P

P
P
P p
(See below)
Usage
Writing system	Latin script
Type	Alphabetic and Logographic
Language of origin	Latin language
Sound values	[p]; [pʰ]; [(p)f]; [pʼ]; [b]; /piː/
In Unicode	U+0050, U+0070
Alphabetical position	16
History
Development	𐌐 P p; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Time period	~-700 to present
Descendants	• Ᵽ; • ₱; • ℘; • ℗; • ♇; • ꟼ; • 𐍀
Sisters	Π π; Ⲡ; П; פּ; פ; ף; ف; ܦ; پ; ࠐ; 𐎔; በ; ጰ; ፐ; Պ պ;
Variations	(See below)
Other
Associated graphs	p(x), ph
Writing direction	Left-to-Right
	This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

P, or p, is the sixteenth letter of the modern English alphabet and the ISO basic Latin alphabet. 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

Use in writing systems

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.^{[citation needed]} 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.^{[citation needed]}

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).^{[citation needed]}

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

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]

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.

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, ca. 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]
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

₱ : Philippine peso sign
℘ : script letter P, see Weierstrass p
℗ : sound recording copyright symbol
♇ : Pluto symbol
ꟼ : Reversed P was used in ancient Roman texts to stand for puella (girl)^[8]
Ꝑ ꝑ, Ꝓ ꝓ, Ꝕ, ꝕ : Various forms of P were used for medieval scribal abbreviations^[9]

Computing codes

Character information
Preview	P		p
Unicode name	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER P		LATIN SMALL LETTER P
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	80	U+0050	112	U+0070
UTF-8	80	50	112	70
Numeric character reference	P	P	p	p
EBCDIC family	215	D7	151	97
ASCII ¹	80	50	112	70

¹ Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.

Other representations

NATO phonetic	Morse code
Papa	▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ^ⓘ


Signal flag	Flag semaphore	American manual alphabet (ASL fingerspelling)	British manual alphabet (BSL fingerspelling)	Unified English Braille

References

^ "P", Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "pee," op. cit.
^ Randel, Don Michael (2003). The Harvard Dictionary of Music (4th ed.). Cambridge, MA, US: Harvard University Press Reference Library.
^ "Piano". Virginia Tech Multimedia Music Dictionary. Archived from the original on 22 October 2014. Retrieved 19 March 2012.
^ 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.
^ 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.
^ 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.
^ 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.
^ 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.
^ 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.

External links

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

[1] "P", Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "pee," op. cit.

[harvard-2] Randel, Don Michael (2003). The Harvard Dictionary of Music (4th ed.). Cambridge, MA, US: Harvard University Press Reference Library.

[vtp-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.

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