Be (Cyrillic)

Б (Buky/бѹкꙑ)
Б (Buky/бѹкꙑ)
Б б
(See below)
Usage
Writing system	Cyrillic script
Type	Alphabetic
Language of origin	Old Church Slavonic
Sound values	[b]; [p]; [β]
In Unicode	U+0411, U+0431
Alphabetical position	2
History
Development	Β β Б б; ; ; ; ; ;
Time period	~900 to present
Sisters	B b; B β; В в; Ƃ ƃ;
Transliterations	B b (Latin script)
Variations	(See below)
Other
Writing direction	Left-to-right
	This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Be (Б б; italics: Б б or Б б; italics: Б б) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. It commonly represents the voiced bilabial plosive /b/, like the English pronunciation of ⟨b⟩ in "ball". It should not be confused with the Cyrillic letter Ve (В в), which is shaped like Latin capital letter B but represents the voiced labiodental fricative /v/ or the voiced bilabial fricative /β/. The Cyrillic letter Б (Be) is romanized using the Latin letter B.

History

The Cyrillic letters Be and Ve (В в) were both derived from the Greek letter Beta (Β β).

In the Early Cyrillic alphabet the name of the letter Be was бѹкꙑ (buky/буки), meaning "letter".

In the Cyrillic numeral system, the letter Be had no numeric value because the letter Ve inherited the Greek letter Beta's numeric value.

Form

The Russian small letter б (be) is similar (but not identical) in shape to the digit 6. Its lowercase form also somewhat resembles a lowercase letter B ("b"), the letter to which it corresponds in the Latin alphabet. After all, the lowercase Latin letter B ("b") developed from scribal alterations to the capital letter B ("B"), just as б did from scribal alterations to the capital letter В ("Ve").

In Serbian and Macedonian the italic form is allowed to vary, but the regular should look like in other languages.^[1]

The cursive form of the lowercase letter Be resembles the lowercase Greek letter Delta (δ), but they are slightly different in their upper portions.

Usage

In Russian and Bulgarian, the letter Be generally represents the voiced bilabial plosive /b/, but word-finally or before a voiceless consonant, it also represents the voiceless [p]. Before a palatalizing vowel, it represents /bʲ/. In Macedonian, the letter represents the sound /b/, but if it is in the final position of the word, it is pronounced as /p/, like in леб /lɛp/ ('bread').