Be (Б б; italics:
''Б б'') is a letter of the
Cyrillic script
The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, Mongolic, Uralic languages, Uralic, C ...
. It commonly represents the
voiced bilabial plosive , like the English pronunciation of in "ball". It should not be confused with the
Cyrillic letter Ve (В в), which is shaped like Latin capital letter B but represents the
voiced labiodental fricative or the
voiced bilabial fricative
The voiced bilabial fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is B. The official symbol is the ...
. The Cyrillic letter Б (Be) is romanized using the Latin letter
B.
History
The Cyrillic letters Be and
Ve (В в) were both derived from the Greek 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 ...
(Β β).
In the
Early Cyrillic alphabet
The Early Cyrillic alphabet, also called classical Cyrillic or paleo-Cyrillic, is an alphabetic writing system that was developed in Medieval Bulgaria in the Preslav Literary School during the late 9th century. It is used to write the Chur ...
the name of the letter Be was (''buky''/
буки), meaning "letter".
In the
Cyrillic numeral system, the letter Be had no numeric value because the letter Ve inherited the Greek letter Beta's numeric value.
Form
The Russian small letter
б (be) is similar (but not identical) in shape to the
digit 6. Its lowercase form also somewhat resembles a lowercase letter
B ("b"), the letter to which it corresponds in the Latin alphabet. After all, the lowercase letter
B ("b") developed from scribal alterations to the capital letter
B ("B"), just as б did from scribal alterations to the capital letter
В ("Ve").
In Serbian and Macedonian the italic form is allowed to vary, but the regular should look like in other languages.
The cursive form of the lowercase letter Be resembles the lowercase
Greek letter Delta (
δ), but they are slightly different in their upper portions.
Usage
In
Russian and
Bulgarian, the letter Be generally represents the
voiced bilabial plosive , but word-finally or before a voiceless
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 ...
, it also represents the voiceless . Before a
palatalizing vowel, it represents . In
Macedonian, the letter represents the sound , but if it is in the final position of the word, it is pronounced as , like in ('bread').
In
Mari, it may represent either /b/ or the
voiced bilabial fricative
The voiced bilabial fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is B. The official symbol is the ...
.
In Serbian, the letter represents the voiced bilabial plosive /b/, regardless of the position in the word.
Related letters and other similar characters
Computing codes
References
External links
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{{Authority control
Cyrillic letters