Fāʼ
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Pe is the seventeenth letter of the
Semitic abjads An abjad ( or abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving the vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vowels. The term was introd ...
, including
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
''fāʾ'' ,
Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...
''pē'' 𐡐,
Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
''pē'' , Phoenician ''pē'' 𐤐, and Syriac ''pē'' ܦ. (in
abjadi order The Abjad numerals, also called Hisab al-Jummal (, ), are a decimal alphabetic numeral system/ alphanumeric code, in which the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet are assigned numerical values. They have been used in the Arabic-speaking world si ...
). It is related to the
Ancient North Arabian Languages and scripts in the 1st Century Arabia Ancient North Arabian (ANA) is a collection of scripts and a language or family of languages under the North Arabian languages branch along with Old Arabic that were used in north and central Ara ...
𐪐‎, South Arabian , and Ge'ez . The original sound value is a
voiceless bilabial plosive The voiceless bilabial plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in most Speech communication, spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is p. F ...
and it retains this value in most Semitic languages, except for Arabic, where the sound changed into the
voiceless labiodental fricative The voiceless labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in a number of spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . Some scholars also posit the voiceless labiodental approx ...
, carrying with it the pronunciation of the letter. However, the sound in Arabic is used in loanwords with the letter '' pe'' as an alternative. Under the Persian influence, many Arabic dialects in the
Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf, sometimes called the Arabian Gulf, is a Mediterranean seas, mediterranean sea in West Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Arabian Sea and the larger Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.Un ...
, as well as in
Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...
and in some of the
Maghreb The Maghreb (; ), also known as the Arab Maghreb () and Northwest Africa, is the western part of the Arab world. The region comprises western and central North Africa, including Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. The Maghreb al ...
under the Ottoman influence uses the letter ''pe'' to represent the sound which is missing in
Modern Standard Arabic Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA) is the variety of Standard language, standardized, Literary language, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and in some usages al ...
. Not to be confused with the Turned g. The Phoenician letter gave rise to the
Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
Pi (Π),
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
P,
Glagolitic The Glagolitic script ( , , ''glagolitsa'') is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is generally agreed that it was created in the 9th century for the purpose of translating liturgical texts into Old Church Slavonic by Saints Cyril and Methodi ...
, and
Cyrillic The Cyrillic 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 countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...
П.


Origins

Pe is usually assumed to come from a pictogram of a "mouth" (in
Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
''pe''; in Arabic, فا ''fah''). D21


Arabic fāʾ

The letter is named ' . It is written in several ways depending on its position in the word: In the process of developing from
Proto-Semitic Proto-Semitic is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Semitic languages. There is no consensus regarding the location of the linguistic homeland for Proto-Semitic: scholars hypothesize that it may have originated in the Levant, the Sahara, ...
, Proto-Semitic became Arabic , and this is reflected in the use of the letter representing in other Semitic languages for in Arabic. Examples on usage in
Modern Standard Arabic Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA) is the variety of Standard language, standardized, Literary language, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and in some usages al ...
: * ' ( ) is a multi-function prefix most commonly equivalent to "so" or "so that." For example: ' ("we write") → ' ("so we write").


Maghrebi variant

In
Maghrebi script Maghrebi script or Maghribi script or Maghrebi Arabic script () refers to a loosely related family of Arabic scripts that developed in the Maghreb (North Africa), al-Andalus (Iberian Peninsula, Iberia), and Sudan (region), ''Bilad as-Sudan'' (th ...
s, the i'ajami dot in ' has traditionally been written underneath (). Once the prevalent style, it is now mostly used in countries of the
Maghreb The Maghreb (; ), also known as the Arab Maghreb () and Northwest Africa, is the western part of the Arab world. The region comprises western and central North Africa, including Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. The Maghreb al ...
in ceremonial situations or for writing Qur'an, with the exception of Libya and Algeria, which adopted the
Mashriq The Mashriq (; ), also known as the Arab Mashriq (), sometimes spelled Mashreq or Mashrek, is a term used by Arabs to refer to the eastern part of the Arab world, as opposed to the Maghreb (western) region, and located in West Asia and easter ...
i form (dot above). The Maghrebi alphabet, to write ' (), a letter that resembles ' () in the initial and medial forms is used, but it is really a ' with a single dot ().


Central Asian variant

In the Arabic orthographies of
Uyghur Uyghur may refer to: * Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia (West China) ** Uyghur language, a Turkic language spoken primarily by the Uyghurs *** Old Uyghur language, a different Turkic language spoken in the Uyghur K ...
, Kazakh and Kyrgyz, the letter ' has a
descender In typography and handwriting, a descender is the portion of a grapheme that extends below the Baseline (typography), baseline of a typeface, font. For example, in the letter ''y'', the descender is the "tail", or that portion of the diagonal li ...
in the final and isolated positions, much like the Maghrebi version of '. Theoretically this shape could be approximated by using , but in practice is used in databases of these languages, and most commercial fonts for these languages give the codepoint of the usual Arabic ' a shape like . When the Uyghur
keyboard layout A keyboard layout is any specific physical, visual, or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key-meaning associations (respectively) of a computer keyboard, mobile phone, or other computer-controlled typographic keyboard. Standard keybo ...
for
Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
was first added in
Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...
and
Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2008, codenamed "Longhorn Server" (alternatives: "Windows Vista Server" or "Windows Server Vista"), is the seventh major version of the Windows NT operating system produced by Microsoft to be released under the Windows Server b ...
, the key combination resulted in . The Uyghur keyboard layout in
Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...
and
Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server 2008 R2, codenamed "Windows Server 7" or "Windows Server 2008 Release 2", is the eighth major version of the Windows NT operating system produced by Microsoft to be released under the Windows Server brand name. It was release ...
changed that key combination to give . On the newer systems, the old keyboard layout is still available under the name Uyghur (Legacy).


Diacriticized Arabic versions

Normally, the letter ' renders sound, but may also be used some names and
loanword A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...
s where it can render , might be arabized as in accordance to its spelling, e.g., (
Unilever Unilever PLC () is a British multinational consumer packaged goods company headquartered in London, England. It was founded on 2 September 1929 following the merger of Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie with British soap maker Lever B ...
). It may be used interchangeably with the modified letter - ' (with 3 dots above) in this case. The letter fāʾ with three dots above is no longer used in Persian, as the -sound changed to , e.g. archaic > 'language' The character is mapped in
Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...
under position U+06A4.


Maghrebi variant

The Maghrebi style, used in Northwestern Africa, the dots moved underneath (Unicode U+06A5), because it is based on the other style of ():


Other similar letters


Hebrew pe

The Hebrew spelling is . It is also romanized pei or pey, especially when used in
Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...
.


Variations on written form/pronunciation

The letter Pe is one of the six letters which can receive a Dagesh Kal. The six are Bet,
Gimel Gimel is the third (in alphabetical order; fifth in spelling order) letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''gīml'' 𐤂, Hebrew ''gīmel'' , Aramaic ''gāmal'' 𐡂, Syriac ''gāmal'' ܓ and Arabic ''ǧīm'' . It is also rela ...
,
Daleth Dalet (, also spelled Daleth or Daled) is the fourth Letter (alphabet), letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician ' 𐤃, Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew , Aramaic alphabet, Aramaic ' 𐡃, Syriac alphabet, Syriac ' ܕ, ...
,
Kaph Kaph (also spelled kaf) is the eleventh letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ''kāp'' 𐤊, Hebrew ''kāp̄'' , Aramaic ''kāp'' 𐡊, Syriac ''kāp̄'' ܟ, and Arabic ''kāf'' (in abjadi order). It is also related to the Anc ...
, Pe, and Tav.


Variant forms of Pe/Fe

A notable variation on the letter Pe is the Pe Kefulah (Doubled Pe), also known as the Pei Lefufah (Wrapped Pe). The Pe Kefulah is written as a small Pe scribed within a larger Pe. This atypical letter appears in Torah scrolls (most often Yemenite Torahs but is also present in Sephardic and Ashkenazi Torahs), manuscripts, and some modern printed Hebrew Bibles. When the Pe is written in the form of a Doubled Pe, this adds a layer of deeper meaning to the Biblical text. This letter variation can appear on the final and non-final forms of the Pe. There are two orthographic variants of this letter which indicate a different pronunciation:


Pe with the dagesh

When the Pe has a "dot" in its center, known as a
dagesh The dagesh () is a diacritic that is used in the Hebrew alphabet. It takes the form of a dot placed inside a consonant. A dagesh can either indicate a "hard" plosive version of the consonant (known as , literally 'light dot') or that the conson ...
, it represents a
voiceless bilabial plosive The voiceless bilabial plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in most Speech communication, spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is p. F ...
, . There are various rules in
Hebrew grammar Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language until ...
that stipulate when and why a dagesh is used.


Fe

When Pe appears ''without'' the dagesh dot in its center (), then it usually represents a
voiceless labiodental fricative The voiceless labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in a number of spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . Some scholars also posit the voiceless labiodental approx ...
.


Final form of Pe/Fe

At the end of words, the letter's written form changes to a ''Pe/Fe Sophit'' (Final Pe/Fe): . When a word in modern Hebrew borrowed from another language ends with , the non-final form is used (e.g. "Philip"), while borrowings ending in still use the Pe Sofit (e.g. "fun", from Arabic). This is because native Hebrew words, which always use the final form at the end, cannot end in .


Significance

In
gematria In numerology, gematria (; or , plural or ) is the practice of assigning a numerical value to a name, word, or phrase by reading it as a number, or sometimes by using an alphanumeric cipher. The letters of the alphabets involved have standar ...
, Pe represents the number 80. Its final form represents 800 but this is rarely used, Tav written twice (400+400) being used instead.


Syriac pe


Character encodings


References


External links

{{Northwest Semitic abjad als:פ Phoenician alphabet Faʼ Hebrew letters Fe Letters with final form ar:ف arc:ܦܐ de:Pe fr:Pe (lettre) he:פ kk:ف nl:Pee ru:Мордовия fi:Pe (kirjain)