Russian alphabet
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox writing system
The Russian alphabet (Template:Langx,Template:Efn or Template:Langx,Template:Efn more traditionally) is the script used to write the Russian language.
The modern Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters: twenty consonants (Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr), ten vowels (Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr), a semivowel / consonant (Template:Tooltip), and two modifier letters or "signs" (Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr) that alter pronunciation of a preceding consonant or a following vowel.
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History
Russian alphabet is derived from the Cyrillic script, which was invented in the 9th century to capture accurately the phonology of the first Slavic literary language, Old Church Slavonic. The early Cyrillic alphabet was adapted to Old East Slavic from Old Church Slavonic and was used in Kievan Rus' from the 10th century onward to write what would become the modern Russian language. The last major reform of Russian orthography took place in 1917–1918.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Letters
- Template:Note An alternative form of the letter De (Д д) closely resembles the Greek letter delta (Δ δ).
- Template:Note An alternative form of the letter El (Л л) closely resembles the Greek letter lambda (Λ λ).
Historic letters
Letters eliminated in 1917–18
- Template:Lang — Identical in pronunciation to Template:Angbr, it was used exclusively immediately before other vowels and the Template:Angbr ("Short I") (for example, Template:Angbr Template:IPA, 'patriarch') and in the word Template:Angbr Template:IPA ('world') and its derivatives, to distinguish it from the word Template:Angbr Template:IPA ('peace') (the two words are actually etymologically cognateTemplate:Sfn<ref>Template:Citation.</ref> and not arbitrarily homonyms).Template:Sfn
- ѣ — Originally had a distinct sound, but by the middle of the eighteenth century, it had become identical in pronunciation to Template:Angbr in the standard language. Since its elimination in 1918, it has remained a political symbol of the old orthography.
- ѳ — From the Greek theta, it was identical to Template:Angbr in pronunciation, but it was used etymologically (for example, Template:Angbr "Theodore" became Template:Angbr "Fyodor").
- ѵ — From the Greek upsilon, usually identical to Template:Angbr in pronunciation, as in Byzantine Greek, it was used etymologically for Greek loanwords, like Latin Y (as in synod, myrrh); by 1918, it had become very rare. In spellings of the eighteenth century, it was also used after some vowels, where it has since been replaced with Template:Angbr or (rarely) Template:Angbr. For example, a Greek prefix originally spelled Template:Angbr (equivalent to English Template:Wikt-lang) is now spelled Template:Angbr in most cases and Template:Angbr as a component in some compound words.
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- 19th century Russian Cyrillic alphabet
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(Körner, 1895)
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(Motti, 1890)
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(Fuchs, 1888)
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(Moser, 1888)
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(Reiff, 1883)
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(Boltz, 1880)
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Letters eliminated before 1750
- Template:Angbr corresponded to a more archaic Template:IPA 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 and Macedonian to the present day.
- Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr derived from Greek letters xi and psi. It was used etymologically, though inconsistently, in secular writing until the eighteenth century and more consistently to the present day in Church Slavonic.
- Template:Angbr is the Greek letter omega, identical in pronunciation to Template:Angbr. It was used in secular writing until the eighteenth century, but in the present day in Church Slavonic, it was mostly used to distinguish inflexional forms otherwise written identically.
- Two "yuses", "big" Template:Angbr and "small" Template:Angbr, used to stand for nasalized vowels Template:IPA and Template:IPA. According to linguistic reconstruction, both became irrelevant for East Slavic phonology at the beginning of the historical periodTemplate:When but were introduced along with the rest of the Cyrillic script. The iotated yuses, Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr, had largely vanished by the twelfth century. The uniotated Template:Angbr 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 Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr survives in contemporary Church Slavonic, and the sounds (but not the letters) in Polish.
- The letter Template:Angbr was adapted to represent the iotated Template:IPA Template:Angbr in the middle or end of a word; the modern letter Template:Angbr is an adaptation of its cursive form of the seventeenth century, enshrined by the typographical reform of 1708.
- Until 1708, the iotated Template:IPA was written [[Iotified A|Template:Angbr]] at the beginning of a word. This distinction between Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr survives in Church Slavonic.
Although it is usually stated that the letters 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 PeterTemplate:'s edict, along with the letters Template:Angbr (replaced by Template:Angbr), Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr (the diacriticized letter Template:Angbr was also removed), but were reinstated except Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr under pressure from the Russian Orthodox Church in a later variant of the modern typeface (1710). Nonetheless, since 1735, the Russian Academy of Sciences began to use fonts without Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr; however, Template:Angbr was sometimes used again since 1758.
Although praised by Western scholars and philosophers, it was criticized by clergy and many conservative scholars, who found the new standard too "Russified". Some even went as far as to refer to Peter as the Anti-Christ.<ref>Archived at GhostarchiveTemplate:Cbignore and the Wayback MachineTemplate:Cbignore: Template:Cite webTemplate:Cbignore</ref>
Consonants
| Either hard (default) or soft |
Б, В, Г, Д, З, К, Л, М, Н, П, Р, С, Т, Ф, Х |
|---|---|
| Always hard | Ж, Ш, Ц |
| Always soft | Й, Ч, Щ |
Template:See also Most consonants can represent both "soft" (palatalized, represented in the IPA with a Template:Angbr IPA) and "hard" consonant phonemes.<ref>Russian language course "Russo Sem Mestre" (Portuguese for Russian without Master), by Custódio Gomes Sobrinho</ref> If consonant letters are followed by vowel letters, the soft/hard quality of the consonant depends on whether the vowel is meant to follow "hard" consonants Template:Nowrap or "soft" consonants Template:Nowrap. A soft sign Template:Angbr indicates palatalization of the preceding consonant without adding a vowel.
However, in modern Russian, six consonant phonemes do not have phonemically distinct "soft" and "hard" variants (except in foreign proper names) and do not change "softness" in the presence of other letters: Template:Nowrap are always hard; Template:Nowrap are always soft. (Before 1950, Russian linguists considered Template:Nowrap a semivowel rather than a consonant.)
Vowels
| Hard | А | Э | Ы | О | У |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soft | Я | Е | И | Ё | Ю |
| Each row is roughly analogous to the Latin A, E, I, O, U. | |||||
The Russian alphabet contains 10 vowel letters. They are grouped into soft and hard vowels.<ref>Russian language course "Russo Sem Mestre" (Portuguese for Russian without Master), by Custódio Gomes Sobrinho</ref> The soft vowels, Template:Angbr, either indicate a preceding palatalized consonant, or (with the exception of Template:Angbr) are iotated (pronounced with a preceding Template:IPA) in all other cases. The IPA vowels shown are a guideline only and sometimes are realized as different sounds, particularly when unstressed. However, Template:Angbr may be used in words of foreign origin without palatalization (Template:IPA), and Template:Angbr is often realized as Template:IPAblink between soft consonants, such as in Template:Lang ('toy ball').
Individual vowels
Template:Angbr is an old Proto-Slavic close central vowel, thought to have been preserved better in modern Russian than in other Slavic languages. It was originally nasalized in certain positions: Old Russian Template:Lang Template:IPA; Modern Russian Template:Lang Template:IPA ('rock'). Its written form developed as follows: Template:Angbr + Template:Angbr → Template:Angbr → Template:Angbr.
Template:Angbr was introduced in 1708 to distinguish the non-iotated/non-palatalizing Template:IPA from the iotated/palatalizing one. The original usage had been Template:Angbr for the uniotated Template:IPA, Template:Angbr or Template:Angbr for the iotated, but Template:Angbr had dropped out of use by the sixteenth century. In native Russian words, Template:Angbr is found only at the beginnings of a few words Template:Lang 'this (is) (m./f./n.)', Template:Lang 'these', Template:Lang 'what a', Template:Lang 'that way', Template:Lang 'sort of', and interjections like Template:Lang 'hey') or in compound words (e.g., Template:Lang 'therefore' = Template:Lang + Template:Lang, where Template:Lang is the dative case of Template:Lang). In words that come from foreign languages in which iotated Template:IPA is uncommon or nonexistent (such as English), Template:Angbr is usually written in the beginning of words and after vowels except Template:Angbr (e.g., Template:Lang, 'poet'), and Template:Angbr after Template:Angbr and consonants. However, the pronunciation is inconsistent. Many of these borrowed words, especially monosyllables, words ending in Template:Angbr and many words where Template:Angbr follows Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr or Template:Angbr, are pronounced with Template:IPA without palatalization or iotation: Template:Lang (seks — 'sex'), Template:Lang (model' — 'model'), Template:Lang (kafe — 'café'), Template:Lang (proekt — 'project'; here, the spelling is etymological: German Projekt was adopted from Latin proiectum, so the word is spelled with Template:Angbr to reflect the original Template:IPA and not with Template:Angbr as usual after vowels; but the pronunciation is counter-etymological: a hypercorrection that has become standard). But many other words are pronounced with Template:IPA: Template:Lang (syekta — 'sect'), Template:Lang (dyebyut — 'debut').
Proper names are sometimes written with Template:Angbr after consonants: Template:Lang — 'Sam', Template:Lang — 'Mary', Template:Lang — 'Mao Zedong'; the use of Template:Angbr after consonants is common in East Asian names and in English names with the sounds Template:IPAc-en and Template:IPAc-en, with some exceptions such as Template:Lang ('Jack') and Template:Lang ('Shannon'), since both Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr, in cases of Template:Lang ("zhe"), Template:Lang ("she") and Template:Lang ("tse"), follow consonants that are always hard (non-palatalized), yet Template:Angbr usually prevails in writing. However, English names with the sounds Template:IPAc-en, Template:IPAc-en (if spelled Template:Angbr in English) and Template:IPAc-en after consonants are normally spelled with Template:Angbr in Russian: Template:Lang — 'Betty', Template:Lang — 'Peter', Template:Lang — 'Lake Placid'. Pronunciation mostly remains unpalatalized, so Template:Lang Template:IPA — Russian rendering of the English name 'Peter' is pronounced differently from Template:Lang Template:IPA — is a colloquial Russian name of Saint Petersburg.
Template:Angbr, introduced by Karamzin in 1797 and made official in 1943 by the Soviet Ministry of Education,Template:Sfn marks a Template:IPA sound that historically developed from stressed Template:IPA. The written letter Template:Angbr is optional; it is formally correct to write Template:Angbr for both Template:IPA and Template:IPA. None of the several attempts in the twentieth century to mandate the use of Template:Angbr have stuck.
Non-vocalized letters
Hard sign
The hard sign (Template:Angbr) acts like a "silent back vowel" that separates a succeeding "soft vowel" (Template:Angbr, but not Template:Angbr) from a preceding consonant, invoking implicit iotation of the vowel with a distinct Template:IPA glide. Today it is used mostly to separate a prefix ending with a hard consonant from the following root. Its original pronunciation, lost by 1400 at the latest, was that of a very short middle schwa-like sound, likely pronounced Template:IPAblink or Template:IPAblink. Until the 1918 reform, no written word could end in a consonant: those that end in a "hard" consonant in modern orthography then had a final Template:Angbr.
While Template:Angbr is also a soft vowel, root-initial Template:IPA following a hard consonant is typically pronounced as Template:IPA. This is normally spelled Template:Angbr (the hard counterpart to Template:Angbr) unless this vowel occurs at the beginning of a word, in which case it remains Template:Angbr. An alternation between the two letters (but not the sounds) can be seen with the pair Template:Lang ('without name', which is pronounced Template:IPA) and Template:Lang ('nameless', which is pronounced Template:IPA). This spelling convention, however, is not applied with certain loaned prefixes such as in the word Template:Lang — Template:IPA, 'Pan-Islamism') and compound words (e.g., Template:Lang — Template:IPA, 'high treason').
Soft sign
The soft sign, Template:Angbr, in most positions acts like a "silent front vowel" and indicates that the preceding consonant is palatalized (except for always-hard Template:Lang) and the following vowel (if present) is iotated (including Template:Angbr in loans). This is important as palatalization is phonemic in Russian. For example, Template:Lang Template:IPA ('brother') contrasts with Template:Lang Template:IPA ('to take'). The original pronunciation of the soft sign, lost by 1400 at the latest, was that of a very short fronted reduced vowel Template:IPA but likely pronounced Template:IPAblink or Template:IPA. There are still some remnants of this ancient reading in modern Russian, e.g., in co-existing versions of the same name, read and written differently, such as Template:Lang and Template:Lang ('Mary').<ref>See Polish Maria as a given name but Maryja in context of the Virgin Mary.</ref>
When applied after stem-final always-soft (Template:Lang, but not Template:Lang) or always-hard (Template:Lang, but not Template:Lang) consonants, the soft sign does not alter pronunciation, but has grammatical significance:<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- the feminine marker for singular nouns in the nominative and accusative; e.g., Template:Lang ('India ink', feminine) cf. Template:Lang ('flourish after a toast', masculine) — both pronounced Template:IPA;
- the imperative mood for some verbs;
- the infinitives of some verbs (with Template:Lang ending);
- the second person for non-past verbs (with Template:Lang ending); and
- some adverbs and particles.
Treatment of foreign sounds
Because Russian borrows terms from other languages, there are various conventions for sounds not present in Russian. For example, while Russian has no Template:IPAblink, there are a number of common words (particularly proper nouns) borrowed from languages like English and German that contain such a sound in the original language. In well-established terms, such as Template:Lang Template:IPA ('hallucination'), this is written with Template:Angbr and pronounced with Template:IPA, while newer terms use Template:Angbr, pronounced with Template:IPA, such as Template:Lang Template:IPA ('hobby').Template:Sfn Similarly, words originally with Template:IPAblink in their source language are either pronounced with Template:IPA, as in the name Template:Lang ('Thelma') or, if borrowed early enough, with Template:IPA or Template:IPA, as in the names Template:Lang ('Theodore') and Template:Lang ('Matthew').<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
For the Template:IPAblink affricate, which is common in the Asian countries that were part of the Russian Empire and the USSR, the letter combination Template:Angbr is used: this is often transliterated into English either as Template:Angbr or the Dutch form Template:Angbr.
Numeric values
The numerical values correspond to the Greek numerals, with Template:Angbr being used for digamma, Template:Angbr for koppa, and Template:Angbr 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, while general Russian texts use Indo-Arabic numerals and Roman numerals.
Diacritics
The Cyrillic alphabet and Russian spelling generally employ fewer diacritics than those used in other European languages written with the Latin alphabet. The only diacritic, in the proper sense, is the acute accent Template:Angbr (Russian: Template:Lang 'mark of stress'), which marks stress on a vowel, as it is done in Spanish and Greek. (Unicode has no code points for the accented letters; they are instead produced by suffixing the unaccented letter with Template:Unichar.) Although Russian word stress is often unpredictable and can fall on different syllables in different forms of the same word, the diacritic accent is used only in dictionaries, children's books, resources for foreign-language learners, the defining entry (in bold) in articles on Russian Wikipedia, or on minimal pairs distinguished only by stress (for instance, Template:Lang 'castle' vs. Template:Lang 'lock'). Rarely, it is also used to specify the stress in uncommon foreign words, and in poems with unusual stress used to fit the meter.
The letter Template:Angbr is a special variant of the letter Template:Angbr, which is not always distinguished in written Russian, but the umlaut-like sign has no other uses. Stress on this letter is never marked with a diacritic, as it is always stressed (except in some compounds and loanwords).
Both Template:Angbr and the letter Template:Angbr have completely separated from Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr. Template:Angbr has been used since the 16th century (except that it was removed in 1708, but reinstated in 1735). Since then, its usage has been mandatory. It was formerly considered a diacriticized letter, but in the 20th century, it came to be considered a separate letter of the Russian alphabet. It was classified as a "semivowel" by 19th- and 20th-century grammarians, but since the 1970s, it has been considered a consonant letter.
Frequency
Template:More citations needed section The frequency of characters in a corpus of written Russian was found to be as follows:<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
| Rank | Letter | Frequency | Other information | English comparison |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Template:Font color | 11.18% | By comparison, 'e' in English appears about 13% in texts. | |
| 2 | Template:Font color | 8.75% | Foreign words sometimes use Template:Lang rather than Template:Lang, even if it is pronounced e instead of ye. In addition, Template:Lang is often replaced by Template:Lang; this makes Template:Lang even more common. | 'T' appears about 9.1% |
| 3 | Template:Font color | 7.64% | 'A' appears about 8.2% | |
| 4 | Template:Font color | 7.09% | 'O' appears about 7.5% | |
| 5 | Template:Lang | 6.78% | The most common consonant in the Russian alphabet. | 'I' appears about 7% |
| 6 | Template:Lang | 6.09% | ||
| 7 | Template:Lang | 4.97% | ||
| 8 | Template:Lang | 4.96% | ||
| 9 | Template:Lang | 4.38% | ||
| 10 | Template:Lang | 4.23% | ||
| 11 | Template:Lang | 3.30% | ||
| 12 | Template:Lang | 3.17% | ||
| 13 | Template:Lang | 3.09% | ||
| 14 | Template:Lang | 2.47% | ||
| 15 | Template:Font color | 2.36% | ||
| 16 | Template:Font color | 2.22% | ||
| 17 | Template:Lang | 2.01% | ||
| 18 | Template:Font color | 1.96% | ||
| 19 | Template:Lang | 1.84% | ||
| 20 | Template:Lang | 1.72% | ||
| 21 | Template:Lang | 1.48% | ||
| 22 | Template:Lang | 1.40% | ||
| 23 | Template:Lang | 1.21% | ||
| 24 | Template:Lang | 1.01% | ||
| 25 | Template:Lang | 0.95% | ||
| 26 | Template:Lang | 0.72% | ||
| 27 | Template:Font color | 0.47% | ||
| 28 | Template:Lang | 0.39% | ||
| 29 | Template:Font color | 0.36% | Foreign words sometimes use Template:Lang rather than Template:Lang, even if it is pronounced e instead of ye. In addition, Template:Lang is often replaced by Template:Lang; this makes Template:Lang even more common. | K : 0.77% |
| 30 | Template:Lang | 0.30% | J : 0.15% | |
| 31 | Template:Lang | 0.21% | The least common consonant in the Russian alphabet. | X : 0.15% |
| 32 | Template:Font color | 0.20% | In written Russian, Template:Angbr is often replaced by Template:Angbr. | Q : 0.095% |
| 33 | Template:Lang | 0.02% | Template:Angbr used to be a very common letter in the Russian alphabet. This is because before the 1918 reform, any word ending with a non-palatalized consonant was written with a final Template:Lang — e.g., pre-1918 Template:Lang vs. post-reform Template:Lang. The reform eliminated the use of Template:Lang in this context, leaving it the least common letter in the Russian alphabet. | 'Z' : 0.074% |
Keyboard layout
Microsoft Windows keyboard layout for personal computers is as follows:
However, there are several variations of so-called "phonetic keyboards" that are often used by non-Russians, where pressing an English letter key will type the Russian letter with a similar sound (A → А, S → С, D → Д, F → Ф, etc.).
Letter names
Until approximately the year 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.
The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin wrote: "The [names of the] letters that make up the Slavonic alphabet don't represent a meaning at all. Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang etc. are individual words, chosen just for their initial sound". However, since the names of the first few letters of the Slavonic alphabet seem to form readable text, attempts have been made to compose meaningful snippets of text from groups of consecutive letters for the rest of the alphabet.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
See also
- Bulgarian alphabet
- Computer russification
- Cyrillic alphabets
- Cyrillic script
- Ukrainian Latin alphabet
- Greek alphabet
- Montenegrin alphabet
- List of Cyrillic digraphs and trigraphs
- Reforms of Russian orthography
- Romanization of Russian
- Russian Braille
- Russian cursive (handwritten letters)
- Russian manual alphabet
- Russian Morse code
- Russian orthography
- Russian phonology
- Scientific transliteration of Cyrillic
- Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
- Yoficator
Notes
References
Bibliography
- Ivan G. Iliev. "Kurze Geschichte des kyrillischen Alphabets". Plovdiv. 2015. Template:Webarchive
- Ivan G. Iliev. "Short History of the Cyrillic Alphabet".
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