Pe (letter)

Updated on Nov 03, 2023

Edit

Comment

Phonemic representation p, f (was ɸ), w Numerical value 80		Position in alphabet 17

Pe is the seventeenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Pē , Hebrew Pē פ, Aramaic Pē , Syriac Pē ܦ, and Arabic Fāʼ ف (in abjadi order) and also Persian Peʼ پ.

The original sound value is a voiceless bilabial plosive: /p/; it retains this value in most Semitic languages except for Arabic, which having lost /p/ now uses it to render a voiceless labiodental fricative /f/.

The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Pi (Π), Latin P, and Cyrillic П.

Origins

Pe is usually assumed to come from a pictogram of a mouth (in Hebrew pe; in Arabic, فاه fah).

Arabic fāʼ

The letter ﻑ is named ﻓﺎء fāʾ. It is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:

Normally, the letter ﻑ fāʼ renders /f/ sound, but may also be used some names and loanwords where it can render /v/, might be arabized as /f/ in accordance to its spelling, e.g., يُونِيلِفِر (Unilever). It may be used interchangeably with the modified letter ﭪ - ve (with 3 dots above) in this case.

In the process of developing from Proto-Semitic, Proto-Semitic /p/ became Arabic /f/, and this is reflected in the use of the letter representing /p/ in other Semitic languages for /f/ in Arabic.

Examples on usage in Modern Standard Arabic:

Fāʾ-fatḥah (فَـ /fa/) is a multi-function prefix most commonly equivalent to "so" or "so that." For example: نَكْتُب naktub ("we write") → فَنَكْتُب fanaktub ("so we write").

Persian peʼ

In Persian, it uses پ to represent the phoneme Voiceless bilabial stop /p/

The Persian alphabet has taken the shape of ba’ (ب) but it has three dots below instead.

Maghrebi variant

In the Maghreb (northwest Africa), the dot in fāʼ is written underneath (ڢ). Once the prevalent style, it is now only used in Maghribi countries for writing Qur'an, with the exception of Libya and Algeria, which adopted the Mashriqi form (dot above).

The Maghrebi alphabet has taken the shape of fa’ (ﻑ) to mean qāf instead.

Hebrew Pe

The Hebrew spelling is פֵּא. It is also romanized pey, especially when used in Yiddish.

Variations on written form/pronunciation

The letter Pe is one of the six letters which can receive a Dagesh Kal. The six are Bet, Gimel, Daleth, Kaph, Pe, and Tav.

There are two orthographic variants of this letter which indicate a different pronunciation:

Pe with the dagesh

When the Pe has a "dot" in its center, known as a dagesh, it represents a voiceless bilabial plosive, /p/. There are various rules in Hebrew grammar that stipulate when and why a dagesh is used.

Fe

When Pe appears without the dagesh dot in its center (פ), then it usually represents a voiceless labiodental fricative /f/.

Final form of Pe/Fe

At the end of words, the letter's written form changes to a Pe/Fe Sophit (Final Pe/Fe): ף.

When a word in modern Hebrew borrowed from another language ends with /p/, the non-final form is used (e.g. ּפִילִיפ /ˈfilip/ "Philip"), while borrowings ending in /f/ still use the Pe Sofit (e.g. כֵּיף /kef/ "fun", from Arabic). This is because native Hebrew words, which always use the final form at the end, cannot end in /p/.