⟨Ɓ⟩ (minuscule: ⟨ɓ⟩), called "B-hook" or "B with a hook", is a letter of the Latin alphabet and the International African Alphabet. Its lower-case form, ⟨ɓ⟩, represents a voiced bilabial implosive in the International Phonetic Alphabet. It is used to spell that sound in various languages, notably Fula, Hausa, and Giziga. It was also formerly used in, or at least proposed for, Xhosa and Zulu.
In Unicode, the upper case Ɓ is in the Latin Extended B range (U+0181), and the lower case ɓ is in the IPA range (U+0253). In Shona, the upper case form is a just a larger form of the lower case letter.
Alternative or obsolete capital form
The Practical Orthography for African Languages (1930 ed.) used a different capital form, similar to the Cyrillic letter be (Б).[1] A New Testament in the Loma language of Liberia, which was typeset in 1971, used this capital form.[2]
Encoding
| Preview | Ɓ | ɓ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER B WITH HOOK | LATIN SMALL LETTER B WITH HOOK | ||
| Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex |
| Unicode | 385 | U+0181 | 595 | U+0253 |
| UTF-8 | 198 129 | C6 81 | 201 147 | C9 93 |
| Numeric character reference | Ɓ |
Ɓ |
ɓ |
ɓ |
See also
Similar letters
Alphabets with this letter
- Africa Alphabet
- African reference alphabet
- Pan-Nigerian alphabet
- Alphabets for the following specific languages:
- Fula (see also Fula orthographies)
- Hausa
- Giziga
References
- ^ Practical Orthography of African Languages, Revised Edition, London: Oxford University Press, 1930
- ^ Message posted to the "Qalam" list, Sept. 15, 2007
Bibliography
- Pullum, Geoffrey K.; Ladusaw, William A. (1996). Phonetic Symbol Guide. University of Chicago Press. p. 23.
- "Latin Extended B: Range 0180-024F" (Unicode code chart)
- "IPA Extensions: Range 0250-02AF" (Unicode code chart)
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