Bet (letter): Facts, Discussion Forum, and Encyclopedia Article

Bet (letter)

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Orthographic Orthography The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Orthography is derived from Greek language ????? orth?s and ???fe?? gr?phein .... variants
	Bet (letter)
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	Topics Bet (letter) Topic Home Bet, Beth, or Vet is the second letter Letter (alphabet) A letter is an element in an alphabetic system of writing, such as the Greek alphabet and its descendants. Each letter in the written language is usually associated with one phoneme in the spoken form of the language.... of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic Aramaic language Aramaic is a Semitic languages with a 3,000-year history. It has been the language of administration of empires and the language of divine worship.... , Hebrew Hebrew language Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world.... Syriac Syriac alphabet The Syriac alphabet is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language from around the 2nd century BC. It is one of the Semitic languages abjads directly descending from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet and shares similarities with the Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic alphabet, and Hebrew alphabet alphabets.... and Arabic alphabet Arabic alphabet The Arabic alphabet is the writing system used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic language, Persian language, and Urdu language.... . Its value is a voiced bilabial plosive Voiced bilabial plosive The voiced bilabial plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is b.... , IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic.... . This letter's name means "house" in various Semitic languages (Hebrew: bayi?, Arabic bayt, Akkadian bitu, betu, Phoenician byt etc.; ultimately all from Proto-Semitic bayt-), and appears to derive from a Middle Bronze Age Middle Bronze Age alphabets The Middle Bronze Age alphabets* are two similar undeciphered scripts, dated to be from the Middle Bronze Age , and believed to be ancestral to nearly all modern alphabets:... picture of a house by acrophony Acrophony Acrophony is the naming of graphemes of an alphabetic writing system so that a letter's name begins with the letter itself. For example, Greek letter names are acrophonic: the names of the letters a, ?, ?, d, are spelled with the respective letters: .... . The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th century BC or early 8th century BCE.... Beta Beta (letter) Beta is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 2. It was derived from the Phoenician alphabet Beth .... , Latin Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin.... B B For technical reasons, B# redirects here. For the musical note, see C B is the second letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled bee , plural bees.... , and Cyrillic Cyrillic alphabet The Cyrillic alphabet is a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by five Slavic languages national languages as well as non-Slavic . It is also used by many other languages of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Siberia and other languages in the past.... ? ? or is a letter derived from the Latin alphabet. Both glyphs of the majuscule and Lower case forms of this letter are based on the rotated form of a minuscule e; a similar letter with identical minuscule is used in the Pan-Nigerian Alphabet, but has the capital form majuscule , based on a horizontally flipped majuscule E.... , ? ? or is a letter derived from the Latin alphabet. Both glyphs of the majuscule and Lower case forms of this letter are based on the rotated form of a minuscule e; a similar letter with identical minuscule is used in the Pan-Nigerian Alphabet, but has the capital form majuscule , based on a horizontally flipped majuscule E.... . le class=prettytable style="text-align:center;">
Various Print Fonts			Cursive Hebrew	Rashi Script Rashi script Rashi script is a semi-Hebrew cursive typeface for the Hebrew alphabet, in which Rashi#Works are printed both in the Talmud and Tanakh . This does not mean that Rashi himself used such a script: the typeface is based on a 15th century Sephardi Jews semi-cursive hand and was called by the Ashkenazic Rishonim - the Hachmei Provence script....
Serif	Sans-serif Sans-serif In typography, a sans-serif or sans serif typeface is one that does not have the small features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. The term comes from the French word sans, meaning "without"....	Monospaced	Cursive Hebrew
?	?	?

The Hebrew letter represents two different phonemes: a "b" sound (bet) and a "v" sound (vet).

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Encyclopedia

Bet, Beth, or Vet is the second letter

Letter (alphabet)

A letter is an element in an alphabetic system of writing, such as the Greek alphabet and its descendants. Each letter in the written language is usually associated with one phoneme in the spoken form of the language....
of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic

Aramaic language

Aramaic is a Semitic languages with a 3,000-year history. It has been the language of administration of empires and the language of divine worship....
, Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
Syriac

Syriac alphabet

The Syriac alphabet is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language from around the 2nd century BC. It is one of the Semitic languages abjads directly descending from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet and shares similarities with the Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic alphabet, and Hebrew alphabet alphabets....
and Arabic alphabet

Arabic alphabet

The Arabic alphabet is the writing system used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic language, Persian language, and Urdu language....
. Its value is a voiced bilabial plosive

Voiced bilabial plosive

The voiced bilabial plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is b....
, IPA

International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic....
.

This letter's name means "house" in various Semitic languages (Hebrew: bayi?, Arabic bayt, Akkadian bitu, betu, Phoenician byt etc.; ultimately all from Proto-Semitic *bayt-), and appears to derive from a Middle Bronze Age

Middle Bronze Age alphabets

The Middle Bronze Age alphabets are two similar undeciphered scripts, dated to be from the Middle Bronze Age , and believed to be ancestral to nearly all modern alphabets:...
picture of a house by acrophony

Acrophony

Acrophony is the naming of graphemes of an alphabetic writing system so that a letter's name begins with the letter itself. For example, Greek letter names are acrophonic: the names of the letters a, ?, ?, d, are spelled with the respective letters: ....
.

The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek

Greek alphabet

The Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th century BC or early 8th century BCE....
Beta

Beta (letter)

Beta is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 2. It was derived from the Phoenician alphabet Beth ....
, Latin

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
B

For technical reasons, B# redirects here. For the musical note, see C B is the second letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled bee , plural bees....
, and Cyrillic

Cyrillic alphabet

The Cyrillic alphabet is a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by five Slavic languages national languages as well as non-Slavic . It is also used by many other languages of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Siberia and other languages in the past....
?

or is a letter derived from the Latin alphabet. Both glyphs of the majuscule and Lower case forms of this letter are based on the rotated form of a minuscule e; a similar letter with identical minuscule is used in the Pan-Nigerian Alphabet, but has the capital form majuscule , based on a horizontally flipped majuscule E....
, ?

Hebrew Bah / Vet

Orthographic Orthography The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Orthography is derived from Greek language ????? orth?s and ???fe?? gr?phein .... variants
Various Print Fonts			Cursive Hebrew	Rashi Script Rashi script Rashi script is a semi-Hebrew cursive typeface for the Hebrew alphabet, in which Rashi#Works are printed both in the Talmud and Tanakh . This does not mean that Rashi himself used such a script: the typeface is based on a 15th century Sephardi Jews semi-cursive hand and was called by the Ashkenazic Rishonim - the Hachmei Provence script....
Serif	Sans-serif Sans-serif In typography, a sans-serif or sans serif typeface is one that does not have the small features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. The term comes from the French word sans, meaning "without"....	Monospaced	Cursive Hebrew
?	?	?

The Hebrew letter represents two different phonemes: a "b" sound (bet) and a "v" sound (vet). The two are distinguished by a dot (called a dagesh

Dagesh

The dagesh is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It was added to the Hebrew language orthography at the same time as the Masoretic system of niqqud ....
) in the centre of the letter for and no dot for .

This letter is named bet and vet, following the modern Israeli Hebrew pronunciation, bet and vet , in Israel

Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
and by most Jew

Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
s familiar with Hebrew, although some non-Israeli Ashkenazi

Ashkenazi Hebrew

Ashkenazi Hebrew is the pronunciation system for Biblical Hebrew language and Mishnaic Hebrew language favored for Liturgy use by Ashkenazi Judaism practice....
speakers pronounce it beis and veis , and some Jews pronounce it beth and veth . It is also named beth, following the Tiberian Hebrew pronunciation, in academic circles.

Variations on written form/pronunciation:

Name	Symbol	IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic....	Transliteration Transliteration Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice....	Example
Vet			v	vote
Bet			b	boat

Bet with the dagesh

When the Bet has a "dot" in its center, known as a dagesh

Dagesh

The dagesh is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It was added to the Hebrew language orthography at the same time as the Masoretic system of niqqud ....
, then it represents . There are various rules in Hebrew grammar

Hebrew grammar

Hebrew language grammar is partly analytic language, expressing such forms as dative case, ablative case, and accusative case using prepositional particles rather than declension....
that stipulate when and why a dagesh is used.

Bet without the dagesh (Vet)

When this letter appears as ? without the dagesh

Dagesh

The dagesh is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It was added to the Hebrew language orthography at the same time as the Masoretic system of niqqud ....
("dot") in its center then it represents a voiced labiodental fricative

Voiced labiodental fricative

The voiced labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is v....
: .

Significance of ?, mystical and otherwise

Bet in gematria

Gematria

Gematria or gimatria is a system of assigning number to an alphabet. The word "gematria" is generally held to derive from Greek geometria, "geometry", which was used a translation of gema?riya....
symbolizes the number 2.

As a prefix, the letter bet may function as a preposition meaning "in", "at", or "with".

Bet is the first letter of the Torah

Torah

The term "Torah" , or Five Books of Moses or Pentateuch, refers to the entirety of Judaism's founding Halakha and ethical religious texts....
. As Bet is the number 2 in gematria, this is said to symbolize that there are two parts to Torah: the Written Torah

Torah

The term "Torah" , or Five Books of Moses or Pentateuch, refers to the entirety of Judaism's founding Halakha and ethical religious texts....
and the Oral Torah

Oral Torah

A term used to denote the legal and interpretative traditions which were transmitted Speech, and which were not written in the Torah. According to Rabbinic Judaism, the oral Torah, oral Law, or oral tradition was given by God orally to Moses in conjunction with the written Torah ....
.

Rashi

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, , better known by the acronym Rashi , , was a rabbi from France, famed as the author of the first comprehensive commentary on the Talmud, and Jewish commentaries on the Bible....
points out that the letter is closed on three sides and open on one; this is to teach you that you may question about what happened after creation, but not what happened before it, or what is above the heavens or below the earth.

In set theory

Set theory

Set theory is the branch of mathematics that studies Set , which are collections of objects. Although any type of object can be collected into a set, set theory is applied most often to objects that are relevant to mathematics....
, the beth number

Beth number

In mathematics, the infinite cardinal numbers are represented by the Hebrew letter indexed with a subscript that runs over the ordinal numbers . The second Hebrew alphabet is used in a related way, but does not necessarily index all of the numbers indexed by ....
s stand for powers of infinite sets.

Syriac Beth

In the Syriac alphabet

Syriac alphabet

Gimel (letter)

Gimel is the third Letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician language, Aramaic language, Hebrew language , Syriac alphabet and Arabic alphabet ....
, Dalet

Dalet

Dalet is the fourth Letter of many Semitic languages alphabets, including Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic alphabet, Hebrew alphabet , Syriac alphabet and Arabic alphabet ....
, Kaph

Kaph

Kaph is the eleventh letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician language, Aramaic language, Hebrew language Kaf , Arabic alphabet , Persian alphabet ....
, Pe

Pe (letter)

Pe is the seventeenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician language, Aramaic language, Hebrew language Pei , Persian alphabet Pe and Arabic alphabet ....
and Taw

Taw (letter)

Taw or Tav is the twenty-second and last letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician language, Aramaic language, Hebrew language Tav and Arabic alphabet ....
). When Beth has a hard pronunciation (qûššayâ) it is a [b

Voiced bilabial plosive

Voiced bilabial fricative

The voiced bilabial fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is B....
]. However, in eastern dialects, the soft Beth is more often pronounced as a [w

Voiced labial-velar approximant

The voiced labiovelar approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in certain Speech communication languages, including English. It is the sound denoted by the letter "w" in the English alphabet; likewise, the symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is w....
], and can form diphthong

Diphthong

In phonetics, a diphthong, or , is a contour vowel?that is, a unitary vowel that changes vowel quality during its pronunciation, or "glides", with a glissando of the tongue from one articulation to another, as in the English words eye, boy, and cow. This contrasts with "pure" vowels, or monophthongs, where the tongue is held s...
s 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.

Beth, when attached to the beginning of a word, represents the preposition 'in, with, at'. 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.

Arabic

The Arabic letter ? is named ??? , and is written in several ways depending on its position in the word:

In most cases, letter ? ba' renders /b/ sound, except some foreign words where it can render /p/, often arabised as /b/. It may be used interchangeably with the Persian letter ? - pa' (with 3 dots) in this case.