B, or b, is the second letter of the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...

, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is '' bee'' (pronounced ), plural ''bees''. It represents the

voiced bilabial stop The voiced bilabial plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is b. The voiced bilabial stop oc ...

in many languages, including English. In some other languages, it is used to represent other

bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips. Frequency Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tli ...

History

The Roman derived from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

capital

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represe ...

via its Etruscan and Cumaean variants. The Greek letter was an adaptation of the Phoenician letter bēt . The Egyptian

hieroglyph Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters. ...

for the

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

/b/ had been an image of a foot and calf , but bēt (Phoenician for "house") was a modified form of a Proto-Sinaitic

glyph A glyph ( ) is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A ...

adapted from the separate hieroglyph Pr meaning "house". The

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

letter bet is a separate development of the Phoenician letter. By Byzantine times, the Greek letter came to be pronounced /v/, so that it is known in

modern Greek Modern Greek (, or , ), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the language sometimes referred to ...

as ''víta'' (still written ). The

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

letter ve represents the same sound, so a modified form known as be was developed to represent the

Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavs, Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic language, Proto- ...

' /b/. (Modern Greek continues to lack a letter for the voiced bilabial plosive and transliterates such sounds from other languages using the digraph/

consonant cluster In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...

, ''mp''.)

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

was originally written in

runes Runes are the Letter (alphabet), letters in a set of related alphabets, known as runic rows, runic alphabets or futharks (also, see ''#Futharks, futhark'' vs ''#Runic alphabets, runic alphabet''), native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were ...

, whose equivalent letter was beorc , meaning "

birch A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech- oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 3 ...

". Beorc dates to at least the 2nd-century

Elder Futhark The Elder Futhark (or Fuþark, ), also known as the Older Futhark, Old Futhark, or Germanic Futhark, is the oldest form of the runic alphabets. It was a writing system used by Germanic peoples for Northwest Germanic dialects in the Migration Per ...

, which is now thought to have derived from the

Old Italic alphabets The Old Italic scripts are a family of ancient writing systems used in the Italian Peninsula between about 700 and 100 BC, for various languages spoken in that time and place. The most notable member is the Etruscan alphabet, which was the i ...

' either directly or via

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

. The

uncial Uncial is a majuscule script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Uncial letters were used to write Greek and Latin, as well as Gothic, and are the current style for ...

and half-uncial introduced by the Gregorian and Irish missions gradually developed into the

Insular script Insular script is a Middle Ages, medieval script (styles of handwriting), script system originating in Ireland that spread to England and continental Europe under the influence of Hiberno-Scottish mission, Irish Christianity. Irish missionaries ...

s' . These

Old English Latin alphabet The Old English Latin alphabet generally consisted of about 24 letters, and was used for writing Old English from the 8th to the 12th centuries. Of these letters, most were directly adopted from the Latin alphabet, two were modified Latin letters ...

s supplanted the earlier runes, whose use was fully banned under King Canute in the early 11th century. The

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...

popularised the

Carolingian The Carolingian dynasty ( ; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charles Martel and his grandson Charlemagne, descendants of the Arnulfing and Pippinid c ...

half-uncial forms which latter developed into

blackletter Blackletter (sometimes black letter or black-letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule or Gothic type, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for ...

. Around 1300,

letter case Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (more formally '' minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing system ...

was increasingly distinguished, with upper- and lower-case B taking separate meanings. Following the advent of

printing Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ...

in the 15th century, the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

(Germany) and

Scandinavia Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...

continued to use forms of blackletter (particularly

Fraktur Fraktur () is a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand. It is designed such that the beginnings and ends of the individual strokes that make up each letter will be clearly vis ...

), while England eventually adopted the

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential, and agency of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humanism" ha ...

and antiqua scripts developed in

Renaissance Italy The Italian Renaissance ( ) was a period in History of Italy, Italian history between the 14th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Western Europe and marked t ...

from a combination of Roman inscriptions and Carolingian texts. The present forms of the English cursive B were developed by the 17th century. Newes ABC Buchlein MET DP855602

Use in writing systems

English

In English, denotes the

, as in ''bib''. In English, it is sometimes silent. This occurs particularly in words ending in , such as ''lamb'' and ''bomb'', some of which originally had a /b/ sound, while some had the letter added by analogy (see Phonological history of English consonant clusters). The in ''debt'', ''doubt'', ''subtle'', and related words was added in the 16th century as an etymological spelling, intended to make the words more like their

originals (''debitum'', ''dubito'', ''subtilis''). As /b/ is one of the sounds subject to

Grimm's Law Grimm's law, also known as the First Germanic Consonant Shift or First Germanic Sound Shift, is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the first millennium BC, first d ...

, words which have in English and other

Germanic language The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, ...

s may find their cognates in other

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

appearing with , , or instead. 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 to represent a

. In Estonian, Danish, Faroese, Icelandic,

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...

and

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...

Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

, does not denote a voiced consonant. Instead, it represents a voiceless that contrasts with either a geminated (in Estonian) or an aspirated (in Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Scottish Gaelic and Pinyin) represented by . In Fijian represents a prenasalised , whereas in Zulu and Xhosa it represents an

implosive Implosive consonants are a group of stop consonants (and possibly also some affricates) with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. That is, the airstream is controlled by moving the glottis downward in additi ...

, in contrast to the digraph which represents . Finnish uses only in

loanwords A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...

Other systems

In the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ...

, is used to represent the

phone. In phonological transcription systems for specific languages, /b/ may be used to represent a lenis

phoneme A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...

, 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 The decimal numeral system (also called the base-ten positional numeral system and denary or decanary) is the standard system for denoting integer and non-integer numbers. It is the extension to non-integer numbers (''decimal fractions'') of th ...

(base 10) counting. * B is a

musical note In music, notes are distinct and isolatable sounds that act as the most basic building blocks for nearly all of music. This musical analysis#Discretization, discretization facilitates performance, comprehension, and musical analysis, analysis. No ...

. In

English-speaking countries The English-speaking world comprises the 88 countries and territories in which English is an official, administrative, or cultural language. In the early 2000s, between one and two billion people spoke English, making it the largest language ...

, it represents Si, the 12th note of a chromatic scale built on C. In Central Europe and

, "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 Musical notation is any system used to visually represent music. Systems of notation generally represent the elements of a piece of music that are considered important for its performance in the context of a given musical tradition. The proce ...

as the symbols for ''

natural Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the laws, elements and phenomena of the physical world, including life. Although humans are part ...

'' and '' flat'', respectively. * In Contracted (grade 2) English braille, stands for "but" when in isolation. * In computer science, B is the symbol for

byte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable un ...

, a unit of information storage. * In engineering, B is the symbol for bel, a unit of

level Level or levels may refer to: Engineering *Level (optical instrument), a device used to measure true horizontal or relative heights * Spirit level or bubble level, an instrument designed to indicate whether a surface is horizontal or vertical *C ...

. * In chemistry, B is the symbol for

boron Boron is a chemical element; it has symbol B and atomic number 5. In its crystalline form it is a brittle, dark, lustrous metalloid; in its amorphous form it is a brown powder. As the lightest element of the boron group it has three ...

, a

chemical element A chemical element is a chemical substance whose atoms all have the same number of protons. The number of protons is called the atomic number of that element. For example, oxygen has an atomic number of 8: each oxygen atom has 8 protons in its ...

Related characters

Ancestors, descendants and siblings

* 𐤁 : Semitic letter Bet, from which the following symbols originally derive * Β β :

letter

Beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represe ...

, from which B derives * Ⲃ ⲃ Coptic letter Bēta, which derives from Greek Beta * В в :

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 Italic B, which derives from Greek Beta * ᛒ :

Runic Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets, known as runic rows, runic alphabets or futharks (also, see '' futhark'' vs ''runic alphabet''), native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were primarily used to represent a sound value (a ...

letter Berkanan, which probably derives from Old Italic B * 𐌱 : Gothic letter bercna, which derives from Greek Beta * IPA-specific symbols related to B:

𐞄 The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representatio ...

𐞅 The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representatio ...

* B with

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

s: Ƀ ƀ Ḃ ḃ Ḅ ḅ Ḇ ḇ Ɓ ɓ ᵬ ᶀ * Ꞗ ꞗ : B with flourish * ᴃ ᴯ ^B ^b : Barred B and various modifier letters are used in the

Uralic Phonetic Alphabet Finno-Ugric transcription (FUT) or the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) is a phonetic transcription or notational system used predominantly for the transcription and reconstruction of Uralic languages. It was first published in 1901 by Eemil Nesto ...

. * Ƃ ƃ : B with topbar

Derived ligatures, abbreviations, signs and symbols

* ␢ : * ฿ :

Thai baht The baht (; , ; currency sign, sign: ฿; ISO 4217, code: THB) is the official currency of Thailand. It is divided into 100 ''satang'' (, ). Prior to decimalisation, the baht was divided into eight ''fueang'' (, ), each of eight ''at'' (, ). The ...

* ₿ :

Bitcoin Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; Currency symbol, sign: ₿) is the first Decentralized application, decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 when an unknown entity published a white paper under ...

* ♭: The flat in music, mentioned above, still closely resembles lowercase b.

Other representations

Computing

The Latin letters and have

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

encodings and . These are the same

code point A code point, codepoint or code position is a particular position in a Table (database), table, where the position has been assigned a meaning. The table may be one dimensional (a column), two dimensional (like cells in a spreadsheet), three dime ...

s as those used in

ASCII ASCII ( ), an acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for representing a particular set of 95 (English language focused) printable character, printable and 33 control character, control c ...

and

ISO 8859 ISO/IEC 8859 is a joint International Organization for Standardization, ISO and International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC series of standards for 8-bit character encodings. The series of standards consists of numbered parts, such as ISO/IEC ...

. There are also

precomposed character A precomposed character (alternatively composite character or decomposable character) is a Unicode entity that can also be defined as a sequence of one or more other characters. A precomposed character may typically represent a letter with a diac ...

encodings for and with diacritics, for most of those listed above; the remainder are produced using

combining diacritic In digital typography, combining characters are characters that are intended to modify other characters. The most common combining characters in the Latin script are the combining diacritical marks (including combining accents). Unicode al ...

s. 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 In CJK characters, CJK (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) computing, graphic characters are traditionally classed into fullwidth and halfwidth characters. Unlike monospaced fonts, a halfwidth character occupies half the width of a fullwidth characte ...

for legacy CJK font compatibility. The Cyrillic and Greek

homoglyph In orthography and typography, a homoglyph is one of two or more graphemes, character (computing), characters, or glyphs with shapes that appear identical or very similar but may have differing meaning. The designation is also applied to sequence ...