Zhe (Cyrillic)

Cyrillic letter Zhe
The Cyrillic script
Slavic letters
АБВГҐДЂ
ЃЕЀЁЄЖЗ
З́ЅИЍІЇЙ
ЈКЛЉМНЊ
ОПРСС́ТЋ
ЌУЎФХЦЧ
ЏШЩЪЫЬЭ
ЮЯ
Non-Slavic letters
ӐА̄А̊А̃ӒӒ̄Ә
Ә́Ә̃ӚӔҒГ̧Г̑
Г̄ҔӺӶԀԂ
ԪԬӖЕ̄Е̃
Ё̄Є̈ӁҖӜԄ
ҘӞԐԐ̈ӠԆӢ
И̃ҊӤҚӃҠҞ
ҜԞԚӅԮԒԠ
ԈԔӍӉҢԨӇ
ҤԢԊО̆О̃О̄Ӧ
ӨӨ̄ӪҨԤҦР̌
ҎԖҪԌҬ
ԎУ̃ӮӰӰ́Ӳ
ҮҮ́ҰХ̑ҲӼӾ
ҺҺ̈ԦҴҶ
ӴӋҸҼ
ҾЫ̆Ы̄ӸҌЭ̆Э̄
Э̇ӬӬ́Ӭ̄Ю̆Ю̈Ю̈́
Ю̄Я̆Я̄Я̈ԘԜӀ
Archaic letters
ҀѺ
ОУѠѼѾ
ѢѤѦ
ѪѨѬѮ
ѰѲѴѶ

Zhe ж; italics: Ж ж) is a letter of the Cyrillic script.

It commonly represents the voiced palato-alveolar sibilant /ʒ/ (listen), or the somewhat similar voiced retroflex sibilant /ʐ/ (listen) in Russian and in other languages, like the pronunciation of s in "treasure".

Zhe is romanized as zh or ž.

History

It is not known how the character for Zhe was derived. No similar letter exists in Greek, Latin or any other alphabet of the time, though there is some graphic similarity with its Glagolitic counterpart Zhivete (Image: ) which represents the same sound. However, the origin of Zhivete, like that of most Glagolitic letters, is unclear. One possibility is that it was formed from two connecting Hebrew letters Shin ש, the bottom one inverted.

In the Early Cyrillic alphabet the name of Zhe was живѣтє (živěte), meaning "live" (imperative).

Zhe was not used in the Cyrillic numeral system.

Usage

Zhe is used in the alphabets of all Slavic languages using a Cyrillic alphabet, and of most non-Slavic languages which use a Cyrillic alphabet. The position in the alphabet and the sound represented by the letter vary from language to language.

Language Position in
alphabet
Represented sound Romanization
Belarusian 8th voiced retroflex fricative /ʐ/ ž
Bulgarian 7th voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/ zh
Macedonian 8th voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/ zh
Russian 8th voiced retroflex fricative /ʐ/ zh
Serbian 8th voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/ ž
Ukrainian 9th voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/ zh
Uzbek (1940–1994)8th voiced postalveolar affricate /dʒ/ or voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/ (in Russian loanwords only) j
Mongolian 8th voiceless postalveolar affricate /tʃ/ ch
Kyrgyz 8th voiced postalveolar affricate /dʒ/ j
Dungan 8th voiced retroflex fricative /ʐ/ r
other non-Slavic languages voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/

Zhe can also be used in Leet speak or faux Cyrillic in place of the letter x, or to represent the symbol of the rap duo Kris Kross (a ligature of two back-to-back letter K's).

Transliteration

Ж is most often transliterated as the digraph, zh for English-language readers (as in Doctor Zhivago, Доктор Живаго, or Georgy Zhukov, Георгий Жуков). In linguistics and for Central European readers, it is most often transliterated as ž, with a háček. the scientific transliteration convention comes from Czech spelling and is also used in the Latin alphabets of several other Slavic languages (Slovak, Sorbian, Serbo-Croatian, and Slovene). Thus, Leonid Brezhnev's surname (Леонид Брежнев) could be transliterated as "Brežnev", as it is spelled in a number of Slavic languages. The closest Polish counterpart is ż and, in some instances, rz. It is often transliterated j in Mongolian, due to its pronunciation as IPA: [t͡ʃ].

Computing codes

Character Ж ж
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER ZHE CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER ZHE
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 1046 U+0416 1078 U+0436
UTF-8 208 150 D0 96 208 182 D0 B6
Numeric character reference Ж Ж ж ж
KOI8-R and KOI8-U 246 F6 214 D6
Code page 855 234 EA 233 E9
Code page 866 134 86 166 A6
Windows-1251 198 C6 230 E6
ISO-8859-5 182 B6 214 D6
Macintosh Cyrillic 134 86 230 E6
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/31/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.