Beta (letter)

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Look up Β, β in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Greek alphabet
Αα Alpha	Νν Nu
Ββ Beta	Ξξ Xi
Γγ Gamma	Οο Omicron
Δδ Delta	Ππ Pi
Εε Epsilon	Ρρ Rho
Ζζ Zeta	Σσς Sigma
Ηη Eta	Ττ Tau
Θθ Theta	Υυ Upsilon
Ιι Iota	Φφ Phi
Κκ Kappa	Χχ Chi
Λλ Lambda	Ψψ Psi
Μμ Mu	Ωω Omega
Obsolete letters
Digamma	Qoppa
San	Sampi
Greek diacritics

Beta (uppercase Β, lowercase β, internal ϐ; Greek: Βήτα [ˈviˑta] Vita) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 2. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Beth . Letters that arose from Beta include the Roman B and the Cyrillic letters Б and В.

In high-quality print, a variant of the letter is sometimes used that does not have a descender except at the beginning of a word: “βίβλος” is written “βίϐλος”. Lowercase ϐ is very common in handwriting though.

Ancient Greek

In Ancient Greek, Beta represented a /b/ and the name of the letter, Βήτα, was pronounced something like /ˈbɛːta/. The name of the letter in English derives from this; the American pronunciation is IPA: /ˈbeɪtə/, whereas the British pronunciation is /ˈbiːtə/. See: American and British English pronunciation differences.

Modern Greek

In Modern Greek, it represents a voiced labiodental fricative /v/ and the Modern Greek name of the letter, Βήτα, is pronounced IPA: [ˈviˑta].

Use as a symbol or name

Main article: Beta

Beta is often used to denote a variable in mathematics and physics, where it often has specific meanings for certain applications, such as representing beta particles, and beta radiation.

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, Greek minuscule beta denotes a voiced bilabial fricative.

Common difficulties

In typesetting technical literature, it is a commonly made mistake to use the German letter ß as a replacement for the β. The two letters resemble each other superficially, but they are unrelated. This substitution looks extremely unprofessional to the eyes of German or Greek readers.

The Unicode number for β is U+03B2, and with β or β the β is coded in HTML.