Beth (letter)
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Beth
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Beth or Bet is the second letter of many Semetic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic. The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Beta, Latin B, the Cyrillic equivalent, the Paleo-Hebrew equivalent, and the Aramaic equivalent, which gave rise to the Hebrew equivalent.
Transcription:
This letter is named beth, following the Tiberian Hebrew pronunciation, in academic circles, and bet, following the modern Israeli Hebrew pronunciation, bet (/bɛʲt/), in Israel and by most Jews familiar with Hebrew, although many Ashkenazi speakers pronounce it beis (/beʲs/), and some Jews pronounce it beth (/beθ/).
Origin
This letter's name means "house" in various Semitic languages (Hebrew: bayit), and appears to derive from a Middle Bronze Age picture of a house by acrophony.
Phoenician Pronunciation
In Phoenician, this letter was pronounced /b/.
Hebrew Pronunciation
The letter is pronounced like the English letter B (IPA /b/) when the Beth has a dagesh, and when this letter appears without the dagesh in its center then it is usually pronounced like the English letter V (/v/), but some may pronounce it as (/b/). See below.
Variations on written form/pronunciation:
- Main article: Hebrew phonology
There are two orthographic variants of this letter, which alter the pronunciation:
- בּ bet /b/
and
- ב vet /v/, /b/ (among Egyptian Jews), likely used to be β
Beth with the dagesh
When the Beth has a "dot" in its center, known as a dagesh, then it is pronounced as Beth, making the same sound that the English B makes when pronounced. There are various rules in Hebrew grammar that stipulate when and why a dagesh is used. The [b] is a bilabial stop (plosive).
Beth without the dagesh (Veth)
When this letter appears as ב without the dagesh ("dot") in its center then it is pronounced as Veth, making the same sound as the English letter V. The [v] is a labiodental fricative.
Significance of Bet, Mystical and otherwise:
Bet in gematria symbolizes the number 2.
As a prefix, the letter bet may function as a preposition meaning "in", "at", or "with".
Bet is the first letter of the Torah. As Bet is the number 2 in gematria, this is said to symbolize that there are two parts to Torah: the Written Torah and the Oral Torah.
Rashi points out that the letter is closed on three sides and open on one; this is to teach you that you may question about what happened after creation, but not what happened before it, or what is above the heavens or below the earth.
