B is the second letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled bee or occasionally be (), plural bees."B" Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "bee," op. cit. History The letter B might have started as a pictogram of the floorplan of a house in Egyptian hieroglyphs or the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet. By 1050 BC, the Phoenician alphabet's letter had a linear form that served as the beth. Typography The modern lowercase letter b derives from later Roman times, when scribes began omitting the upper loop of the capital.The letter B is often confused with the visually similar German ß which stands for ss. Usage In English and most other languages that use the Latin alphabet, the letter b denotes the voiced bilabial plosive (), as in bib. In English it is sometimes "silent", as in debt or comb (however the 'b' in 'comb' was actually pronounced at one time). In Estonian

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B
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