Pe — 𐤐

From Pe to Pi

When the Phoenician alphabet was adapted to Greek, Pe did not present the same problem as Ayin.

Greek had the sound /p/.

There was therefore no need to reassign the letter to a different phonetic function.

Pe became:

Pi — Π

and continued to represent /p/.

The main transformation was graphic.

The earliest Greek forms of Pi were not all identical to the symmetrical Π familiar today. Archaic Greek alphabets display several regional variants, some of which remain much closer to forms inherited from the Levant.

Over time, the Greek shape became increasingly regularised, eventually producing the classical form of Pi.

The stability of the sound therefore contrasts with the changing appearance of the sign.

From Pi to P

The story then continues westward.

Greek alphabets used across the Mediterranean were not graphically identical. Western forms of Pi were transmitted into the Italic writing traditions, including Etruscan, before entering the Latin alphabet.

It is this western branch that gradually leads to P.

The Latin P therefore does not immediately resemble classical Greek Π.

Yet both belong to the same historical lineage. The intermediate forms reveal the continuity.

Pe and Byblos

A royal inscription from Byblos provides a particularly interesting example of Pe.

It is engraved on a bust of the Egyptian pharaoh Osorkon, reused by the Byblian king Elibaal at the beginning of the first millennium BCE. The object is now preserved at the Louvre Museum.

The inscription begins with a verb transliterated PʿL, built on the Semitic root meaning “to make” or “to do”.

The first sign of this word is Pe.

The text states that Elibaal, king of Byblos, “made” — or possibly commissioned — the object before continuing with his royal titulature.

This Pe is therefore carved on an object that encapsulates the cultural connections of the city: an Egyptian royal sculpture carrying a Phoenician inscription commissioned or appropriated by a ruler of Byblos.

Here, the history of a letter intersects with the history of exchange between two worlds.

A changing shape, a lasting sound

Pe tells a story of remarkable phonetic continuity.

Its shape changes.

It shifts orientation, becomes more geometric, adopts different regional forms, and eventually produces two modern letters that no longer look immediately related:

Π and P.

Yet through all these transformations, its basic phonetic value remains largely unchanged.

The /p/ of Phoenician Pe is still the /p/ of Greek Pi and Latin P.

Among the twenty-two letters of the Phoenician alphabet, Pe therefore offers a particularly clear example of phonetic continuity beneath graphic transformation.