Bet (letter)

The name bet is derived from the West Semitic word for "house" (as in Hebrew: בַּיִת, romanized: bayiṯ), and the shape of the letter derives from a Proto-Sinaitic glyph that may have been based on the Egyptian hieroglyph Pr, which depicts a house.

The Arabic letter ب is named بَاءْ bāʾ (bāʔ). It is written in several ways depending on its position in the word

The letter normally renders /b/ sound, except in some names and loanwords where it can also render /p/, often Arabized as /b/, as in بَرْسِيلْ (Persil). For /p/, it may be used interchangeably with the Persian letter پ - pe (with 3 dots) in this case.

Interpretation of ب

Bāʾ is the first letter of the Quran ^{[ 1:1]}, the first letter of Basmala. The letter bāʾ as a prefix may function as a preposition meaning "by" or "with". Some tafsirs interpreted the positioning of bāʾ as the opener of the Qur'an with "by My (God's) cause (all is present and happen)".

Persian variant

A variant of bāʾ, with three dots below instead of one, named pe, is used in the Persian alphabet and the Kurdish alphabet to represent the voiceless bilabial plosive ⟨p⟩, a sound that does not exist in Arabic.. It is thus written as:

Hebrew spelling: בֵּית

The Hebrew letter represents two different phonemes: a "b" sound (/b/) (bet) and a "v" sound (/v/) (vet). When Hebrew is written Ktiv menuqad (with niqqud diacritics) the two are distinguished by a dot (called a dagesh) in the centre of the letter for /b/ and no dot for /v/. In modern Hebrew, the more commonly used Ktiv hasar niqqud spelling, which does not use diacritics, does not visually distinguish between the two phonemes.

This letter is named bet and vet, following the modern Israeli Hebrew pronunciation, bet and vet (/bet/), in Israel and by most Jews familiar with Hebrew, although some non-Israeli Ashkenazi speakers pronounce it beis (or bais) and veis (/bejs/) (or vais or vaiz). It is also named beth, following the Tiberian Hebrew pronunciation, in academic circles. An alternative blend sometimes used is the Ashkenazi pronunciation with a "t" at the end. Spelled as beit as in "beit hamigdash".

In modern Hebrew the frequency of the usage of bet, out of all the letters, is 4.98%.

Variations on written form/pronunciation

Bet with the dagesh

When the Bet appears as בּ with a "dot" in its center, known as a dagesh, then it represents /b/. There are various rules in Hebrew grammar that stipulate when and why a dagesh is used.

Bet without the dagesh (Vet)

In Ktiv menuqad spelling, which uses diacritics, when the letter appears as ב without the dagesh ("dot") in its center it represents a voiced labiodental fricative: /v/. In Ktiv hasar niqqud spelling, without diacritics, the letter without the dot may represent either phoneme.

Significance as prefix

As a prefix, i.e. when attached to the beginning of a word, the letter bet may function as a preposition meaning "in", "at", or "with".

Numerological and mystical significance

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.

Bet in gematria represents the number 2.

Bet is the first letter of the Torah. As Bet is the number 2 in gematria, this is said to symbolize that there are two parts to Torah: the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. According to Jewish legend, the letter Bet was specially chosen among the 22 letters in Hebrew by God as the first letter of Torah as it begins with "Bereshit (In the beginning) God created heaven and earth."

Genesis Rabbah points out that the letter is closed on three sides and open on one; this is indicate that one can investigate what happened after creation, but not what happened before it, or what is above the heavens or below the earth.

In the Syriac alphabet, the second letter is ܒ, Beth (ܒܹܝܬ). It is one of six letters that represents two associated sounds (the others are Gimel, Dalet, Kaph, Pe and Taw). When Beth has a hard pronunciation (qûššāyâ) it is a [b]. When Beth has a soft pronunciation (rûkkāḵâ) it is traditionally pronounced as a [v], similar to its Hebrew form. However, in eastern dialects, the soft Beth is more often pronounced as a [w], and can form diphthongs 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.

Mathematics

In set theory, the beth numbers stand for powers of infinite sets.