beta

Also known as β, Β, Greek letter beta, beta letter

Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced bilabial fricative while in borrowed words is instead commonly transcribed as μπ. Letters that arose from beta include the Roman letter and the Cyrillic letters and .

AI overview

Beta is the second letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the number 2 in the ancient Greek numerical system. In different time periods and languages, it has represented different sounds—a "b" sound in Ancient Greek and a different sound in Modern Greek—and it eventually became the basis for the letter B in Roman and other writing systems.

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Wikidata facts

Image: Greek lc beta.svg

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Commons gallery: Β
Commons category: Beta (letter)
Unicode character: β

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Article

15 sections

Contents

Name
History
Typography
Uses
Algebraic numerals
Computing
Finance
International Phonetic Alphabet
Meteorology
Mathematics and science
Rock climbing terminology
Slang
Videotape formats
Unicode
References

==Name== Like the names of most other Greek letters, the name of beta comes from the acrophonic name of the corresponding letter in Phoenician, which was the common Semitic word ('house', compare and ). In Greek, the name was , pronounced in Ancient Greek. It is spelled in modern monotonic orthography and pronounced .