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B (named bee /ˈbiː/[1]) is the seicont letter in the ISO basic Latin alphabet. It is uised tae represent a variety o bilabial soonds (dependin on leid), but maist commonly a voiced bilabial stop.
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   Cursive script 'b' and capital 'B' in the U.S. D'Nealian script style
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The caipital letter 'B' mey hae stairtit as a pictogram o the floorplan o a hoose in Egyptian hieroglyphs. Bi 1050 BC, the Phoenician alphabet's letter haed a linear fairm that served as the beth.
| Egyptian hieroglyph cottage |
Phoenician beth |
Greek Beta |
Etruscan B |
Roman B |
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The modren lawercase 'b' derives frae later Roman times, when scribes began omittin the upper loop o the caipital.
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| Blackletter B | Uncial B | |
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| Modren Roman B | Modren Italic B | Modren Script B |
In Inglis, maist ither leids that uise the Latin alphabet, an the Internaitional Phonetic Alphabet, 'b' denotes the voiced bilabial plosive /b/, as in 'bib'. In Inglis it is whiles silent; maist instances are derived frae auld monosyllablic wirds wi the 'b' final an immediately precedit bi an 'm', sic as 'lamb' an 'bomb'; a few are ensaumples o etymological spellin tae mak the wird mair lik its Latin oreeginal, sic as 'debt' or 'doubt'.
In Estonian, Icelandic, an Cheenese pinyin, 'b' daes nae denote a voiced consonant; insteid, it represents a voiceless /p/ that contrasts wi aither a geminated /pp/ (in Estonie) or an aspirated /pʰ/ (in Cheenese, Danish an Icelandic), representit bi 'p'. In Fijian 'b' represents a prenasalized /mb/, whauras in Zulu an Xhosa it represents an implosive /ɓ/, in contrast tae the digraph 'bh' which represents /b/.
Finnish anly uises 'b' in loanwirds.
'B' is an aa a muisical note. Its value varies dependin on the region; a 'b' in Anglophone kintras represents a note that is a semitone heicher than the B note in Northren Continental Europe. (Anglophone B is representit in Northren Europe wi 'H'.) Archaic fairms o 'b', the b quadratum (square b, ♮) an b rotundum (roond b, ♭) remain in uise for muisical notation as the seembols for naitural an flat, respectively.
In Contractit (grade 2) Inglis braille, 'b' staunds for "but" when in isolation.
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