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.

The alphabet as shown here is the printed form. When handwritten, Russian letters look significantly different.

The alphabet

The Russian alphabet is as follows: ()

Capital	Small	Name	Old Name1	IPA	English Example	Numerical Value19	Unicode (Hex)
А	а	а	| азъ	|	a in car	1	U+0410 / U+0430
Б	б	бэ	| буки	| or	b in bit	-	-	�'	в	вэ	|	| or	v in vine	2	-	�"	г		глаголь	|	g in go	3	U+0413 / U+0433
�"	д		добро	| or	d in do	4	U+0414 / U+0434
Е	е4	е	| есть	| or	ye in yet	5	U+0415 / U+0435
Ё	ё4,7	ё	| -	or	yo in yolk	-	U+0401 / U+0451
Ж	ж	жэ	|	|	g in genre, s in pleasure (voiced retroflex fricative)	-	U+0416 / U+0436
З	з	зэ	| земля	| or	z in zoo	7	U+0417 / U+0437
И	и4	и	| иже	| or	ee in see	8	U+0418 / U+0438
Й	й	и краткое	| и съ краткой	|	y in boy	-	U+0419 / U+0439
К	к	ка	| како	| or	k in kitten	20	U+041A / U+043A
Л	л	эль	| люди	| or	l in lamp	30	U+041B / U+043B
М	м	эм	|	| or	m in map	40	U+041C / U+043C
Н	н	эн	| нашъ	| or	n in not	50	U+041D / U+043D
О	о	o	| онъ	|	o in folk	70	U+041E / U+043E
П	п	пэ	| покой	| or	p in pet	80	U+041F / U+043F
Р	р	эр	| рцы	| or	r in roll (roll your tongue while pronouncing this letter)	100	U+0420 / U+0440
С	с	эс	| слово	| or	s in see	200	U+0421 / U+0441
Т	т	тэ	| твердо	| or	t in tip	300	U+0422 / U+0442
У	у	у	| укъ	|	oo in boot	400	U+0423 / U+0443
Ф	ф	эф	| фертъ	| or	f in face	500	U+0424 / U+0444
Х	х	ха	|	|	no english equivalent, sounds like ch in scots loch (as in Loch Ness) (voiceless velar fricative)	600	U+0425 / U+0445
Ц	ц	це	| цы	|	ts in sits	900	U+0426 / U+0446
Ч	ч	че	| червь	|	ch in chip	90	U+0427 / U+0447
Ш	ш	ша	| ша	|	sh in shut (voiceless retroflex fricative)	-	U+0428 / U+0448
Щ	щ	ща	| ща	|	sh in sheer (sometimes followed by ch in chip such as the phrase "fresh cheese) (voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative)	-	U+0429 / U+0449
Ъ	ъ	твёрдый знак	| еръ ; Yer	Note2	-	-	U+042A / U+044A
Ы	ы	ы	| еры	| 5	i in ill	-	U+042B / U+044B
Ь	ь	мягкий знак	| ерь	3	-	-	U+042C / U+044C
Э	э6	э	| -		e in met	-	U+042D / U+044D
Ю	ю	ю4	| ю	| or	u in use	-	U+042E / U+044E
Я	я4,16,17	я	| я	| or	ya in yard	-	U+042F / U+044F
letters eliminated in 1918
І	і8	-	і десятеричное	| or	Like и	10
	9	-		| or	Like ф	9
	10	-	ять Yat	or	Like е	-
	11	-	ижица	| or	Like и	-
letters in disuse by the 18th century18
	14	-		| or	Like з	6
	12	-	кси	| or	Like кс	60
	12	-	пси	| or	Like пс	700
	13	-	омега	|	Like о	800
		-	юсъ большой , Yus	or 15	Like у or ю	-
15	15	-	юсъ малый	| or 16	Like я	-
		-	юсъ большой іотированный	| or 15	Like ю	-
		-	юсъ малый іотированный	| or 15	Like я	-

The consonant letters represent both "hard" and "soft" (palatalised, represented in IPA with a < >) 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, but likely pronounced or

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").

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

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 ) 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 R камень "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 from the iotated/palatalizing one. The original usage had been е for the uniotated , or for the iotated, but had dropped out of use by the sixteenth century.

7. The ё, introduced by Karamzin in 1797, marks a sound that has historically developed from under stress, a process that continues today. The letter ё is optional: it is formally correct consistently to write e for both and . 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 "patriarch") and in the word міръ "world" and its derivatives, to distinguish it from the word миръ "peace" (the two words are actually etymologically cognate and not arbitrarily homonyms).

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

10. The ("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 ("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 and 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 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 corresponded to a more archaic 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 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 and had largely vanished by the twelfth century. The uniotated 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 and (see next note) survives in contemporary Church Slavonic.

16. The letter was adapted to represent the iotated 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 was written ıa at the beginning of a word. This distinction between 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 being used for digamma, for koppa, and 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

* Russian language
* Romanization of Russian
* Russian phonology
* Cyrillic alphabet
* Russian orthography
* Reforms of Russian orthography
* Church Slavonic

References

# P. Smirnovskiy. A Textbook in Russian Grammar. Part I. Etymology 26th edition, ca. 1915. (In Russian. П. Смирновскій. Учебникъ русской грамматики. Часть І. Этимологія 26 изд. (A Djvu file.) — Rule 4 for writing і on p. 4.# Max Vasmer's Russian Etymological Dictionary — the etymology of the Russian word мир ("world", "peace"), found in the query result for мир at an online version of the Russian translation of the dictionary (retr. 16 October 2005).#Learn the Russian alphabet

External links

* Online Russian Language Lesson - Alphabet
* Generator for Russian typographical filler text
*How to install a phonetic Russian keyboard for a QWERTY Keyboard