P

This article is about the letter of the Latin alphabet. For other uses, see P (disambiguation).

P
P p
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	<hiero>D21</hiero> Error creating thumbnail: File:Protope.svg Phoenician Pe File:Early Aramaic character - pey.png Ancient Greek Pi Early Greek Pi File:EtruscanP-01.svg 𐌐 P p
Time period	c. 700 BCE to present
Descendants	• Ᵽ  • ₱  • ℘  • ⅌  • ℗  • ♇  • ꟼ  • ¶
Sisters	Π π Ⲡ П ף פ פּ ف ܦ ࠐ 𐎔 በ ጰ ፐ Պ պ प 𐍀 པ
Other
Associated graphs	p(x), ph
Writing direction	Left-to-right

P, or p, is the sixteenth 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.

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	Western Greek Pi	Etruscan P	Latin P
<hiero>D21</hiero>	Error creating thumbnail:	File:Protope.svg	File:PhoenicianP-01.svg	File:Greek Pi archaic.svg	File:EtruscanP-01.svg	Latin P

Use in writing systems

Pronunciation of ⟨p⟩ by language

Orthography	Phonemes
Standard Chinese (Pinyin)	/pʰ/
English	/p/, silent
French	/p/, silent
German	/p/
Portuguese	/p/
Spanish	/p/
Turkish	/p/

File:Newes ABC Buchlein MET DP855604.jpg

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

English

In English orthography, ⟨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 the 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 an 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).

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

Other languages

In most European languages, ⟨p⟩ represents the sound /p/.

Other systems

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

Other uses

Main article: P (disambiguation)

• A bold italic letter p is used in musical notation as a dynamic indicator for "quiet". It stands for the Italian word piano.

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, c. 50 AD.
    • 𐍀 : Gothic letter pertra/pairþa, which derives from Greek Pi
    • П п : Cyrillic letter Pe, which derives from Greek Pi
  • Ⲡ ⲡ : Coptic letter Pi
  • Պ պ: Armenian letter Pe
• P with diacritics: Ṕ ṕ Ṗ ṗ Ᵽ ᵽ Ƥ ƥ ᵱ ᶈ
• Turned P: P d, an additional letter of the Latin script not encoded in Unicode
• Uralic Phonetic Alphabet-specific symbols related to P:
  • U+1D18 ᴘ <reserved-1D18>
  • U+1D3E ᴾ <reserved-1D3E>
  • U+1D56 ᵖ <reserved-1D56>
• _p : Subscript small p was used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet prior to its formal standardization in 1902

Derived ligatures, abbreviations, signs and symbols

• ₱ : Philippine peso sign
• 𝒫, 𝓅 : script letter P (uppercase and lowercase, respectively), used in mathematics. (In other contexts, a script typeface (or computer font) should be used.)
• ℘ Weierstrass p
• ℗ : sound recording copyright symbol
• ♇ : Pluto symbol, a monogram of the letters "PL", and also the initials of Percival Lowell, heralding his role in its discovery
• ꟼ : Reversed P was used in ancient Roman texts to stand for puella (girl)
• Ꝑ ꝑ, Ꝓ ꝓ, Ꝕ, ꝕ : Various forms of P were used for medieval scribal abbreviations

Other representations

Computing

• U+0050 P <reserved-0050>

• U+0070 p <reserved-0070>
• U+FF30 Ｐ <reserved-FF30>
• U+FF50 ｐ <reserved-FF50>

Other

NATO phonetic	Morse code
Papa

File:ICS Papa.svg	File:Semaphore Papa.svg	File:Sign language P.svg	File:BSL letter P.svg	File:Braille P.svg
Signal flag	Flag semaphore	American manual alphabet (ASL fingerspelling)	British manual alphabet (BSL fingerspelling)	Unified English Braille

See also

• Mind your Ps and Qs
• Pence or "penny", the English slang for which is p (e.g. "20p" = 20 pence)

External links

• Error creating thumbnail: File missing Media related to at Wikimedia Commons
• File:Wiktionary-logo-en-v2.svg The dictionary definition of P at Wiktionary
• File:Wiktionary-logo-en-v2.svg The dictionary definition of p at Wiktionary