Pe (П п; italics: П п or <span style="font-family: times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: larger">П&nbsp;п</span>; italics: <span style="font-family: times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: larger">П&nbsp;п</span>) is a letter of the Cyrillic script.

It commonly represents the unaspirated voiceless bilabial plosive , like the pronunciation of in "spin".

History

thumb|1799 coin with the [[monogram of Tsar Paul]]

The Cyrillic letter Pe was derived from the Greek letter Pi (Π&nbsp;π).

thumb|Pe, from [[Alexandre Benois' 1904 alphabet book]]

The name of Pe in the Early Cyrillic alphabet was (pokoi), meaning "peaceful state".

In the Cyrillic numeral system, Pe had a value of 80.

Form

50px|thumb|left|Handwritten Pe in Russian

The capital Cyrillic letter Pe looks exactly like the Greek capital Pi from which it is derived, and small Pe looks like a smaller version of the same, though with a less prominent horizontal bar (Greek Π π > Cyrillic П п). Pe is not to be confused with the Cyrillic letter El (Л&nbsp;л; italics: <span style="font-family: times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: larger">Л&nbsp;л</span>), which has a hook on its left leg in some fonts (in others El resembles the Greek Lambda (Λ)).

In italics and handwriting, capital Pe looks identical to the Greek capital Pi in these forms. The lowercase forms, however, differ among the languages that use the Cyrillic alphabet. Small italic Cyrillic Pe <span style="font-family: times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: larger"></span> in the majority of fonts or handwritten styles looks like the small italic Latin N <span style="font-family: times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: larger"></span>. In handwritten Serbian, however, it appears as a Latin U <span style="font-family: times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: larger"></span> with a bar over it <span style="font-family: times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: larger"></span>.

Usage

As used in the alphabets of various languages, Pe represents the following sounds:

  • voiceless bilabial plosive , like the pronunciation of in "pack"
  • palatalized voiceless bilabial plosive

The pronunciations shown in the table are the primary ones for each language; for details consult the articles on the languages.

{|class="wikitable"

! Language !! Position in <br> alphabet !! Pronunciation

|-

| Belarusian || align=center | 17th || ,

|-

| Bulgarian || align=center | 16th || ,

|-

| Macedonian || align=center | 20th ||

|-

| Russian || align=center | 17th || ,

|-

| Serbian || align=center | 19th ||

|-

| Ukrainian || align=center | 20th || ,

|-

| Kazakh

|align=center | 22nd

|

|-

| Abkhaz

|align=center | 19th

|

|}

  • Π π : Greek letter Pi
  • Ԥ ԥ : Cyrillic letter Pe with descender
  • Ҧ ҧ : Cyrillic letter Pe with middle hook
  • Л л : Cyrillic letter El
  • N n : Latin letter N
  • P p : Latin letter P
  • Р р : Cyrillic letter Er

Computing codes

References