Pe (letter)
Pe | ||||||||||
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Phonemic representation | p, f (was ɸ), w | |||||||||
Position in alphabet | 17 | |||||||||
Numerical value | 80 | |||||||||
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician | ||||||||||
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Pe is the seventeenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Pē , Hebrew Pē פ, Aramaic Pē , Syriac Pē ܦ, and Arabic Fāʼ ف (in abjadi order).
The original sound value is a voiceless bilabial plosive: /p/; it retains this value in most Semitic languages except for Arabic, which having lost /p/ now uses it to render a voiceless labiodental fricative /f/.
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Pi (Π), Latin P, and Cyrillic П.
Origins
Pe is usually assumed to come from a pictogram of a mouth (in Hebrew pe; in Arabic, فاه fah).
Hebrew Pe
The Hebrew spelling is פֵּא. It is also romanized pey, especially when used in Yiddish.[1][2]
position in word | Various print fonts | Cursive Hebrew | Rashi script | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Serif | Sans-serif | Monospaced | |||
non final | פ | פ | פ | ||
final | ף | ף | ף |
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, Daleth, Kaph, Pe, and Tav.
There are two orthographic variants of this letter which indicate a different pronunciation:
Name | Symbol | IPA | Transliteration | as in the English word |
---|---|---|---|---|
Pe | פּ | /p/ | p | pan |
Fe | פ | /f/ | f | fan |
Pe with the dagesh
When the Pe has a "dot" in its center, known as a dagesh, it represents a voiceless bilabial plosive, /p/. There are various rules in Hebrew grammar that stipulate when and why a dagesh is used.
Fe
When Pe appears without the dagesh dot in its center (פ), then it usually represents a voiceless labiodental fricative /f/.
Final form of Pe/Fe
At the end of words, the letter's written form changes to a Pe/Fe Sophit (Final Pe/Fe):ף
When a word in modern Hebrew borrowed from another language ends in /p/, a pe with a dagesh at the end of the word is used instead of the final form, as a word almost never ends with a letter containing a Dagesh, except for very few biblical exceptions. A Pe sofit is virtually non-existent in Hebrew and is not used in standard Yiddish orthography.
Significance
In gematria, Pe represents the number 80. Its final form represents 800 but this is rarely used, Tav written twice (400+400) being used instead.
Arabic fāʼ
The letter ﻑ is named ﻓﺎء fāʾ. It is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:
Position in word: | Isolated | Final | Medial | Initial |
---|---|---|---|---|
Glyph form: | ف | ـف | ـفـ | فـ |
Normally, the letter ﻑ fāʼ renders /f/ sound, but may also be used some names and loanwords where it can render /v/, might be arabized as /f/ in accordance to its spelling, e.g., يُونِيلِفِر (Unilever). It may be used interchangeably with the modified letter ﭪ - ve (with 3 dots above) in this case.
In the process of developing from Proto-Semitic, Proto-Semitic /p/ became Arabic /f/, and this is reflected in the use of the letter representing /p/ in other Semitic languages for /f/ in Arabic.
Examples on usage in Modern Standard Arabic:
- Fāʾ-fatḥah (فَـ /fa/) is a multi-function prefix most commonly equivalent to "so" or "so that." For example: نَكْتُب naktub ("we write") → فَنَكْتُب fanaktub ("so we write").
Maghrebi variant
In the Maghreb (northwest Africa), the dot in fāʼ is written underneath (ڢ). Once the prevalent style, it is now only used in Maghribi countries for writing Qur'an, with the exception of Libya and Algeria, which adopted the Mashriqi form (dot above).
Position in word: | Isolated | Final | Medial | Initial |
---|---|---|---|---|
Glyph form: | ڢ | ـڢ | ـڢـ | ڢـ |
The Maghrebi alphabet has taken the shape of fa’ (ﻑ) to mean qāf instead.
Other similar letters
The unrelated letter pe پ is used in Perso-Arabic script.
- For more details, see also Pe (Persian letter).
Code point | Isolated | Final | Medial | Initial | Unicode character name (or descriptive synonyms used in the JoiningType and JoiningGroup datatables) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
U+0641 | ف | ـف | ـفـ | فـ
|style="text-align:left"| ARABIC LETTER FEH | |
U+06A1 | ڡ | ـڡ | ـڡـ | ڡـ
|style="text-align:left"| ARABIC LETTER DOTLESS FEH | |
U+06A2 | ڢ | ـڢ | ـڢـ | ڢـ
|style="text-align:left"| ARABIC LETTER FEH WITH DOT MOVED BELOW | |
U+06A3 | ڣ | ـڣ | ـڣـ | ڣـ
|style="text-align:left"| ARABIC LETTER FEH WITH DOT BELOW | |
U+06A4 | ڤ | ـڤ | ـڤـ | ڤـ
|style="text-align:left"| ARABIC LETTER FEH WITH 3 DOTS ABOVE = VEH | |
U+06A5 | ڥ | ـڥ | ـڥـ | ڥـ
|style="text-align:left"| ARABIC LETTER FEH WITH 3 DOTS BELOW = MAGHRIBI VEH | |
U+06A6 | ڦ | ـڦ | ـڦـ | ڦـ
|style="text-align:left"| ARABIC LETTER FEH WITH 4 DOTS ABOVE = PEHEH | |
U+0760 | ݠ | ـݠ | ـݠـ | ݠـ
|style="text-align:left"| ARABIC LETTER FEH WITH 2 DOTS BELOW | |
U+0761 | ݡ | ـݡ | ـݡـ | ݡـ
|style="text-align:left"| ARABIC LETTER FEH WITH 3 DOTS POINTING UPWARDS BELOW | |
U+08A4 | ࢤ | ـࢤ | ـࢤـ | ࢤـ
|style="text-align:left"| ARABIC LETTER FEH WITH DOT BELOW AND THREE DOTS ABOVE |
Character encodings
Character | פ | ף | ف | ܦ | ࠐ | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unicode name | HEBREW LETTER PE | HEBREW LETTER FINAL PE | ARABIC LETTER FEH | SYRIAC LETTER PE | SAMARITAN LETTER PI | |||||
Encodings | decimal | hex | decimal | hex | decimal | hex | decimal | hex | decimal | hex |
Unicode | 1508 | U+05E4 | 1507 | U+05E3 | 1601 | U+0641 | 1830 | U+0726 | 2064 | U+0810 |
UTF-8 | 215 164 | D7 A4 | 215 163 | D7 A3 | 217 129 | D9 81 | 220 166 | DC A6 | 224 160 144 | E0 A0 90 |
Numeric character reference | פ | פ | ף | ף | ف | ف | ܦ | ܦ | ࠐ | ࠐ |
Character | 𐎔 | 𐡐 | 𐤐 | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unicode name | UGARITIC LETTER PU | IMPERIAL ARAMAIC LETTER PE | PHOENICIAN LETTER PE | |||
Encodings | decimal | hex | decimal | hex | decimal | hex |
Unicode | 66452 | U+10394 | 67664 | U+10850 | 67856 | U+10910 |
UTF-8 | 240 144 142 148 | F0 90 8E 94 | 240 144 161 144 | F0 90 A1 90 | 240 144 164 144 | F0 90 A4 90 |
UTF-16 | 55296 57236 | D800 DF94 | 55298 56400 | D802 DC50 | 55298 56592 | D802 DD10 |
Numeric character reference | 𐎔 | 𐎔 | 𐡐 | 𐡐 | 𐤐 | 𐤐 |
References
- ↑ Daniels, Peter T. (1996). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press. p. 736. ISBN 978-0-19-507993-7.
- ↑ Kahn, Lily (2013). Colloquial Yiddish: The Complete Course for Beginners. Routledge. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-136-96779-5.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to פ. |
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