| B with flourish | |
|---|---|
| Ꞗ ꞗ | |
 | |
| Usage | |
| Writing system | Latin script |
| Type | alphabetic |
| Language of origin | Middle Vietnamese |
| Sound values | [β] |
| In Unicode | U+A796, U+A797 |
| History | |
| Development | |
| Time period | 16th-19th century |
| 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. | |
B with flourish (Ꞗ, ꞗ) is the Unicode name for the third letter of theMiddle Vietnamese alphabet, sorted betweenB andC. The B with flourish has a rounded hook that starts halfway up the stem (where the top of the bowl meets theascender) and curves about 180 degrees counterclockwise, ending below the bottom-left corner. It represents thevoiced bilabial fricative/β/, which in modern Vietnamese merged with thevoiced labiodental fricative, written as the letterV in theVietnamese alphabet. (In Middle Vietnamese, V represented thelabio-velar approximant/w/.)
The B with flourish is known principally from the works of Jesuit missionaryAlexandre de Rhodes, particularly his trilingual dictionaryDictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum (1651) and bilingualCathechismus (1658). For example,vậy was writtenꞗệy. As with the letterĐ, only the lowercase form ꞗ is seen in these works, even where a capital letter would be expected.[1]
The Vietnamese alphabet was formally described for the first time in the 17th-century textManuductio ad Linguam Tunckinensem, attributed to a Portuguese Jesuit missionary, possiblyFrancisco de Pina[2] or Filipe Sibin.[3] This passage about the letter Ꞗ was later incorporated into de Rhodes'sDictionarium:[4]
…pronunciatur ferè ut β Græcum ut,ꞗĕaò ingredi, non eſt tamen omninò ſimile noſtro, V, conſonanti, ſed paulo aſperius, & in ipſa labiorum apertione pronuntiatur ita ut ſit verè litera labialis, ut Hebræi loquuntur, non autem dentalis.
— Alexandre de Rhodes,Lingue annamiticæ seu tunchinensis brevis declaratio[5]
The passage roughly translates to:
…pronounced almost like the Greek β, for example,ꞗĕaò, to enter, yet not quite the same as our consonant V, but a little coarser, and in the very opening of the lips pronounced, indeed, as though it was a labial letter, as the Hebrews speak it, rather than a dental.
The linguistic interpretation of this description is that the sound was avoiced bilabial fricative, which phoneticians transcribe with the Greek letterbeta [β].[6]
Although some peculiarities of de Rhodes's orthography persisted into the early 19th century,[7] the B with flourish had by then become V, as seen in the writings of Vietnamese JesuitPhilipphê Bỉnh (Philiphê do Rosario).
The lowercase B with flourish and a hypothetical uppercase form, unattested in de Rhodes's works, were standardized in June 2014 as part of theLatin Extended-D block ofUnicode 7.0.[8]
| Preview | Ꞗ | ꞗ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER B WITH FLOURISH | LATIN SMALL LETTER B WITH FLOURISH | ||
| Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex |
| Unicode | 42902 | U+A796 | 42903 | U+A797 |
| UTF-8 | 234 158 150 | EA 9E 96 | 234 158 151 | EA 9E 97 |
| Numeric character reference | Ꞗ | Ꞗ | ꞗ | ꞗ |
ꞗệy thì còn cái ou᷄ Adam lià nhau…
…e a « Manuductio ad linguam Tunckinensem » do Padre Filipe Sibin SI…
