Faux Cyrillic
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Graphic designers sometimes employ faux Cyrillic typography to give a Soviet or Russian feel to text, by replacing Latin letters with Cyrillic letters resembling them in appearance. A simple way to accomplish this is to replace capital letters R and N with Cyrillic Я and И, for some "Яussiaи flavor". Other examples include Ш for W, Ц for U, Г for r, Ф for O, Д for A, and Ч or У for Y.
This effect is usually restricted to text set in all-caps. In Cyrillic typography, most upright lowercase letters resemble smaller uppercase letters, unlike the more distinctive forms of Latin-alphabet type (cursive Cyrillic letters are more differentiated).
This is a common Western trope used in book covers, film titles, comic book lettering, and artwork for computer games which are set in the Soviet Union or Russian Federation. An early example was the logo for Norman Jewison's film The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming; more are listed below. It is important to note that not all names with Cyrillic-like characters in them are Faux Cyrillic; an example is the imitation of small children's erroneous writing of mirrored letters, such as the mirrored "R" in the Toys "Я" Us American toy store name.
It should be noted that none of the Cyrillic characters below is pronounced the same way as their Roman lookalikes:
| Cyrillic letter | Latin look-alike | Actual Russian pronunciation |
|---|---|---|
| Я | R | /ja/ as in "yard" |
| И | N | /i/ as in "eat" |
| Ш | W | /ʃ/ as in "ship" |
| Ц | U | /ʦ/ as in "cats" |
| Ф | O | /f/ as in "foxtrot" |
| Д | A | /d/ as in "day" |
| Ч | Y | /ʧ/ as in "charcoal" |
| У | Y | /u/ as in "shoot" |
Examples of faux Cyrillic
- APPAЯATCHIK, a fanzine.
- Cover artwork for Paul McCartney's album CHOBA B CCCP ("PAUL McCARTИEЧ")
- Computer game TETЯIS
- LЭИIИGЯAD COWBOYS, a Finnish, but "fake Russian" band, spelled with varying amounts of faux Cyrillic.
- Further information: List of examples of faux Cyrillic typography
See also
- Foreign branding
- Heavy metal umlaut for a similar practice in the field of heavy metal
- Greek sigmas (Σ) can be employed as the capital Roman E, for instance in the RCA brand name Erato was written Σrato in the logo.
- Volapük encoding, an informal rendering of Cyrillic text over Latin-alphabet ASCII.
- Engrish
- Cyrillic
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