Beta (uppercase Β, lowercase β and internal ϐ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 2. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Beth . Letters that arose from Beta include the Roman B and the Cyrillic letters Б and В.
In Modern Greek, it represents a voiced labiodental fricative /v/, but in Ancient Greek, it represented a /b/.
Beta should not be confused with the German ligature eszett (ß), which closely resembles the lower case letter beta but is otherwise unrelated.
The Modern Greek name of the letter is [ˈviˑta]. The American pronunciation is [ˈbeɪɾə] whereas the British pronunciation is [ˈbiːtə]. See: American and British English pronunciation differences, IPA
In high-quality print, a variant of the letter is sometimes used that does not have a descender except at the beginning of a word: "βίβλος" is written "βίϐλος".