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Bet (letter)
Encyclopedia
Bet, Beth, Beh, or Vet is the second letter
of many Semitic abjads, including Arabic alphabet
, Aramaic
, Hebrew
, Phoenician and Syriac
. Its value is b.
This letter's name means "house" in various Semitic languages (Arabic bayt, Akkadian bītu, bētu, Hebrew: bayiṯ, Phoenician byt etc.; ultimately all from Proto-Semitic *bayt-), and appears to derive from a Middle Bronze Age
picture of a house by acrophony
.
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek
Beta
, Latin
B
, and Cyrillic
Б, В.
Hebrew spelling:
The Hebrew letter represents two different phonemes: a "b" sound (/b/) (bet) and a "v" sound (/v/) (vet). The two are distinguished by a dot (called a dagesh) in the centre of the letter for /b/ and no dot for /v/.
This letter is named bet and vet, following the modern Israeli Hebrew pronunciation, bet and vet (/bɛjt/), in Israel
and by most Jews familiar with Hebrew, although some non-Israeli Ashkenazi
speakers pronounce it beis and veis (/bejs/). It is also named beth, following the Tiberian Hebrew
pronunciation, in academic circles.
in modern Hebrew the frequency of the usage of bet, out of all the letters, is 4.98%.
that stipulate when and why a dagesh is used.
: /v/.
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
. 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
.
Rashi
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
, the beth number
s stand for powers of infinite sets.
In the Syriac alphabet
, the second letter is — Beth . 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 () 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 diphthong
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.
The letter normally renders /b/ sound, except in some names and loanword
s where it can also render /p/, often arabized as /b/. (as in برسيل (Persil
). For /p/, it may be used interchangeably with the Persian letter - pe (with 3 dots) in this case.
Letter (alphabet)
A letter is a grapheme in an alphabetic system of writing, such as the Greek alphabet and its descendants. Letters compose phonemes and each phoneme represents a phone in the spoken form of the language....
of many Semitic abjads, including Arabic alphabet
Arabic alphabet
The Arabic alphabet or Arabic abjad is the Arabic script as it is codified for writing the Arabic language. It is written from right to left, in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters. Because letters usually stand for consonants, it is classified as an abjad.-Consonants:The Arabic alphabet has...
, Aramaic
Aramaic language
Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...
, Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, Phoenician and 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 abjads directly descending from the Aramaic alphabet and shares similarities with the Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic, and the traditional Mongolian alphabets.-...
. Its value is b.
This letter's name means "house" in various Semitic languages (Arabic bayt, Akkadian bītu, bētu, Hebrew: bayiṯ, Phoenician byt etc.; ultimately all from Proto-Semitic *bayt-), and appears to derive from a Middle Bronze Age
Middle Bronze Age alphabets
Proto-Sinaitic is a Middle Bronze Age script attested in a very small collection of inscriptions at Serabit el-Khadim in the Sinai Peninsula. Due to the extreme scarcity of Proto-Sinaitic signs, very little is known with certainty about the nature of the script...
picture of a house by acrophony
Acrophony
Acrophony is the naming of letters 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 α, β, γ, δ, are spelled with the respective letters: ....
.
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
Beta
Beta (letter)
Beta is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiodental fricative ....
, Latin
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
B
B
B is the second letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is used to represent a variety of bilabial sounds , most commonly a voiced bilabial plosive.-History:...
, and Cyrillic
Cyrillic alphabet
The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
Б, В.
Hebrew Bet / Vet
| Orthographic Orthography The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography... variants |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Various Print Fonts | Cursive Hebrew |
Rashi Script Rashi script Rashi script is a semi-cursive typeface for the Hebrew alphabet. It is named for the author of the most famous rabbinic commentary on the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud, Rashi, and is customarily used for printing his commentaries. The typeface is based on 15th century Sephardic semi-cursive... |
||
| Serif | Sans-serif Sans-serif In typography, a sans-serif, sans serif or san serif typeface is one that does not have the small projecting features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. The term comes from the French word sans, meaning "without".... | Monospaced | ||
| ב | ב | ב |  |
 |
Hebrew spelling:
The Hebrew letter represents two different phonemes: a "b" sound (/b/) (bet) and a "v" sound (/v/) (vet). The two are distinguished by a dot (called a dagesh) in the centre of the letter for /b/ and no dot for /v/.
This letter is named bet and vet, following the modern Israeli Hebrew pronunciation, bet and vet (/bɛjt/), in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and by most Jews familiar with Hebrew, although some non-Israeli Ashkenazi
Ashkenazi Hebrew
Ashkenazi Hebrew , is the pronunciation system for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Ashkenazi Jewish practice. Its phonology was influenced by languages with which it came into contact, such as Yiddish, German, and various Slavic languages...
speakers pronounce it beis and veis (/bejs/). It is also named beth, following the Tiberian Hebrew
Tiberian Hebrew
Tiberian Hebrew is the extinct canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh and related documents in the Roman Empire. This traditional medieval pronunciation was committed to writing by Masoretic scholars based in the Jewish community of Tiberias , in the form of the Tiberian vocalization...
pronunciation, in academic circles.
in modern Hebrew the frequency of the usage of bet, out of all the letters, is 4.98%.
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 a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another... |
| Example | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vet | /v/ | v | vote | ||||||
| Bet | /b/ | b | boat | ||||||
Bet with the dagesh
When the Bet has a "dot" in its center, known as a dagesh, then it represents /b/. There are various rules in Hebrew grammarHebrew grammar
-History of studies in Hebrew grammar:The Masoretes in the 7th to 11th centuries laid the foundation for grammatical analysis of Hebrew. As early as the 9th century Judah ibn Kuraish discussed the relationship between Arabic and Hebrew...
that stipulate when and why a dagesh is used.
Bet without the dagesh (Vet)
When this letter appears as ב without the dagesh ("dot") in its center then it represents a voiced labiodental fricativeVoiced labiodental fricative
The voiced labiodental 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 v....
: /v/.
Significance of ב, mystical and otherwise
Bet in gematriaGematria
Gematria or gimatria is a system of assigning numerical value to a word or phrase, in the belief that words or phrases with identical numerical values bear some relation to each other, or bear some relation to the number itself as it may apply to a person's age, the calendar year, or the like...
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
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
. As Bet is the number 2 in gematria, this is said to symbolize that there are two parts to Torah: the Written Torah
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
and the Oral Torah
Oral Torah
The Oral Torah comprises the legal and interpretative traditions that, according to tradition, were transmitted orally from Mount Sinai, and were not written in the Torah...
.
Rashi
Rashi
Shlomo Yitzhaki , or in Latin Salomon Isaacides, and today generally known by the acronym Rashi , was a medieval French rabbi famed as the author of a comprehensive commentary on the Talmud, as well as a comprehensive commentary on the Tanakh...
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 sets, 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 \aleph indexed with a subscript that runs over the ordinal numbers...
s stand for powers of infinite sets.
Syriac Beth
| Beth |
|---|
| Madnḫaya Beth |
| Serṭo Beth |
| Esṭrangela Beth |
In the Syriac alphabet
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 abjads directly descending from the Aramaic alphabet and shares similarities with the Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic, and the traditional Mongolian alphabets.-...
, the second letter is — Beth . It is one of six letters that represents two associated sounds (the others are Gimel
Gimel (letter)
Gimel is the third letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew , Syriac and Arabic...
, Dalet
Dalet
Dalet is the fourth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew , Syriac and Arabic...
, Kaph
Kaph
Kaph is the eleventh letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Kaf , Arabic alphabet , Persian alphabet...
, Pe
Pe (letter)
Pe is the seventeenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Pei and Persian, Arabic ....
and Taw
Taw (letter)
Taw, Tav or Taf is the twenty-second and last letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Taw and Arabic alphabet .Its original sound value is ....
). When Beth has a hard pronunciation (qûššāyâ) it is a
Voiced bilabial plosive
The voiced bilabial plosive 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 voiced bilabial plosive occurs in English, and it is the sound denoted by the...
]. When Beth has a soft pronunciation () it is traditionally pronounced as a
Voiced bilabial fricative
-See also:* List of phonetics topics...
], similar to its Hebrew form. However, in eastern dialects, the soft Beth is more often pronounced as a
Voiced labial-velar approximant
The voiced labiovelar approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in certain spoken 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...
], and can form diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
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 . It is most commonly known in Egypt as be. It is written in several ways depending on its position in the word:The letter normally renders /b/ sound, except in some names and loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s where it can also render /p/, often arabized as /b/. (as in برسيل (Persil
Persil
Persil is a brand of laundry detergent currently and originally made by Henkel & Cie; but which is now also licensed for manufacture, distribution, and marketing in several countries by the Unilever Corporation. Henkel and Unilever both manufacture their own formulations...
). For /p/, it may be used interchangeably with the Persian letter - pe (with 3 dots) in this case.