View source for Che (Cyrillic)

{{short description|Cyrillic letter}}
{{distinguish|text=[[Turned h]] in Latin script}}{{Distinguish|4}}{{Hatnote|"Č (Cyrillic)" redirects here. }}
{{More citations needed|date=March 2018}}
{{infobox grapheme
| script = [[Cyrillic]]
| type = [[Alphabet]]
| typedesc = ic
| name = Che ({{Script|Cyrs|чрьвь}})
| image = Cyrillic letter Che - uppercase and lowercase.svg
| imagealt = 
| phonemes = [{{IPA link|tʃ}}], [{{IPA link|tʃʰ}}], [{{IPA link|tɕʰ}}], [{{IPA link|tʂ}}], [{{IPA link|tɕ}}]
| number = 90, 60{{ref|Che|†}} ([[Cyrillic numerals]])
| fam1 = 
| language = [[Old Church Slavonic]]
| unicode = U+0427, U+0447
| letter = Ч ч
| equivalents = Ch ch, Č č, Ç ç
}}
[[File:Azbuka Benois - Ч.jpg|thumb|''Che'', from [[Alexandre Benois]]' 1904 [[alphabet book]]; it depicts a [[stuffed animal]] (''chuchelo'')]]
'''Che''' (Ч&nbsp;ч; italics: <span style="font-family: times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: larger">''Ч&nbsp;ч''</span>) is a letter of the [[Cyrillic script]].

It commonly represents the [[voiceless postalveolar affricate]] {{IPA|/tʃ/}}, like the {{angbr|tch}} in "swi'''tch'''" or {{angbr|ch}} in "'''ch'''oice".

In English, it is [[romanization of Russian|romanized]] typically as {{angbr|ch}} but sometimes as {{angbr|tch}}, like in French. In German, it can be transcribed as {{angbr|tsch}}. In Slavic languages using the Latin Alphabet, it is transcribed as {{angbr|[[č]]}} so "[[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|Tchaikovsky]]" (Чайковский in Russian) may be transcribed as ''Chaykovskiy'' or ''Čajkovskij''.

==Form==
[[File:25-Russian alphabet-Ч ч.svg|50px|thumb|left|Handwritten Che in Russian (that rarely resembles r)]]
The letter Che (Ч ч) resembles an upside-down lowercase [[H|Latin h]], as well as resembling the digit [[4]], especially in digital or open-ended form. Cursive forms look like lowercase cursive forms of the letter R.

==History==
The name of Che in the [[Early Cyrillic alphabet]] was Чрьвь (''črĭvĭ''), meaning "worm".

In the [[Cyrillic numerals|Cyrillic numeral system]], Che originally did not have a value, however, by the 1300s it started to be used with the numeric value 90 as a replacement for [[Koppa (Cyrillic)|Koppa]], some varieties that preserved Koppa around this time used Che with the value 60 instead of the usual letter for it, [[Ksi (Cyrillic)|Ksi]]. Nowadays, Koppa is not used anymore in any variety, and Che has fully replaced it as the letter with the numeric value 90.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2017-11-17 |title=Cyrillic number system |url=https://russianicons.wordpress.com/tag/cyrillic-number-system/ |access-date=2024-10-17 |website=ICONS AND THEIR INTERPRETATION |language=en}}</ref>

==Usage==
===Slavic languages===
Except for Russian and Serbian, all Cyrillic-alphabet Slavic languages use Che to represent the [[voiceless postalveolar affricate]] {{IPA|/tʃ/}} (the '''ch''' sound in [[English language|English]]).

In Russian, Che usually represents the [[voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate]] {{IPA|/t͡ɕ/}} (like the [[Mandarin Chinese|Mandarin]] pronunciation of '''j''' in [[pinyin]]). It is occasionally exceptionally pronounced as:
* the [[voiceless retroflex affricate]] {{IPA|/tʂ/}} (like Mandarin pinyin '''zh'''), like in {{langx|ru|лучше}}, or
* the [[voiceless retroflex fricative]] {{IPA|/ʂ/}} (like Mandarin pinyin '''sh'''), like in {{langx|ru|что, чтобы, нарочно}}.

In Serbian, Che is always pronounced as {{IPA|/tʂ/}} ([[Gaj's Latin alphabet|Latin]]: '''č'''), as the letter [[Tshe]] (Ћ/ћ; Latin: '''ć'''), which is unique to Serbian, is always used for the {{IPA|/t͡ɕ/}} sound. Loanwords using /tʃ/ are typically transliterated to Che rather than Tshe.

===In China===
The 1955 version of [[Hanyu pinyin]] contained the Che for the sound [tɕ] (for which later the letter ''j'' was used),<ref>"其中ч是取自俄文字母" https://www.douban.com/note/603048605/</ref> apparently because of its similarity to the [[Bopomofo#Etymology|Bopomofo letterㄐ]].{{Citation needed|date=July 2022}}

The Latin [[Zhuang alphabet]] used a modified [[Hindu-Arabic numeral]] 4, strongly resembling Che, from 1957 to 1986 to represent the fourth (falling) [[tone (linguistics)|tone]]. In 1986, it was replaced by the Latin letter [[X]].

==Related letters and other similar characters==
*4 : [[4]] - Number that very closely resembles Che, especially in digital or open ended form
*C c : [[C|Latin letter C]] - the same sound in Malay, Indonesian, Italian
*Č č : [[Č|Latin letter C with caron]] 
*Ç ç : [[Ç|Latin letter C with cedilla]] - an Albanian, Azerbaijani, Kurdish, Turkish, and Turkmen letter
*Ĉ ĉ : [[Ĉ|Latin letter C with circumflex]], used in [[Esperanto language]]
*Tx : [[Tx (digraph)|Digraph Tx, used in Basque and Catalan.]]
*Ch : [[Ch (digraph)|Digraph Ch]]
*Cs : [[List of Latin-script digraphs#C|Digraph Cs]]
*Cz : [[List of Latin-script digraphs#C|Digraph Cz]]
*Ҷ ҷ : [[Ҷ|Cyrillic letter Che with descender]]
*Ӵ ӵ : [[Ӵ|Cyrillic letter Che with diaeresis]]
*Ҹ ҹ : [[Ҹ|Cyrillic letter Che with vertical stroke]]
*Ӌ ӌ : [[Ӌ|Cyrillic letter Khakassian Che]]
*Ɥ ɥ : [[Turned h|Latin letter turned H]]
*Վ վ : [[Վ|Armenian letter Vev]]
*Կ կ : [[Կ|Armenian letter Ken]]

==Computing codes==

{{charmap
|0427|name1=Cyrillic Capital Letter Che
|0447|name2=Cyrillic Small Letter Che
|map1=[[KOI8-R]] and [[KOI8-U]] |map1char1=FE |map1char2=DE
|map2=Code page 855 |map2char1=FC |map2char2=FB
|map3=[[Code page 866]] |map3char1=97 |map3char2=E7
|map4=[[Windows-1251]] |map4char1=D7 |map4char2=F7
|map5=[[ISO-8859-5]] |map5char1=C7 |map5char2=E7
|map6=[[Macintosh Cyrillic encoding|Macintosh Cyrillic]] |map6char1=97 |map6char2=F7
}}

==See also==
*[[Che (Persian letter)]]
*[[Č]]

==References==
=== Explanatory footnotes ===
{{note|Che|†}}  In some varieties of Western Cyrillic, [[Koppa (Cyrillic)|Ҁ]] was used for 90, and Ч was used for 60 instead of [[Ksi (Cyrillic)|Ѯ]].

=== Citations ===
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*{{Wiktionary-inline|Ч}}
*{{Wiktionary-inline|ч}}

{{Cyrillic navbox}}

[[Category:Cyrillic letters]]