P, or p, is the sixteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is pee (pronounced ), plural pees.["P", Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "pee," op. cit.]
History
The Semitic Pê (mouth), as well as the
Greek language Π or π (Pi), and the Etruscan and
Latin letters that developed from the former alphabet all symbolized , a voiceless bilabial plosive.
Use in writing systems
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English
In English orthography, represents the sound .
A common digraph in English is , which represents the sound , and can be used to transliterate phi in loanwords from Greek language. In German, the digraph is common, representing a labial affricate .
Most English words beginning with 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 , since English is a Germanic language and thus has undergone Grimm's law; a native English word with an initial 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 are quite common; such words can come from either Kluge's law or the consonant cluster (PIE: *p has been preserved after s).
P is the Letter frequency in the English language.
Other languages
In most European languages, represents the sound .
Other systems
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, is used to represent the voiceless bilabial plosive.
Other uses
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.
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𐤐 : Semitic letter Pe, from which the following symbols originally derive:
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Π π : Greek alphabet letter Pi
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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, .
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: Gothic alphabet letter pertra/pairþa, which derives from Greek Pi
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П п : Cyrillic letter Pe, which derives from Greek Pi
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: Coptic alphabet letter Pi
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Պ պ: Armenian letter Pe
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P with : Acute accent Ṗ ṗ Ᵽ ᵽ Ƥ ƥ Tilde
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Turned P: P d, an additional letter of the Latin script not encoded in Unicode
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Uralic Phonetic Alphabet-specific symbols related to P:
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p : Subscript small p was used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet prior to its formal standardization in 1902
Derived ligatures, abbreviations, signs and symbols
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₱ : Philippine peso sign
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𝒫, 𝓅 : script letter P (uppercase and lowercase, respectively), used in mathematics. (In other contexts, a script typeface (or computer font) should be used.)
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℘ Weierstrass p
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℗ : sound recording copyright symbol
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: Pluto symbol, a monogram of the letters "PL", and also the initials of Percival Lowell, heralding his role in its discovery
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ꟼ : Reversed P was used in ancient Roman texts to stand for puella (girl)
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Ꝑ ꝑ, Ꝓ ꝓ, Ꝕ, ꝕ : Various forms of P were used for medieval scribal abbreviations
Other representations
Computing
Other
See also
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Mind your Ps and Qs
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Pence or "penny", the English slang for which is p (e.g. "20p" = 20 pence)
External links
