Ef (Cyrillic)

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Cyrillic letter Ef
Cyrillic numerals: 500
Unicode (hex)
majuscule: U+0424
minuscule: U+0444
Cyrillic alphabet
А	Б	В	Г	Ґ	Д	Ѓ
Ђ	Е	Ѐ	Ё	Є	Ж	З
Ѕ	И	Ѝ	І	Ї	Й	Ј
К	Л	Љ	М	Н	Њ	О
П	Р	С	Т	Ћ	Ќ	У
Ў	Ф	Х	Ц	Ч	Џ	Ш
Щ	Ъ	Ы	Ь	Э	Ю	Я
Non-Slavic letters
Ӑ	Ӓ	Ә	Ӛ	Ӕ	Ғ	Ӷ
Ҕ	Ӗ	Ҽ	Ҿ	Ӂ	Җ	Ӝ
Ҙ	Ӟ	Ӡ	Ӥ	Ӣ	Ӏ	Ҋ
Қ	Ҟ	Ҡ	Ӄ	Ҝ	Ӆ	Ӎ
Ҥ	Ң	Ӊ	Ӈ	Ӧ	Ө	Ӫ
Ҩ	Ҧ	Ҏ	Ҫ	Ҭ	Ӳ	Ӱ
Ӯ	Ү	Ұ	Ҳ	Һ	Ҵ	Ӵ
Ҷ	Ӌ	Ҹ	Ӹ	Ҍ	Ӭ
Archaic letters
Ҁ	Ѹ	Ѡ	Ѿ	Ѻ	Ѣ	ІА
Ѥ	Ѧ	Ѫ	Ѩ	Ѭ	Ѯ	Ѱ
Ѳ	Ѵ	Ѷ	Ꙟ
List of Cyrillic letters

Ef (Ф, ф) is the twenty-second letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. It represents the consonant /f/ unless it is before a palatalizing vowel when it represents /fʲ/.

It was directly derived from the Greek letter phi (Φ). Additionally, it has replaced Fita (Ѳ) in the Russian version of the alphabet since 1918. Unlike phi, however, it is transliterated as <f>, not <ph>.

The Slavic languages practically do not have native words containing /f/; this sound, which did not exist in Proto-Indo-European, arose from PIE *bʰ (which yielded Slavic /b/) in Greek and Latin and from PIE *p (which remained unchanged in Slavic) in the Germanic languages. The letter ф is, therefore, almost exclusively found in words of foreign (both Western, especially Greek, Latin, French, German, English, and Eastern, mostly Turkic) origin. Few native Slavic words with this letter (in different languages) are examples of onomatopoeia (like Russian verbs фукать, фыркать etc.) or reflect sporadic pronunciation shifts: from пв /pv/, Serbian уфати from Church Slavonic уповати, from хв /xv/, Bulgarian фаля from Church Slavonic хвалю), or just from х /x/, Russian toponym Фили from хилый.

[edit] See also

• F