Bet, Beth, Beh, or Vet is the second letter of the Semitic abjads, including Arabic bāʾ ب, Aramaic bēṯ 𐡁, Hebrew bēt ב, Phoenician bēt 𐤁, and Syriac bēṯ ܒ. Its sound value is the voiced bilabial stop ⟨b⟩ or the voiced labiodental fricative ⟨v⟩.
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).
Origin
The name bet is derived from the West Semitic word for "house" (as in Hebrew: בַּיִת, romanized: bayt), and the shape of the letter derives from a Proto-Sinaitic glyph that may have been based on the Egyptian hieroglyph Pr
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, which depicts a house.[citation needed]
Arabic bāʾ
| bāʾ باء | |
|---|---|
| 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 |
The Arabic letter ب is named بَاءْ bāʾ (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 and loanwords where it can also render /p/, often Arabized as /b/, as in بَرْسِيلْ (Persil). For /p/, it may be used interchangeably with the Persian letter پ - pe (with 3 dots) in this case.[citation needed]
Interpretation of ب
Bāʾ is the first letter of the Quran [ 1:1], the first letter of Basmala.[1] The letter bāʾ as a prefix may function as a preposition meaning "by" or "with". Some tafsirs interpreted the positioning of bāʾ as the opener of the Qur'an with "by My (God's) cause (all is present and happen)".[2]
Variant
A variant letter of bāʾ named pe 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 |
Hebrew bet
| Orthographic variants | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Various print fonts | Cursive Hebrew |
Rashi script | ||
| Serif | Sans-serif | Monospaced | ||
| ב | ב | ב |  |
.svg){kind=small} |
Hebrew spelling: בֵּית
The Hebrew letter represents two different phonemes: a "b" sound (/b/) (bet) and a "v" sound (/v/) (vet). When Hebrew is written Ktiv menuqad (with niqqud diacritics) the two are distinguished by a dot (called a dagesh) in the centre of the letter for /b/ and no dot for /v/. In modern Hebrew, the more commonly used Ktiv hasar niqqud spelling, which does not use diacritics, does not visually distinguish between the two phonemes.[citation needed]
This letter is named bet and vet, following the modern Israeli Hebrew pronunciation, bet and vet (/bet/), in Israel and by most Jews familiar with Hebrew, although some non-Israeli Ashkenazi speakers pronounce it beis (or bais)[3] and veis (/bejs/) (or vais or vaiz).[4] It is also named beth, following the Tiberian 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]
Variations on written form/pronunciation
| Name | Symbol | IPA | Transliteration | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vet | ב | /v/ | v | vote |
| Bet | בּ | /b/ | b | boat |
Bet with the dagesh
When the Bet appears as בּ with a "dot" in its center, known as a dagesh, then it represents /b/. There are various rules in Hebrew grammar that stipulate when and why a dagesh is used.[citation needed]
Bet without the dagesh (Vet)
In Ktiv menuqad spelling, which uses diacritics, when the letter appears as ב without the dagesh ("dot") in its center it represents a voiced labiodental fricative: /v/. In Ktiv hasar niqqud spelling, without diacritics, the letter without the dot may represent either phoneme.[citation needed]
Significance as prefix
As a prefix, i.e. when attached to the beginning of a word, the letter bet may function as a preposition meaning "in", "at", or "with".[citation needed]
Numerological and mystical significance
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 in gematria represents the number 2.[citation needed]
Bet is the first letter of the Torah. As Bet is the number 2 in gematria, this is said to symbolize that there are two parts to Torah: the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. According to Jewish legend, the letter Bet was specially chosen among the 22 letters in Hebrew by God as the first letter of Torah as it begins with "Bereshit (In the beginning) God created heaven and earth."[5]
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.[6]
Syriac beth
| Beth |
|---|
 Madnḫaya Beth |
 Serṭo Beth |
 Esṭrangela Beth |
In the Syriac alphabet, the second letter is ܒ — Beth (ܒܹܝܬ). It is one of six letters that represents two associated sounds (the others are Gimel, Dalet, Kaph, Pe and Taw). 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 form diphthongs 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 traditionally geminate within a word, even in dialects that no longer distinguish double consonants, it is hard. In the West Syriac dialect, some speakers always pronounce Beth with its hard sound.[citation needed]
Other uses
Mathematics
In set theory, the beth numbers stand for powers of infinite sets.[citation needed]
Character encodings
| 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 |
See also
- Bayt/Beit/Beth/Bet (disambiguation), meaning 'house' in various Semitic languages; part of many place-names
References
External links
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