From The Hebrew Alphabet...

The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Pe

The seventeenth letter in many of the Semitic alphabets, including Hebrew, is Pe. The original sound value for Pe is a voiceless bilabial plosive or /p/. This value is retained in most of the Semitic languages except for Arabic. When the letter Pe appears without the dagesh, it represents a voiceless labiodental fricative.

The letter Pe is said to have come from a picture of a mouth. Pe is one of six letters which is able to receive a Dagesh Kal.

Some Hebrew letters have two versions such as Kaf, Nun, Tzade, Mem and Pe. These letters are all written quite differently when they come at a word ending and when they come at the beginning or in the middle of a word. The version which is used at the ending of a word is usually referred to as the Final Mem, Final Kaf, Final Pe, etc. The version of the letter that appears on the left hand side is the final version.

In the Hebrew alphabet, some letters have two pronunciations. The letters Bet, Kaf and Pe all have a "hard" first sound and a "soft" second sound. When these letters are to be pronounced with a hard sound, you will see that they will all have a dot in the center in the pointed texts.

When you look at an image of the letter Pe, it is shaped like a mouth which is only considered to be a resemblance of the letter’s shape. There is really no special meaning. However, the mouth can be thought of as an opening from which the Breath of Life comes. Pe, then, can be seen as the opening by which the Light of one’s Higher Self shines forth.

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