P
P p
Usage
Writing systemLatin script
TypeAlphabetic and Logographic
Language of originLatin language
Phonetic usage[p]
[pʰ]
[(p)f]
[pʼ]
[b]
/piː/
Unicode codepointU+0050, U+0070
Alphabetical position16
History
Development
D21
Time period~-700 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
Other letters commonly used withp(x), ph
Writing directionLeft-to-Right

P, or p, is the 16th 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		 Archaic Greek
Pi		 Greek
Pi		 Etruscan
P		 Latin
P
D21
 Latin P

Use in writing systems

Late Renaissance or early Baroque design of a P, from 1627

In English orthography and most other European languages, ⟨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 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 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).

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

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

Music

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]

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 (see also Claudian letters).
      • 𐍀 : Gothic letter pertra/pairþa, which derives from Greek Pi
      • П п : Cyrillic letter Pe, which also derives from 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
  • 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
  • p : Subscript small p was used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet prior to its formal standardization in 1902[7]

Derived ligatures, abbreviations, signs and symbols

Computing codes

Character information
PreviewPp
Unicode name LATIN CAPITAL LETTER P LATIN SMALL LETTER P
Encodingsdecimalhexdechex
Unicode80U+0050112U+0070
UTF-8805011270
Numeric character referencePPpp
EBCDIC family215D715197
ASCII[lower-alpha 1]805011270
  1. ↑ Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.

Other representations

See also

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.
  • Media related to P at Wikimedia Commons
  • The dictionary definition of P at Wiktionary
  • The dictionary definition of p at Wiktionary
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