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GeezerVison is showing en.wikipedia.org — P - Wikipedia

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This article is about the letter of the Latin alphabet. For other uses, see P (disambiguation).

P
P p
Usage
Writing systemLatin script
TypeAlphabetic and logographic
Language of originLatin language
Sound values[p]
[pʰ]
[(p)f]
[pʼ]
[b]
In UnicodeU+0050, U+0070
Alphabetical position16
History
Development
D21
  • Proto-sinaitic P'it
      • Phoenician Pe
          • Ancient Greek Pi
            • Early Greek Pi
                • 𐌐
                  • P p
Time periodc. 700 BCE to present
Descendants • Ᵽ
 • ₱
 • ℘
 • ⅌
 • ℗
 • ♇
 • ꟼ
 • ¶
SistersΠ π
Ⲡ
П
ף פ פּ
ف
ܦ

ࠐ
𐎔
በ
ጰ
ፐ
Պ պ
प
𐍀
པ
Other
Associated graphsp(x), ph
Writing directionLeft-to-right

P (minuscule: p) is the sixteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is pee (pronounced /ˈpiː/ ⓘ), plural pees.[1]

History

The Semitic Pê (mouth), as well as the Greek Π or π (Pi), and the Etruscan and Latin letters that developed from the former alphabet all symbolized /p/, a voiceless bilabial plosive.

Egyptian Proto-Sinaitic Proto-Canaanite
pʿit
Phoenician
Pe
Western Greek
Pi
Etruscan
P
Latin
P
D21
Latin P
Late Renaissance or early Baroque design of a P, from 1627

Use in writing systems

Pronunciation of ⟨p⟩ by language
Orthography Phonemes
Catalan /p/
Standard Chinese (Pinyin) /pʰ/
English /p/, silent
French /p/, silent
German /p/
Portuguese /p/
Spanish /p/
Turkish /p/

English

In English orthography, ⟨p⟩ represents the sound /p/.

A common digraph in English is ⟨ph⟩, which represents the sound /f/, and can be used to transliterate ⟨φ⟩ phi in loanwords from Greek. In German, the digraph ⟨pf⟩ is common, representing a labial affricate /pf/.

Most English words beginning with ⟨p⟩ are of foreign origin, primarily French, Latin and Greek; these languages preserve the Proto-Indo-European initial *p. Native English cognates of such words often start with ⟨f⟩, since English is a Germanic language and thus has undergone Grimm's law; a native English word with an initial /p/ would reflect Proto-Indo-European initial *b, which is so rare that its existence as a phoneme is disputed. However, native English words with non-initial ⟨p⟩ are quite common; such words can come from either Kluge's law or the consonant cluster /sp/ (PIE: *p has been preserved after s).

P is the eighth least frequently used letter in the English language.

Other languages

In most European languages, ⟨p⟩ represents the sound /p/.

Other systems

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, ⟨p⟩ is used to represent the voiceless bilabial plosive.

Other uses

Main article: P (disambiguation)
  • A bold italic letter p is used in musical notation as a dynamic indicator for "quiet". It stands for the Italian word piano.[2][3]

Related characters

Ancestors, descendants and siblings

The Latin letter P represents the same sound as the Greek letter Pi, but it looks like the Greek letter Rho.

  • 𐤐 : Semitic letter Pe, from which the following symbols originally derive:
    • Π π : Greek letter Pi
      • 𐌐 : Old Italic and Old Latin P, which derives from Greek Pi, and is the ancestor of modern Latin P. The Roman P had this form (𐌐) on coins and inscriptions until the reign of Claudius, c. 50 AD.
      • 𐍀 : Gothic letter pertra/pairþa, which derives from Greek Pi
      • П п : Cyrillic letter Pe, which derives from Greek Pi
    • Ⲡ ⲡ : Coptic letter Pi
    • Պ պ: Armenian letter Pe
  • P with diacritics: Ṕ ṕ Ṗ ṗ Ᵽ ᵽ Ƥ ƥ ᵱ[4] ᶈ[5]
  • Turned P: P d, an additional letter of the Latin script not encoded in Unicode
  • Uralic Phonetic Alphabet-specific symbols related to P:[6]
    • U+1D18 ᴘ LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL P
    • U+1D3E ᴾ MODIFIER LETTER CAPITAL P
    • U+1D56 ᵖ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL P
    • U+209A ₚ LATIN SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER P was used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet prior to its formal standardization in 1902[7]

Derived ligatures, abbreviations, signs and symbols

  • ₱ : Philippine peso sign
  • 𝒫, 𝓅 : script letter P (uppercase and lowercase, respectively), used in mathematics. (In other contexts, a script typeface (or computer font) should be used.)
  • ℘ Weierstrass p
  • ℗ : sound recording copyright symbol
  • ♇ : Pluto symbol, a monogram of the letters "PL", and also the initials of Percival Lowell, heralding his role in its discovery
  • ꟼ : Reversed P was used in ancient Roman texts to stand for puella (girl)[8]
  • Ꝑ ꝑ, Ꝓ ꝓ, Ꝕ, ꝕ : Various forms of P were used for medieval scribal abbreviations[9]

Other representations

Computing

  • U+0050 P LATIN CAPITAL LETTER P
  • U+0070 p LATIN SMALL LETTER P
  • U+FF30 P FULLWIDTH LATIN CAPITAL LETTER P
  • U+FF50 p FULLWIDTH LATIN SMALL LETTER P

Other

NATO phonetic Morse code
Papa
 ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ⓘ

Signal flag Flag semaphore American manual alphabet (ASL fingerspelling) British manual alphabet (BSL fingerspelling) Unified English Braille

See also

  • Mind your Ps and Qs
  • Pence or "penny", the English slang for which is p (e.g. "20p" = 20 pence)

References

  1. ↑ "P", Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "pee," op. cit.
  2. ↑ Randel, Don Michael (2003). The Harvard Dictionary of Music (4th ed.). Cambridge, MA, US: Harvard University Press Reference Library.
  3. ↑ "Piano". Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary. Archived from the original on 22 October 2014. Retrieved 19 March 2012.
  4. ↑ Constable, Peter (2003-09-30). "L2/03-174R2: Proposal to Encode Phonetic Symbols with Middle Tilde in the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
  5. ↑ Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
  6. ↑ Everson, Michael; et al. (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-02-19. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
  7. ↑ Ruppel, Klaas; Aalto, Tero; Everson, Michael (2009-01-27). "L2/09-028: Proposal to encode additional characters for the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
  8. ↑ Perry, David J. (2006-08-01). "L2/06-269: Proposal to Add Additional Ancient Roman Characters to UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-06-14. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
  9. ↑ Everson, Michael; Baker, Peter; Emiliano, António; Grammel, Florian; Haugen, Odd Einar; Luft, Diana; Pedro, Susana; Schumacher, Gerd; Stötzner, Andreas (2006-01-30). "L2/06-027: Proposal to add Medievalist characters to the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-09-19. Retrieved 2018-03-24.

External links

  • Wikimedia Commons logo Media related to P at Wikimedia Commons
  • Wiktionary logo The dictionary definition of P at Wiktionary
  • Wiktionary logo The dictionary definition of p at Wiktionary
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=P&oldid=1383299043"
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  • ISO basic Latin letters
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