Small capital B

Small capital B
Small capital B
B ʙ
Usage
Writing system	Latin script
Type	Alphabetic
Language of origin	International Phonetic Alphabet, Uralic Phonetic Alphabet
Sound values	/b/, /ʙ/
In Unicode	U+0042, U+0299
History
Development	B ʙ;
Other
	This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

B, ʙ (small capital B) is an extended Latin letter used as the lowercase B in a number of alphabets during romanization. It is also used in the International Phonetic Alphabet to denote a voiced bilabial trill. In the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet, it denotes a semi-voiced bilabial stop consonant.

It was also used in the writing of medieval Icelandic to denote geminated B.

Use

To avoid the appearance of homoglyphs with a letter, during Soviet latinisation, the alphabets of the Sami, Abaza, Komi, Tsakhur, Azerbaijani, Kurdish and Bashkir languages, as well as the New Turkic alphabet, the Unified Northern Alphabet and the project of reform of the Udmurt script used ʙ as the lowercase form of the letter B. The letter also was used in the Adyghe and Hebrew-Tajik alphabets, although they were absent.

In the Middle Ages, the author of the First Icelandic Grammatical Treatise used 'ʙ' to transcribe geminate B.^[1]

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, / ʙ / represents a voiced bilabial trill. The symbol was adopted following the 1989 Kiel Convention.^[2]

In the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet, ‹ʙ› represents a semi-voiced bilabial stop consonant, denoted [b̥᪽] or [b̥] with the International Phonetic Alphabet, as opposed to ‹b› representing a voiced bilabial stop consonant.

The Sami alphabet in 1933
Abaza alphabet of the 1930s
Komi Alphabet in 1934

Unicode

The letter has been present since the very first version of the Unicode standard and is located in the IPA Extensions block as code point U+0299 ʙ LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL B.^[3]^[4]

Computing codes

Character information
Preview	B		ʙ
Unicode name	LATIN CAPITAL LETTER B		LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL B
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	66	U+0042	665	U+0299
UTF-8	66	42	202 153	CA 99
Numeric character reference	B	B	ʙ	ʙ

References

^ "Proposal to add medievalist characters to the UCS" (PDF). 2006-01-30. Retrieved 2019-05-15.
^ International Phonetic Association (1989). "The International Phonetic Alphabet (revised to 1989)". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 19 (2). Centerfold. doi:10.1017/S002510030000387X. S2CID 249414249.
^ "Unicode Data 1.0.0". Retrieved 2020-11-06.
^ "Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF). 2002-03-20. Retrieved 2019-05-15.