B
| B | |
|---|---|
| B b | |
Latin language | |
| Sound values |
|
| Time period | unknown to present |
| Descendants |
|
| Sisters | |
| Other | |
| Associated graphs | bv bh bp bm bf |
| Associated numbers | 2 |
| Writing direction | Left-to-right |
 |
| ISO basic Latin alphabet |
|---|
| AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz |
B, or b, is the second letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is bee (pronounced /ˈbiː/ ⓘ), plural bees.[1][2]
It represents the
voiced bilabial stop in many languages, including English. In some other languages, it is used to represent other bilabial consonants
.
History
| Egyptian Pr |
Phoenician bēt |
Western Greek beta
|
Etruscan B |
Latin B |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
|
The Roman ⟨B⟩ derived from the
ב⟩ is a separate development of the Phoenician letter.[3]
By
Cyrillic letter ve ⟨В⟩ represents the same sound, so a modified form known as be ⟨Б⟩ was developed to represent the Slavic languages' /b/.[3] (Modern Greek continues to lack a letter for the voiced bilabial plosive and transliterates such sounds from other languages using the digraph/consonant cluster
⟨μπ⟩, mp.)
𐌁 ⟩ either directly or via Latin ⟨
⟩.
The
Renaissance Italy from a combination of Roman inscriptions and Carolingian texts. The present forms of the English cursive
B were developed by the 17th century.
Use in writing systems
| Orthography | Phonemes |
|---|---|
| Standard Chinese (Pinyin) | /p/ |
| English | /b/ |
| French | /b/, /p/ |
| German | /b/, /p/ |
| Portuguese | /b/ |
| Spanish | /b/ |
| Turkish | /b/ |
English
In
Latin
originals (debitum, dubito, subtilis).
As /b/ is one of the sounds subject to
Germanic languages may find their cognates in other Indo-European languages appearing with ⟨bh⟩, ⟨p⟩, ⟨f⟩ or ⟨φ⟩ instead.[3] For example, compare the various cognates of the word brother. It is the seventh least frequently used letter in the English language (after V, K, J, X, Q, and Z
), with a frequency of about 1.5% in words.
Other languages
Many other languages besides English use ⟨b⟩ to represent a
voiced bilabial stop
.
In
loanwords
.
Other systems
In the
voiced bilabial stop phone. In phonological transcription systems for specific languages, /b/ may be used to represent a lenis phoneme
, not necessarily voiced, that contrasts with fortis /p/ (which may have greater aspiration, tenseness or duration).
Other uses
- In the base-16 numbering system, B is a number that corresponds to the number 11 in decimal(base 10) counting.
- English-speaking countries, it represents Si, the 12th note of a chromatic scale built on C. In Central Europe and Scandinavia, "B" is used to denote B-flat and the 12th note of the chromatic scale is denoted "H". Archaic forms of 'b', the b quadratum (square b, ♮) and b rotundum (round b, ♭) are used in musical notation as the symbols for natural and flat, respectively.
- In Contracted (grade 2) English braille, ⟨b⟩ stands for "but" when in isolation.
- In computer science, B is the symbol for byte, a unit of information storage.
- In engineering, B is the symbol for bel, a unit of level.
- In chemistry, B is the symbol for boron, a chemical element.
Related characters
Ancestors, descendants and siblings
- 𐤁 : Semitic letter Bet, from which the following symbols originally derive
- Β β : Beta, from which B derives
- Ⲃ ⲃ Copticletter Bēta, which derives from Greek Beta
- В в : Cyrillic letter Ve, which also derives from Beta
- Б б : Cyrillic letter Be, which also derives from Beta
- ʙ : A small capital B, used as the lowercase B in a number of alphabets during romanization
- 𐌁 : Old ItalicB, which derives from Greek Beta
- ᛒ : Runic letter Berkanan, which probably derives from Old Italic B
- 𐌱 : Gothic letter bercna, which derives from Greek Beta
- 𐞅[6]
- B with diacritics: Ƀ ƀ Ḃ ḃ Ḅ ḅ Ḇ ḇ Ɓ ɓ ᵬ[7] ᶀ[8]
- Ꞗ ꞗ : B with flourish
- ᴃ ᴯ B b : Barred B and various modifier letters are used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet.[9]
- Ƃ ƃ : B with topbar
Derived ligatures, abbreviations, signs and symbols
- ␢ : U+2422 ␢ BLANK SYMBOL
- ฿ : Thai baht
- ₿ : Bitcoin
- ♭: The flat in music, mentioned above, still closely resembles lowercase b.
Other representations
Computing
The Latin letters ⟨B⟩ and ⟨b⟩ have
combining diacritics
.
Variant forms of the letter have unique code points for specialist use: the alphanumeric symbols set in mathematics and science, Latin beta in linguistics, and halfwidth and fullwidth forms for legacy CJK font compatibility. The Cyrillic and Greek homoglyphs of the Latin ⟨B⟩ have separate encodings: U+0412 В CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER VE and U+0392 Β GREEK CAPITAL LETTER BETA.
Other
NATO phonetic
|
Morse code |
| Bravo |
ⓘ |
|
|
|
|
|
| Signal flag | Flag semaphore | American manual alphabet (ASL fingerspelling) | British manual alphabet (BSL fingerspelling )
|
Braille dots-12 Unified English Braille |
Notes
- hieroglyph for /h/ ⟨⟩ meaning "manor" or "reed shelter".
References
- ^ "B", Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989
- ^ "B", Merriam-Webster's 3rd New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, 1993
- ^ a b c d e Baynes, T. S., ed. (1878), , Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 3 (9th ed.), New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, p. 173
- ISBN 1-4027-0025-3
- from the original on 30 June 2016, retrieved 11 August 2015
- ^ a b Miller, Kirk; Ashby, Michael (8 November 2020). "L2/20-252R: Unicode request for IPA modifier-letters (a), pulmonic" (PDF).
- ^ Constable, Peter (30 September 2003). "L2/03-174R2: Proposal to Encode Phonetic Symbols with Middle Tilde in the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 October 2017. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
- ^ Constable, Peter (19 April 2004). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 October 2017. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
- ^ Everson, Michael; et al. (20 March 2002). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 February 2018. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
External links
Media related to B at Wikimedia Commons
The dictionary definition of B at Wiktionary- The dictionary definition of b at Wiktionary
- Giles, Peter (1911), , Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 3 (11th ed.), p. 87
