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This is very fascinating stuff, but it's not really that relevant for the question posed in the title. Our Latin letters got their shapes from the Greek alphabe

This is very fascinating stuff, but it's not really that relevant for the question posed in the title. Our Latin letters got their shapes from the Greek alphabet, by way of Etruscan. Greek in turn is based on the Semitic abjads (consonantal alphabets) which in turn likely go back to Hieroglyphics. B comes from Beta, from Beth/Bayt in Semitic languages, going back to a Hieroglyph for "house". Of course beth also means house in Hebrew, as in Bethlehem. This is not a mystery, and since the modern letters ultimately got their shapes from pictographic drawings, there is no real connection between shape and sound anymore. At most it may have influenced how the letters have been simplified over time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bet_(letter) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bet_(letter)

goodlifeodyssey 5y ago
I believe the letter “b” it traces back to the hieroglyph for “foot”, not the one for a “house.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_(hieroglyph) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_(hieroglyph) It even looks like a foot, which is fun. I took my daughter to the Met this weekend looked at some Egyptian artifacts and was watching some videos about hieroglyphs after, so I don’t actually know much about them, but they happened to have mentioned this on one of the lectures.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  No, this is something different. This glyph may be a "B", but not in the same sense that our Latin B is a B, or even in the same sense that Hebrew bayt is a B. Remember, most Hieroglyphs had two or three consonants, and there was no Ancient Egyptian "alphabet", that is something they made up for tattoo's and tourists. When you wrote something in Egyptian, you didn't just combine a bunch of characters that each had a single consonant sound, that was an innovation of the semites. Then later the Greeks come up with the concept of vowels. Apart from being shaped vaguely like a house, another clue is in the name. Semitic B's have a name that means house.
  - innolitics 5y ago
    Hmm, take a look at minute 3:40 from this video: https://www.coursera.org/lecture/wonders-ancient-egypt/hieroglyphs-part-7-ZdcP0 https://www.coursera.org/lecture/wonders-ancient-egypt/hiero... I don't know too much about this, so I definitely could be mistaken, but the professor seems to say this hieroglyphic may be connected with our current letter "B". Also, I think he said something about "house" on another video and I believe it was different.
    - Grustaf 5y ago
      The connection between the letter beth and the house character (which beth means) is pretty well established, it's by no means my theory. It might not be 100% certain, but it's the only one I've heard over the years. When it comes to that video, surely the professor would be aware that lowercase letters are a late invention, b is just a version of the original B, so the lowercase shape per se is irrelevant. Furthermore, I don't think there is any doubt in anyone's mind that B comes from semitic beth, so whatever you do, you need to compare THAT shape to Hieroglyphs. 𐤁 in Phoenician, ב‎ in Hebrew. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bet_(letter) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bet_(letter) and scroll down to the comparison between Egyptian and the Semitic languages. And again, there's also the name of the letter, which means house, not leg.
      - goodlifeodyssey 5y ago
        I agree, any connection between the Egyptian "foot" hieroglyph and the lower case "b" seems irrelevant, but it seems that the Phoenician letter bet looks kind of like the Egyptian "foot" too, so perhaps that's where the connection lies. The Wikipedia article for "b" seems to list both the "foot" and the "house" hieroglyphs in the development on the sidebar... not that Wikipedia is always correct. I think the professor in that video is quite well known and has written several books on Egyptology, so I doubt he would be completely off base on something so basic. In any event, you're absolutely right that there the house hieroglyphs is related. I was wrong to question that. But it seems that the "foot" hieroglyph maybe has some relation too. If you find anything more about this, I'd be curious to hear what it is.
kmm 5y ago
This is why I semi-seriously propose that the animal which has been portrayed the most times would be the bull, as the capital A letter derives from a hieroglyph depicting a bull's head, which was turned upside down at some point, and even today you can still sort of recognize the shape. There might be hundreds of millions of cat photos, but there are probably at least a trillion A's out there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A
cryptolake 5y ago
Also "bayt" means house in arabic as well.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  Yeah, in most, if not all Semitic languages. Most letter names are very similar across the Semitic languages.

goodlifeodyssey 5y ago

I believe the letter “b” it traces back to the hieroglyph for “foot”, not the one for a “house.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_(hieroglyph) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_(hieroglyph) It even looks like a foot, which is fun. I took my daughter to the Met this weekend looked at some Egyptian artifacts and was watching some videos about hieroglyphs after, so I don’t actually know much about them, but they happened to have mentioned this on one of the lectures.

Grustaf 5y ago
No, this is something different. This glyph may be a "B", but not in the same sense that our Latin B is a B, or even in the same sense that Hebrew bayt is a B. Remember, most Hieroglyphs had two or three consonants, and there was no Ancient Egyptian "alphabet", that is something they made up for tattoo's and tourists. When you wrote something in Egyptian, you didn't just combine a bunch of characters that each had a single consonant sound, that was an innovation of the semites. Then later the Greeks come up with the concept of vowels. Apart from being shaped vaguely like a house, another clue is in the name. Semitic B's have a name that means house.
- innolitics 5y ago
  Hmm, take a look at minute 3:40 from this video: https://www.coursera.org/lecture/wonders-ancient-egypt/hieroglyphs-part-7-ZdcP0 https://www.coursera.org/lecture/wonders-ancient-egypt/hiero... I don't know too much about this, so I definitely could be mistaken, but the professor seems to say this hieroglyphic may be connected with our current letter "B". Also, I think he said something about "house" on another video and I believe it was different.
  - Grustaf 5y ago
    The connection between the letter beth and the house character (which beth means) is pretty well established, it's by no means my theory. It might not be 100% certain, but it's the only one I've heard over the years. When it comes to that video, surely the professor would be aware that lowercase letters are a late invention, b is just a version of the original B, so the lowercase shape per se is irrelevant. Furthermore, I don't think there is any doubt in anyone's mind that B comes from semitic beth, so whatever you do, you need to compare THAT shape to Hieroglyphs. 𐤁 in Phoenician, ב‎ in Hebrew. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bet_(letter) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bet_(letter) and scroll down to the comparison between Egyptian and the Semitic languages. And again, there's also the name of the letter, which means house, not leg.
    - goodlifeodyssey 5y ago
      I agree, any connection between the Egyptian "foot" hieroglyph and the lower case "b" seems irrelevant, but it seems that the Phoenician letter bet looks kind of like the Egyptian "foot" too, so perhaps that's where the connection lies. The Wikipedia article for "b" seems to list both the "foot" and the "house" hieroglyphs in the development on the sidebar... not that Wikipedia is always correct. I think the professor in that video is quite well known and has written several books on Egyptology, so I doubt he would be completely off base on something so basic. In any event, you're absolutely right that there the house hieroglyphs is related. I was wrong to question that. But it seems that the "foot" hieroglyph maybe has some relation too. If you find anything more about this, I'd be curious to hear what it is.

kmm 5y ago

This is why I semi-seriously propose that the animal which has been portrayed the most times would be the bull, as the capital A letter derives from a hieroglyph depicting a bull's head, which was turned upside down at some point, and even today you can still sort of recognize the shape. There might be hundreds of millions of cat photos, but there are probably at least a trillion A's out there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A

cryptolake 5y ago

Also "bayt" means house in arabic as well.

Grustaf 5y ago
Yeah, in most, if not all Semitic languages. Most letter names are very similar across the Semitic languages.