Bet, Beth, Beh, or Vet is the second
letter of the
Semitic abjads, including
Phoenician Bēt
,
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
Bēt
,
Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated i ...
Bēth
,
Syriac Bēṯ
, and
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
. Its sound value is the
voiced bilabial stop ⟨b⟩ or the
voiced 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.
The sound is similar to ...
⟨v⟩.
The letter's name means "house" in various Semitic languages (Arabic ''
bayt'', Akkadian ''
bītu, bētu'', Hebrew: ''
bayiṯ'', Phoenician ''
bt'' etc.; ultimately all from
Proto-Semitic ''
*bayt-''), and appears to derive from an
Egyptian hieroglyph of a house by
acrophony
Acrophony (; Greek: ἄκρος ''akros'' uppermost + φωνή ''phone'' sound) 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 name ...
.
O1
The Phoenician letter gave rise to, among others, the
Greek beta (
Β, β),
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
B (B, b) and
Cyrillic
The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic 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 co ...
Be (
Б, б) and Ve (
В, в).
Origin
The name ''bet'' is derived from the West Semitic word for "
house" (as in Hebrew ''bayt'' בַּיִת), and the shape of the letter derives from a
Proto-Sinaitic glyph that may have been based on the
Egyptian hieroglyph ''
Pr''
O1 which depicts a house.
Arabic
The Arabic letter is named ' (). It is written in several ways depending on its position in the word:
The letter normally renders sound, except in some names and
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because ...
s where it can also render , often Arabized as , as in (
Persil). For , it may be used interchangeably with the Persian letter - ''pe'' (with 3 dots) in this case.
Hebrew Bet / Vet
Hebrew spelling:
The Hebrew letter represents two different phonemes: a "b" sound () (bet) and a "v" sound () (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 and no dot for . In modern Hebrew, the more commonly used ''
Ktiv hasar niqqud
''Ktiv hasar niqqud'' (; he, כתיב חסר ניקוד, literally "spelling lacking niqqud"), colloquially known as ''ktiv maleh'' (; , literally "full spelling"), are the rules for writing Hebrew without vowel points (niqqud), often replacing ...
'' 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'' (), in
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
and by most
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
familiar with Hebrew, although some non-Israeli
Ashkenazi
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
speakers pronounce it ''beis'' (or ''bais'') and ''veis'' () (or ''vais'' or ''vaiz''). 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%.
Variations on written form/pronunciation
Bet with the dagesh
When the Bet appears as with a "dot" in its center, known as a
dagesh, then it represents . 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 ''without'' the
dagesh ("dot") in its center it represents a
voiced 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.
The sound is similar to ...
: . In ''Ktiv hasar niqqud'' spelling, without diacritics, the letter without the dot may represent either phoneme.
Mystical significance of
Bet in
gematria represents the number 2.
As a
prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy''. Particul ...
, the letter bet may function as a
preposition meaning "in", "at", or "with".
Bet is the first letter of the
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
. As Bet is the number 2 in gematria, this is said to symbolize that there are two parts to Torah: the Written
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
and the
Oral Torah
According to Rabbinic Judaism, the Oral Torah or Oral Law ( he, , Tōrā šebbəʿal-pe}) are those purported laws, statutes, and legal interpretations that were not recorded in the Five Books of Moses, the Written Torah ( he, , Tōrā šebbī� ...
. 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
Genesis Rabbah (Hebrew: , ''B'reshith Rabba'') is a religious text from Judaism's classical period, probably written between 300 and 500 CE with some later additions. It is a midrash comprising a collection of ancient rabbinical homiletical inter ...
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.
Genesis Rabbah 1:10
/ref>
In mathematics
In set theory
Set theory is the branch of mathematical logic that studies sets, which can be informally described as collections of objects. Although objects of any kind can be collected into a set, set theory, as a branch of mathematics, is mostly concern ...
, the beth numbers stand for powers of infinite sets.
Syriac Beth
In the Syriac alphabet
The Syriac alphabet ( ) is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language since the 1st century AD. It is one of the Semitic languages, Semitic abjads descending from the Aramaic alphabet through the Palmyrene alphabet, and shares ...
, the second letter is — Beth (). It is one of six letters that represents two associated sounds (the others are Gimel
Gimel is the third letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Gīml , Hebrew Gimel , Aramaic Gāmal , Syriac Gāmal , and Arabic (in alphabetical order; fifth in spelling order). Its sound value in the original Phoenician and in all ...
, Dalet, Kaph
Kaph (also spelled kaf) is the eleventh letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician kāp , Hebrew kāf , Aramaic kāp , Syriac kāp̄ , and Arabic kāf (in abjadi order).
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek kappa (Κ), ...
, Pe and Taw). When Beth has a hard pronunciation (''qûššāyâ'') it is a b.html"_;"title="voiced_bilabial_plosive.html"_;"title="/nowiki>voiced_bilabial_plosive">b">voiced_bilabial_plosive.html"_;"title="/nowiki>voiced_bilabial_plosive">b_When_Beth_has_a_soft_pronunciation_(''rûkkāḵâ'')_it_is_traditionally_pronounced_as_a_[voiced_bilabial_fricative.html" ;"title="voiced_bilabial_plosive">b.html" ;"title="voiced_bilabial_plosive.html" ;"title="/nowiki>voiced bilabial plosive">b">voiced_bilabial_plosive.html" ;"title="/nowiki>voiced bilabial plosive">b When Beth has a soft pronunciation (''rûkkāḵâ'') it is traditionally pronounced as a [voiced bilabial fricative">v], similar to its Hebrew form. However, in eastern dialects, the soft Beth is more often pronounced as a [voiced labial-velar approximant, 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.
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.
Character encodings
See also
* Bayt (disambiguation)Bayt/Beit/Beth/Bet (disambiguation), meaning 'house' in various Semitic languages; part of many place-names
References
External links
{{Authority control
Phoenician alphabet
Arabic letters
Hebrew letters