Russian alphabet

Encyclopedia : R : RU : RUS : Russian alphabet

---

The modern Russian alphabet is a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet. It was introduced into Kievan Rus' at the time of its conversion to Christianity (988), or, if certain archeological finds are correctly dated, at a slightly earlier date.

This alphabet contains the printed letter of the Russian language, whereas the handwritten alphabet is significantly different

The alphabet

The Russian alphabet is as follows: ([Hear it] ([Media helphelp]·[info]))

Capital	Small	Name	Old Name1	IPA	English Example	Numerical Value19	Unicode (Hex)
А	а				a in car	1	U+0410 / U+0430
Б	б			/bʲ/	b in bit	-	U+0411 / U+0431
В	в		['vʲe.dʲɪ]	/vʲ/	v in vine	2	U+0412 / U+0432
Г	г				g in go	3	U+0413 / U+0433
Д	д			/dʲ/	d in do	4	U+0414 / U+0434
Е	е4			/ ʲɛ/	ye in yet	5	U+0415 / U+0435
Ё	ё4,7		-	/ ʲo/	yo in yolk	-	U+0401 / U+0451
Ж	ж		[ʐɨ'vʲɵ.tʲə]		g in genre, s in pleasure	-	U+0416 / U+0436
З	з			/zʲ/	z in zoo	7	U+0417 / U+0437
И	и4			/ ʲi/	ee in see	8	U+0418 / U+0438
Й	й				y in boy	-	U+0419 / U+0439
К	к			/kʲ/	k in kitten	20	U+041A / U+043A
Л	л			/lʲ/	l in lamp	30	U+041B / U+043B
М	м		['mɨ.slʲɪ.tʲɪ]	/mʲ/	m in map	40	U+041C / U+043C
Н	н			/nʲ/	n in not	50	U+041D / U+043D
О	о				o in folk	70	U+041E / U+043E
П	п			/pʲ/	p in pet	80	U+041F / U+043F
Р	р			/rʲ/	r in roll (roll your tongue while pronouncing this letter)	100	U+0420 / U+0440
С	с			/sʲ/	s in see	200	U+0421 / U+0441
Т	т			/tʲ/	t in tip	300	U+0422 / U+0442
У	у				oo in boot	400	U+0423 / U+0443
Ф	ф			/fʲ/	f in face	500	U+0424 / U+0444
Х	х		[xʲɛr]		no english equivalent, sounds like ch in scots loch (as in lochness)	600	U+0425 / U+0445
Ц	ц				ts in sits	900	U+0426 / U+0446
Ч	ч				ch in chip	90	U+0427 / U+0447
Ш	ш				sh in shut	-	U+0428 / U+0448
Щ	щ				sh in sheer (sometimes followed by ch in chip such as the phrase "fresh cheese)	-	U+0429 / U+0449
Ъ	ъ		; Yer	Note2	-	-	U+042A / U+044A
Ы	ы			5	i in ill	-	U+042B / U+044B
Ь	ь			3	-	-	U+042C / U+044C
Э	э6		-		e in met	-	U+042D / U+044D
Ю	ю	4		/ ʲu/	u in use	-	U+042E / U+044E
Я	я4,16,17			/ ʲa/	ya in yard	-	U+042F / U+044F
letters eliminated in 1918
І	і8	-		/ ʲi/	Like и	10
	9	-	[fʲɪ'ta]	/fʲ/	Like ф	9
	10	-	Yat	/ ʲɛ/	Like е	-
	11	-		/ ʲi/	Like и	-
letters in disuse by the 18th century18
	14	-	['zʲɛ.lə]	/zʲ/	Like з	6
	12	-		/ksʲ/	Like кс	60
	12	-		/psʲ/	Like пс	700
	13	-			Like о	800
		-	, Yus	/ ʲu/15	Like у or ю	-
15	15	-		/ ʲa/16	Like я	-
		-		/ ʲu/15	Like ю	-
		-		/ ʲa/15	Like я	-

The consonant letters represent both “hard” and “soft” (palatalised, represented in [[international phonetic alphabet|IPA| with a < ʲ >) phonemes, depending (with some exceptions) on whether the iotated or softening vowel letters follow. The transcriptions of the names of the letters attempt to reflect the reduction of non-stressed vowels. See Russian phonology for details.

The names of the letters

1. Until approximately 1900, mnemonic names inherited from Church Slavonic were used for the letters. They are given here in the pre-1918 orthography of the post-1708 civil alphabet.

Since most of the old names are obviously native words, it has been argued that reading the list in the traditional order produces a kind of paean to the art of language, or a moral instruction:

аз буки веди	I know letters
глаголь добро есть	"To speak is a beneficence" or "The word is property"
живете зело земля	"Live truly (on this) earth" or "Live truly Earth (people on the Earth)"
иже и како люди мыслете	"which, whereof you think as human beings," or "As you think like human beings"
наш он покой	"(is for) that tranquility of ours [our]" or "It (the word) is our peace"
рцы слово твердо	say the word firmly
ук ферт хер цы	[from this point onwards the meaning is very obscure]
червь ша ер ять юс

The non-vocalized letters

2. The hard sign ъ is used to separate prefixes from a succeeding iotated vowel. Its original pronunciation, lost by 1400 at the latest, was that of a very short middle schwa-like sound, /ŭ/ but likely pronounced [ə] or [ɯ]

3. The soft sign ь indicates that the preceding consonant is palatalized. This is important as palatalization is phonemic in Russian. For example, "брат" (brother) and "брать" (to take"). ^[Ref. 3]

The original pronunciation of the soft sign, lost by 1400 at the latest, was that of a very short fronted reduced vowel /ĭ/ but likely pronounced [ɪ] or [jɪ].

The vowels

4. The vowels е, ё, и, ю, я indicate a preceding palatal consonant and with the exception of и are iotated (with a preceding /j/) when written at the beginning of a word or following another vowel (initial и was iotated until the nineteenth century).

5. The ы is an old Common Slavonic tense intermediate vowel, thought to have been preserved better in modern Russian than in other Slavic languages. It was originally nasalized in certain positions: OR камы /'ka.mɨ̃/ R камень /'ka.mʲɪnʲ/ "rock". Its written form developed as follows: ъ + і > ъı > ы.

6. The э was introduced in 1708 to distinguish the non-iotated/non-palatalizing /ɛ/ from the iotated/palatalizing one. The original usage had been е for the uniotated /ɛ/, ѥ or ѣ for the iotated, but ѥ had dropped out of use by the sixteenth century.

7. The ё, introduced by Karamzin in 1797, marks a /jo/ sound that has historically developed from /je/ under stress, a process that continues today. The letter ё is optional: it is formally correct consistently to write e for both /je/ and /jo/. None of the several attempts in the twentieth century to mandate the use of ё have stuck, and today it is conceded that computer input has further weakened it.

Letters eliminated in 1918

8. The і ("Decimal I"), identical in pronunciation to и, was used exclusively immediately in front of other vowels and the й ("Short I") (for example, патріархъ [pətrʲɪ'arx] "patriarch") and in the word міръ [mʲir] "world" and its derivatives, to distinguish it from the word миръ [mʲir] "peace" (the two words are actually etymologically cognate^[Ref. 2] and not arbitrarily homonyms).^[Ref. 1]

9. The ѳ ("Fita"), from the Greek theta, was identical to ф in pronunciation, but was used etymologically.

10. The ѣ ("Yat") had originally had a distinct sound, but by the middle of the eighteenth century had become identical in pronunciation to е in the standard language. Since its elimination in 1918, it has remained a political symbol of the old orthography.

11. The ѵ ("Izhitsa"), from the Greek upsilon, was identical to и in pronunciation, as in Byzantine Greek, but was used etymologically, though by 1918 had become very rare.

Letters in disuse by 1750

12. The ѯ and ѱ are Greek letters xi and psi, used etymologically though inconsistently in secular writing until the eighteenth century, and more consistently to the present day in Church Slavonic.

13. The ѡ is the Greek letter omega, identical in pronunciation to о, used in secular writing until the eighteenth century, but to the present day in Church Slavonic, mostly to distinguish inflexional forms otherwise written identically.

14. The ѕ corresponded to a more archaic/dz/ pronunciation, already absent in East Slavic at the start of the historical period, but kept by tradition in certain words until the eighteenth century in secular writing, and in Church Slavonic to the present day.

15. The yuses had become, according to linguistic reconstruction, irrelevant for East Slavic phonology already at the beginning of the historical period, but were introduced along with the rest of the Cyrillic alphabet. The letters ѭ and ѩ had largely vanished by the twelfth century. The uniotated ѫ continued to be used, etymologically, until the sixteenth century. Thereafter it was restricted to being a dominical letter in the Paschal tables. The seventeenth-century usage of ѫ and ѧ (see next note) survives in contemporary Church Slavonic.

16. The letter ѧ was adapted to represent the iotated /ja/ я in the middle or end of a word; the modern letter я is an adaptation of its cursive form of the seventeenth century, enshrined by the typographical reform of 1708.

17. Until 1708, the iotated /ja/ was written ıa at the beginning of a word. This distinction between ѧ and ıa survives in Church Slavonic.

18. Although it is usually stated that the letters labelled "fallen into disuse by the eighteenth century" in the table above were eliminated in the typographical reform of 1708, reality is somewhat more complex. The letters were indeed originally omitted from the sample alphabet, printed in a western-style serif font, presented in Peter's edict, along with the modern letter и, but were reinstated under pressure from the Russian Orthodox Church in a later variant of the modern typeface. Nonetheless, they fell completely out of use in secular writing by 1750.

Numeric values

19. The numerical values correspond to the Greek numerals, with ѕ being used for digamma, ч for koppa, and ц for sampi. The system was abandoned for secular purposes in 1708, after a transitional period of a century or so; it continues to be used in Church Slavonic.

See also