Beth is the second letter of the Syriac abjad and writes b. It joins on both sides, taking initial, medial, final and isolated shapes according to where it falls in a connected run, so it never forces a break in a word.
Beth belongs to the set of six letters that carry two pronunciations, beth gamal dalath kaph pe and taw. Each has a hard reading, a plosive, and a soft reading, a fricative, and which is meant depends on the shape of the word rather than on anything visible in the letter. Soft beth is a fricative close to a w or a v. Syriac can fix the reading with a point: the qushshaya written above the letter calls for the plosive and the rukkakha written below it calls for the spirantized sound. Running text ordinarily leaves both marks off, so the distinction lives in the reader.
Its name is the inherited Northwest Semitic word for a house, and beth holds the same second place in Hebrew and stands behind the Greek beta. The name has outlasted every shape it was ever attached to.
As the entry for the letter rather than for a hand, this entry covers beth as Estrangela, Serto and Madnhaya all write it. The three differ in the drawing and agree in everything else: the place in the sequence, the sound, the numeral value two, and the pair of readings the letter carries.