This article is about the letter of the alphabet. For other uses, see B (disambiguation). Show
B, or b, is the second letter of the Latin-script alphabet. Its name in English is bee (pronounced ), plural bees.[1][2] It represents the voiced bilabial stop in many languages, including English. In some other languages, it is used to represent other bilabial consonants. History
Old English was originally written in runes, whose equivalent letter was beorc ⟨ᛒ⟩, meaning "birch". Beorc dates to at least the 2nd-century Elder Futhark, which is now thought to have derived from the Old Italic alphabets' ⟨ 𐌁 ⟩ either directly or via Latin ⟨ The uncial ⟨ The Roman ⟨B⟩ derived from the Greek capital beta ⟨Β⟩ via its Etruscan and Cumaean variants. The Greek letter was an adaptation of the Phoenician letter bēt ⟨𐤁⟩.[3] The Egyptian hieroglyph for the consonant /b/ had been an image of a foot and calf ⟨ By Byzantine times, the Greek letter ⟨Β⟩ came to be pronounced /v/,[3] so that it is known in modern Greek as víta (still written βήτα). The Cyrillic letter ve ⟨В⟩ represents the same sound, so a modified form known as be ⟨Б⟩ was developed to represent the Slavic languages' /b/.[3] (Modern Greek continues to lack a letter for the voiced bilabial plosive and transliterates such sounds from other languages using the digraph/consonant cluster ⟨μπ⟩, mp.) Use in writing systemsEnglishIn English, ⟨b⟩ denotes the voiced bilabial stop /b/, as in bib. In English, it is sometimes silent. This occurs particularly in words ending in ⟨mb⟩, such as lamb and bomb, some of which originally had a /b/ sound, while some had the letter ⟨b⟩ added by analogy (see Phonological history of English consonant clusters). The ⟨b⟩ in debt, doubt, subtle, and related words was added in the 16th century as an etymological spelling, intended to make the words more like their Latin originals (debitum, dubito, subtilis).
A metal letter "B" with its homophone, a bee insect, standing on it As /b/ is one of the sounds subject to Grimm's Law, words which have ⟨b⟩ in English and other Germanic languages may find their cognates in other Indo-European languages appearing with ⟨bh⟩, ⟨p⟩, ⟨f⟩ or ⟨φ⟩ instead.[3] For example, compare the various cognates of the word brother. It is the seventh least frequently used letter in the English language (after V, K, J, X, Q, and Z), with a frequency of about 1.5% in words. Other languagesMany other languages besides English use ⟨b⟩ to represent a voiced bilabial stop. In Estonian, Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Scottish Gaelic and Mandarin Chinese Pinyin, ⟨b⟩ does not denote a voiced consonant. Instead, it represents a voiceless /p/ that contrasts with either a geminated /p:/ (in Estonian) or an aspirated /ph/ (in Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Scottish Gaelic and Pinyin) represented by ⟨p⟩. In Fijian ⟨b⟩ represents a prenasalised /mb/, whereas in Zulu and Xhosa it represents an implosive /ɓ/, in contrast to the digraph ⟨bh⟩ which represents /b/. Finnish uses ⟨b⟩ only in loanwords. Phonetic transcriptionIn the International Phonetic Alphabet, [b] is used to represent the voiced bilabial stop phone. In phonological transcription systems for specific languages, /b/ may be used to represent a lenis phoneme, not necessarily voiced, that contrasts with fortis /p/ (which may have greater aspiration, tenseness or duration). Other usesB is also a musical note. In English-speaking countries, it represents Si, the 12th note of a chromatic scale built on C. In Central Europe and Scandinavia, "B" is used to denote B-flat and the 12th note of the chromatic scale is denoted "H". Archaic forms of 'b', the b quadratum (square b, ♮) and b rotundum (round b, ♭) are used in musical notation as the symbols for natural and flat, respectively. In Contracted (grade 2) English braille, 'b' stands for "but" when in isolation. In computer science, B is the symbol for byte, a unit of information storage. In engineering, B is the symbol for bel, a unit of level. In chemistry, B is the symbol for boron, a chemical element. The blood-type B emoji (🅱️) was added in Unicode 6.0 in 2010, and became a popular internet meme in 2018 where letters would be replaced with the emoji.[7] Ancestors, descendants and siblings
Derived ligatures, abbreviations, signs and symbols
Code pointsThese are the code points for the forms of the letter in various systems Character information
Other representationsUse as a numberIn the hexadecimal (base 16) numbering system, B is a number that corresponds to the number 11 in decimal (base 10) counting. References
External linksWhat does B Cardi B mean?Almánzar developed the stage name "Cardi B" as a derivation of Bacardi, a rum brand that was formerly her nickname. She has a younger sister, Hennessy Carolina, who was born in 1995. She has said she was a gang member with the Bloods in her youth, since age 16, but stated she would not encourage joining a gang.
Who made bodak yellow?It was Billboard's top female rap song of the year. Cardi B became the first female rapper to have a solo single certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), when "Bodak Yellow" received the certification in 2021 for selling more than 10 million units in the country.
Who wrote up Cardi B?Up (Cardi B song). When was bodak yellow released?2018Bodak Yellow / Releasednull
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