Bet (letter)
Second letter of many Semitic alphabets / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the Semitic letter. For the use of this letter in mathematics, see Beth number.
For other uses, see Bet (disambiguation).
Bet, Beth, Beh, or Vet is the second letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician bēt 𐤁 , Hebrew bēt ב, Aramaic bēṯ 𐡁, Syriac bēṯ ܒ, and Arabic bāʾ ب. Its sound value is the voiced bilabial stop ⟨b⟩ or the voiced labiodental fricative ⟨v⟩.
Quick Facts ← AlephGimel →, Phoenician ...
Bet | |
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Phoenician | 𐤁 |
Hebrew | ב |
Aramaic | 𐡁 |
Syriac | ܒ |
Arabic | ب |
Phonemic representation | b, v |
Position in alphabet | 2 |
Numerical value | 2 |
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician | |
Greek | Β |
Latin | B |
Cyrillic | В, Б |
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The letter's name means "house" in various Semitic languages (Arabic bayt, Akkadian bītu, bētu, Hebrew: bayīṯ, Phoenician bēt etc.; ultimately all from Proto-Semitic *bayt-), and appears to derive from an Egyptian hieroglyph of a house by acrophony.
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The Phoenician letter gave rise to, among others, the Greek beta (Β, β), Latin B (B, b) and Cyrillic Be (Б, б) and Ve (В, в).