronounce itbeis (orbais)[3] andveis (/bejs/) (orvais orvaiz).[4] It is also namedbeth, following theTiberian Hebrew pronunciation, in academic circles.[citation needed]
In modern Hebrew the frequency of the usage of bet, out of all the letters, is 4.98%.[citation needed]
| Name | Symbol | IPA | Transliteration | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vet | ב | /v/ | v | vote |
| Bet | בּ | /b/ | b | boat |
When the Bet appears asבּ with a "dot" in its center, known as adagesh, then it represents/b/. There are various rules inHebrew grammar that stipulate when and why a dagesh is used.[citation needed]
InKtiv menuqad spelling, which uses diacritics, when the letter appears asבwithout thedagesh ("dot") in its center it represents avoiced labiodental fricative:/v/. InKtiv hasar niqqud spelling, without diacritics, the letter without the dot may represent either phoneme.[citation needed]
As aprefix, i.e. when attached to the beginning of a word, the letter bet may function as apreposition meaning "in", "at", or "with".[citation needed]
As a numeral, the letter represents the number 2, and, using various systems of dashes above or below, can stand for 2,000 and 20,000.[citation needed]
Bet ingematria represents the number 2.[5]
Bet is the first letter of theTorah. As Bet is the number 2 in gematria, this is said to symbolize that there are two parts to Torah: the WrittenTorah and theOral Torah. According toJewish legend, the letter Bet was specially chosen among the 22 letters in Hebrew byGod as the first letter of Torah as it begins with "Bereshit (In the beginning) God created heaven and earth."[6]
Genesis Rabbah points out that the letter is closed on three sides and open on one; this is indicate that one can investigate what happened after creation, but not what happened before it, or what is above the heavens or below the earth.[7]
| Beth |
|---|
 Madnḫaya Beth |
 Serṭo Beth |
 Esṭrangela Beth |
In theSyriac alphabet, the second letter isܒ — Beth (ܒܹܝܬ). It is one of six letters that represents two associated sounds (the others areGimel,Dalet,Kaph,Pe andTaw). When Beth has a hard pronunciation (qûššāyâ) it is a [b]. When Beth has a soft pronunciation (rûkkāḵâ) it is traditionally pronounced as a [v], similar to its Hebrew form. However, in eastern dialects, the soft Beth is more often pronounced as a [w], and can formdiphthongs with its preceding vowel. Whether Beth should be pronounced as a hard or soft sound is generally determined by its context within a word. However, wherever it is traditionallygeminate within a word, even in dialects that no longer distinguish double consonants, it is hard. In the WestSyriac dialect, some speakers always pronounce Beth with its hard sound.[citation needed]
Inset theory, thebeth numbers stand for powers of infinite sets.[citation needed]
| Preview | ב | ب | ܒ | ࠁ | ℶ | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | HEBREW LETTER BET | ARABIC LETTER BEH | SYRIAC LETTER BETH | SAMARITAN LETTER BIT | BET SYMBOL | |||||
| Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
| Unicode | 1489 | U+05D1 | 1576 | U+0628 | 1810 | U+0712 | 2049 | U+0801 | 8502 | U+2136 |
| UTF-8 | 215 145 | D7 91 | 216 168 | D8 A8 | 220 146 | DC 92 | 224 160 129 | E0 A0 81 | 226 132 182 | E2 84 B6 |
| Numeric character reference | ב | ב | ب | ب | ܒ | ܒ | ࠁ | ࠁ | ℶ | ℶ |
| Named character reference | ℶ | |||||||||
| Preview | 𐎁 | 𐡁 | 𐤁 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | UGARITIC LETTER BETA | IMPERIAL ARAMAIC LETTER BETH | PHOENICIAN LETTER BET | |||
| Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
| Unicode | 66433 | U+10381 | 67649 | U+10841 | 67841 | U+10901 |
| UTF-8 | 240 144 142 129 | F0 90 8E 81 | 240 144 161 129 | F0 90 A1 81 | 240 144 164 129 | F0 90 A4 81 |
| UTF-16 | 55296 57217 | D800 DF81 | 55298 56385 | D802 DC41 | 55298 56577 | D802 DD01 |
| Numeric character reference | 𐎁 | 𐎁 | 𐡁 | 𐡁 | 𐤁 | 𐤁 |
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