Russian alphabet in capital letters

	Russian alphabet. (Listen to the Russian alphabet)
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

The Russian alphabet (Russian: русский алфавит rússkij alfavít) is a form of the Cyrillic script, developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School. The modern Russian alphabet contains 33 letters.

Alphabet[link]

The Russian alphabet is as follows:

Letter	Handwriting	Name	Old name	IPA	English example	№	Unicode (Hex)
Аа		а [a]	азъ [as]	/a/	father	1	U+0410 / U+0430
Бб		бэ [bɛ]	буки [ˈbukʲɪ]	/b/ or /bʲ/	bit	–	U+0411 / U+0431
Вв		вэ [vɛ]	вѣди [ˈvʲedʲɪ]	/v/ or /vʲ/	vine	2	U+0412 / U+0432
Гг		гэ [ɡɛ]	глаголь [ɡlɐˈɡolʲ]	/ɡ/	go	3	U+0413 / U+0433
Дд		дэ [dɛ]	добро [dɐˈbro]	/d/ or /dʲ/	do	4	U+0414 / U+0434
Ее		е [je]	есть [jesʲtʲ]	/je/ or / ʲe/	yet	5	U+0415 / U+0435
Ёё		ё [jo]	–	/jo/ or / ʲo/	yolk	–	U+0401 / U+0451
Жж		жэ [ʐɛ]	живѣте [ʐɨˈvʲetʲɪ][1]	/ʐ/	pleasure	–	U+0416 / U+0436
Зз		зэ [zɛ]	земля [zʲɪˈmlʲa]	/z/ or /zʲ/	zoo	7	U+0417 / U+0437
Ии		и [i]	иже [ˈiʐɨ]	/i/ or / ʲi/	me	8	U+0418 / U+0438
Йй		и краткое [i ˈkratkəɪ]	и съ краткой [ɪ s ˈkratkəj]	/j/	yes	–	U+0419 / U+0439
Кк		ка [ka]	како [ˈkakə]	/k/ or /kʲ/	kitten	20	U+041A / U+043A
Лл		эл or эль [el] or [elʲ]	люди [ˈlʲʉdʲɪ]	/l/ or /lʲ/	lamp	30	U+041B / U+043B
Мм		эм [ɛm]	мыслѣте [mɨˈsʲlʲetʲɪ][2]	/m/ or /mʲ/	map	40	U+041C / U+043C
Нн		эн [ɛn]	нашъ [naʂ]	/n/ or /nʲ/	not	50	U+041D / U+043D
Оо		o [o]	онъ [on]	/o/	more	70	U+041E / U+043E
Пп		пэ [pɛ]	покой [pɐˈkoj]	/p/ or /pʲ/	spell	80	U+041F / U+043F
Рр		эр [ɛr]	рцы [rtsɨ]	/r/ or /rʲ/	rolled r	100	U+0420 / U+0440
Сс		эс [ɛs]	слово [ˈslovə]	/s/ or /sʲ/	see	200	U+0421 / U+0441
Тт		тэ [tɛ]	твердо [ˈtvʲɛrdə]	/t/ or /tʲ/	stool	300	U+0422 / U+0442
Уу		у [u]	укъ [uk]	/u/	boot	400	U+0423 / U+0443
Фф		эф [ɛf]	фертъ [fʲɛrt]	/f/ or /fʲ/	face	500	U+0424 / U+0444
Хх		ха [xa]	хѣръ [xʲɛr]	/x/	Ugh (voiceless velar fricative)	600	U+0425 / U+0445
Цц		це [tsɛ]	цы [t͡sɨ]	/t͡s/	sits	900	U+0426 / U+0446
Чч		че [tɕe]	червь [t͡ɕɛrfʲ]	/t͡ɕ/	chip	90	U+0427 / U+0447
Шш		ша [ʂa]	ша [ʂa]	/ʂ/	Close to shut (voiceless retroflex fricative)	–	U+0428 / U+0448
Щщ		ща [ɕɕa]	ща [ɕt͡ɕa]	/ɕɕ/	sheer (sometimes instead pronounced as with fresh cheese) (a voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative)	–	U+0429 / U+0449
Ъъ		твёрдый знак [ˈtvʲordɨj znak]	еръ [jer]		silent, prevents palatalization of the preceding consonant	–	U+042A / U+044A
Ыы		ы [ɨ]	еры [jɪˈrɨ]	[ɨ]	roses or silly (close central unrounded vowel)	–	U+042B / U+044B
Ьь		мягкий знак [ˈmʲæxʲkʲɪj znak]	ерь [jerʲ]	/ ʲ/	silent, slightly palatalizes the preceding consonant (if it is phonologically possible)	–	U+042C / U+044C
Ээ		э [ɛ]	э оборотное [ˈɛ əbɐˈrotnəɪ]	/e/	met	–	U+042D / U+044D
Юю		ю [ju]	ю [ju]	/ju/ or / ʲu/	use	–	U+042E / U+044E
Яя		я [ja]	я [ja]	/ja/ or / ʲa/	yard	–	U+042F / U+044F
letters eliminated in 1917-1918
Іі	–	–	і десятеричное [i]	/i/ or / ʲi/ or /j/	Like и or й	10
Ѳѳ	–	–	ѳита [fʲɪˈta]	/f/ or /fʲ/	Like ф	9
Ѣѣ	–	–	ять [jætʲ]	/e/ or / ʲe/	Like е	–
Ѵѵ	–	–	ижица [ˈiʐɨtsə]	/i/ or / ʲi/	Like и or (sometimes in spellings of the 18th century) в	–
letters eliminated before 1750
Ѕѕ	–	–	зѣло [zʲɪˈlo][3]	/z/ or /zʲ/	Like з	6
Ѯѯ	–	–	кси [ksʲi]	/ks/ or /ksʲ/	Like кс	60
Ѱѱ	–	–	пси [psʲi]	/ps/ or /psʲ/	Like пс	700
Ѡѡ	–	–	омега [ɐˈmʲeɡə]	/o/	Like о	800
Ѫѫ	–	–	юсъ большой [jus bɐlʲˈʂoj]	/u/, /ju/ or / ʲu/	Like у or ю	–
Ѧѧ	–	–	юсъ малый [jus ˈmɑlɨj]	/ja/ or / ʲa/	Like я	–
Ѭѭ	–	–	юсъ большой іотированный [jus bɐlʲˈʂoj jɪˈtʲirəvənnɨj]	/ju/ or / ʲu/	Like ю	–
Ѩѩ	–	–	юсъ малый іотированный [jus ˈmɑlɨj jɪˈtʲirəvən.nɨj]	/ja/ or / ʲa/	Like я	–

The consonant letters represent both "soft" (palatalized, represented in the IPA with a ⟨ʲ⟩) and "hard" 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.

Letter names[link]

This section may be confusing or unclear to readers. Please help clarify the section; suggestions may be found on the talk page. (May 2011)

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

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.

The great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin wrote: "The letters constituting the Slavonic alphabet do not produce any sense. Аз, буки, веди, глаголь, добро etc. are separate words, chosen just for their initial sound". But since the names of the first letters of the Slavonic alphabet seem to form text, attempts were made to compose sensible text from all letters of the alphabet.

Here is one such attempt to "decode" the message:

In this attempt words only in two first lines somewhat correspond to real meanings of the letters' names, while "translations" in other lines seem to be fabrications or fantasies. For example, "покой" ("rest" or "apartment") doesn't mean "the Universe", and "ферт" doesn't have any meaning in Russian or other Slavonic languages (there are no words of Slavonic origin beginning with "f" at all). The last line contains only one translatable word – "червь" ("worm"), which, however, was not included in the "translation".

Another version of "the message", incorporating the letters phased out by mid-1750s, reads:

Non-vocalized letters[link]

• hard sign (<ъ>), when put after a consonant, acts like a "silent back vowel" that separates a succeeding iotated vowel from the consonant, making that sound with a distinct /j/ glide. Today it is used mostly to separate a prefix from the following root. 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]
• soft sign (<ь>) acts like a "silent front vowel" and indicates that the preceding consonant is palatalized. This is important as palatalization is phonemic in Russian. For example, брат [brat] ('brother') contrasts with брать [bratʲ] ('to take'). 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]. There are still some remains of this ancient reading in modern Russian, in the co-existing versions of the same name, read differently, such as in Марья and Мария (Mary).

Vowels[link]

The vowels ⟨е, ё, и, ю, я⟩ indicate a preceding palatal consonant and with the exception of ⟨и⟩ are iotated (pronounced with a preceding /j/) when written at the beginning of a word or following another vowel (initial ⟨и⟩ was iotated until the nineteenth century). The IPA vowels shown are a guideline only and sometimes are realized as different sounds, particularly when unstressed. However, ⟨е⟩ is used in words of foreign origin without palatalization and indicate /e/. Which words this applies to must be learned (generally to avoid using ⟨э⟩ after a consonant), and ⟨я⟩ is often realized as [æ] between soft consonants, such as in мяч ("toy ball").

⟨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: камы [ˈka.mɨ̃]; камень [ˈka.mʲɪnʲ] ("rock"). Its written form developed as follows: ⟨ъ⟩ + ⟨і⟩ → ⟨ъı⟩ → ⟨ы⟩.

⟨э⟩ was introduced in 1708 to distinguish the non-iotated/non-palatalizing /e/ from the iotated/palatalizing one. The original usage had been ⟨е⟩ for the uniotated /e/, ⟨ѥ⟩ or ⟨ѣ⟩ for the iotated, but ⟨ѥ⟩ had dropped out of use by the sixteenth century. In native Russian words, ⟨э⟩ is found only at the beginnings of words, but otherwise it may be found elsewhere, such as when spelling out English or other foreign names, or in words of foreign origin such as the brand-name Aeroflot (Аэрофлοτ).

⟨ё⟩, introduced by Karamzin in 1797 and made official in 1943 by the Soviet Ministry of Education,^[4] marks a /jo/ sound that has historically developed from /je/ under stress, a process that continues today. The letter ⟨ё⟩ is optional (in writing, not in pronunciation): it is formally correct 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.

Letters in disuse by 1750[link]

⟨ѯ⟩ and ⟨ѱ⟩ derived from 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.

⟨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.

⟨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.

The yuses ⟨ѫ⟩ and ⟨ѧ⟩, letters that originally used to stand for nasalized vowels /õ/ and /ẽ/, 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 script. 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.

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.

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

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 ⟨й⟩, 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[link]

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.

Stress[link]

In Russian, word stress is mostly unpredictable and can fall on different syllables in different forms of the same word or on the ending.

Acute accent[link]

In Russian, an acute accent ⟨◌́⟩ (Russian знак ударения znak udareniya "mark of stress"; U+0301) marks stress on a vowel. The diacritic is only used in special cases: in dictionaries, children's books, or language-learning resources, on minimal pairs distinguished only by stress (for instance, за́мок "castle" and замо́к "lock") or rare or foreign words, and in poems where unusual stress is used to fit the meter. Stress on the letter ё is not marked, as it is always stressed, except in some loanwords.

Keyboard layout[link]

The Russian keyboard layout for PC computers is as follows:

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Russian alphabet

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Introduction of the civil Russian alphabet by Peter I

• Russian language
• Bulgarian language
• Romanization of Russian
• Computer russification
• Russian phonology
• Cyrillic script
• Reforms of Russian orthography
• Russian cursive (handwritten letters)
• Russian orthography
• Church Slavonic language
• Yoficator

Notes[link]

1. ^ Article живете from "Толковый словарь русского языка Ушакова" ("Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language"; the dictionary makes difference between е and ё, cf.: ёлка).
2. ^ Article мыслете from "Толковый словарь русского языка Ушакова" ("Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language").
3. ^ ФЭБ
4. ^ Benson (1960:271)
5. ^ Vasmer (1979); see the etymology of the Russian word мир at here, an online version of the Russian translation of the dictionary. (retr. 16 October 2005)
6. ^ Smirnovskiy (1915:4)

References[link]

• Benson, Morton (1960), "review of The Russian Alphabet by Thomas F. Magner", The Slavic and East European Journal 4 (3): 271–272 
• Smirnovskiy, P. (1915), A Textbook in Russian Grammar. Part I. Etymology (26th ed.), http://members.shaw.ca/arsoys/smirnovsky-etymology.djvu 
• Vasmer, Max (1979), Russian Etymological Dictionary, Winter 

External links[link]

• Russian alphabet and language learning exercises
• Cyrillic Virtual Keyboard (Cyrillic Fonts) with Russian Spellcheck
• CyrAcademisator Bi-directional online transliteration for ALA-LC (diacritics), scientific, ISO/R 9, ISO 9, GOST 7.79B and others. Supports Old Slavonic characters
• Google Knol: How to Read the Russian Alphabet in 75 Minutes
• Russian alphabet audio slowly and at normal speed. Five letters at a time.
• Learn Russian Alphabet (Videos)
• Sounds of individual letters of Russian Alphabet
• How to read Russian (with audio) Course with audio and reading exercises

v t e Russian language Русский язык History History In Ukraine Old East Slavic Old Church Slavonic Church Slavonic Alphabet Alphabet Orthography Romanization (Transliteration) Reforms Cursive Computer russification Morse code Features Grammar Phonology Dialects Northern Central Southern Pomor Other Literature Russian Language Institute Runglish

The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline. Please help to establish notability by adding reliable, secondary sources about the topic. If notability cannot be established, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. (March 2009)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2009)

Brent Weinbach is an American stand-up comedian and performer based in Los Angeles, California. He is known for his experimental style and abstract, deadpan delivery. Weinbach regularly performs stand-up at the Comedy Death-Ray shows at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Los Angeles and has also performed with the Comedians of Comedy. He was the winner of the 2007 Andy Kaufman award and a finalist in the 2007 San Francisco Comedy Competition. He is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and was formerly a Professional Jazz Pianist and Substitute Teacher.

His first album, inspired by Joe Frank, was called "Tales from the Brown Side".^[1] His second album, released in September 2009, is called "The Night Shift" and features a blend of live recorded comedy, studio recordings, and original musical compositions. "^[2]

He appeared with a small role in the film "Medicine for Melancholy" in 2008.

In 2010, he began hosting The Legacy Music Hour, a weekly podcast in which he and co-host Rob F. play and discuss music from classic era video games.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Brent Weinbach's website
• Brent Weinbach's Myspace page
• The Legacy Music Hour