Pe (Semitic letter)
Pe is the seventeenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Pē, Hebrew Pē פ, Aramaic Pē, Syriac Pē ܦ, and Arabic Fāʼ ف.
The original sound value is a voiceless bilabial plosive: ; it retains this value in most Semitic languages, except for Arabic, where the sound changed into the voiceless labiodental fricative, carrying with it the pronunciation of the letter.
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Pi, Latin P, and Cyrillic П.
Origins
Pe is usually assumed to come from a pictogram of a “mouth”.Hebrew Pe
The Hebrew spelling is פֵּא. It is also romanized pei or 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.Variant forms of Pe/Fe
A notable variation on the letter Pe is the Pe Kefulah, "Doubled Pe". The Pe Kefulah is written as a small Pe scribed within a larger Pe. This atypical letter appears in Torah scrolls, manuscripts, and some modern printed Hebrew Bibles. When the Pe is written in the form of a Doubled Pe, this adds a layer of deeper meaning to the Biblical text. This letter variation can appear on the final and non-final forms of the Pe.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,. 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, then it usually represents a voiceless labiodental fricative.Final form of Pe/Fe
At the end of words, the letter's written form changes to a Pe/Fe Sophit : ף.When a word in modern Hebrew borrowed from another language ends with, the non-final form is used, while borrowings ending in still use the Pe Sofit. This is because native Hebrew words, which always use the final form at the end, cannot end in.
Significance
In gematria, Pe represents the number 80. Its final form represents 800 but this is rarely used, Tav written twice being used instead.Arabic
The letter ف is named فاء fāʾ. It is written in several ways depending on its position in the word:In the process of developing from Proto-Semitic, Proto-Semitic became Arabic, and this is reflected in the use of the letter representing in other Semitic languages for in Arabic.
Examples on usage in Modern Standard Arabic:
- is a multi-function prefix most commonly equivalent to "so" or "so that." For example: نَكْتُب naktub → فَنَكْتُب fanaktub.
Maghrebi variant
| Position in word: | Isolated | Final | Medial | Initial |
| Form of letter: |
The Maghrebi alphabet has taken the shape of fa’ to mean qāf instead.
Diacriticized Arabic versions
Normally, the letter ف fāʼ renders sound, but may also be used some names and loanwords where it can render, might be arabized as in accordance to its spelling, e.g., يُونِيلِفِر. It may be used interchangeably with the modified letter ڤ - ve in this case.The character is mapped in Unicode under position U+06A4.
Maghrebi variant
The Maghrebi style, used in Northwestern Africa, the dots moved underneath, because it is based on the other style of fāʼ :Other similar letters
| Code point | Isolated | Final | Medial | Initial | Unicode character name |
| ARABIC LETTER FEH | - | - | - | - | - |
| ARABIC LETTER DOTLESS FEH | - | - | - | - | - |
| ARABIC LETTER FEH WITH DOT MOVED BELOW | - | - | - | - | - |
| ARABIC LETTER FEH WITH DOT BELOW | - | - | - | - | - |
| ARABIC LETTER FEH WITH 3 DOTS ABOVE = VEH | - | - | - | - | - |
| ARABIC LETTER FEH WITH 3 DOTS BELOW = MAGHRIBI VEH | - | - | - | - | - |
| ARABIC LETTER FEH WITH 4 DOTS ABOVE = PEHEH | - | - | - | - | - |
| ARABIC LETTER FEH WITH 2 DOTS BELOW | - | - | - | - | - |
| ARABIC LETTER FEH WITH 3 DOTS POINTING UPWARDS BELOW | - | - | - | - | - |
| ARABIC LETTER FEH WITH DOT BELOW AND THREE DOTS ABOVE | - | - | - | - | - |