The New Student's Reference Work/B

B (bē), the second letter, is a consonant, and is called a sonant labial, because made by the lips and representing a sound, as in able, boy, cab. After m in the same syllable or before t, it usually is silent, as in bomb, debt, bdellium. The form is Roman, from Greek β, which, perhaps, is of Phœnician origin. All letters of the English alphabet, except J, U and W, come from the Latin, which derived them through the Greek from the Phœnician.