P, or p, is the sixteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is pee (pronounced ), plural pees.
The Semitic Pê (mouth), as well as the Greek àor à(Pi), and the Etruscan and Latin letters that developed from the former alphabet all symbolized , a voiceless bilabial plosive.
In English orthography, represents the sound .
A common digraph in English is , which represents the sound , and can be used to transliterate phi in loanwords from Greek. In German, the digraph is common, representing a labial affricate .
Most English words beginning with are of foreign origin, primarily French, Latin and Greek; these languages preserve the Proto-Indo-European initial *p. Native English cognates of such words often start with , since English is a Germanic language and thus has undergone Grimm's law; a native English word with an initial would reflect Proto-Indo-European initial *b, which is so rare that its existence as a phoneme is disputed. However, native English words with non-initial are quite common; such words can come from either Kluge's law or the consonant cluster (PIE: *p has been preserved after s).
P is the eighth least frequently used letter in the English language.
In most European languages, represents the sound .
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, is used to represent the voiceless bilabial plosive.
The Latin letter P represents the same sound as the Greek letter Pi, but it looks like the Greek letter Rho.