Tse (Cyrillic)

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Look up Ц, ц in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Cyrillic letter Tse
Image:Cyrillic letter Tse.png
Cyrillic numerals: 900
Unicode (hex)
majuscule: U+0426
minuscule: U+0446
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      
List of Cyrillic letters

Tse (Ц, ц) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet. It looks somewhat like U with square corners and a "pig tail" on the bottom right. It represents a voiceless alveolar affricate /ʦ/, like the ts in "cats."

It is the 23rd letter of the Russian alphabet, and is thought to have come from the Hebrew letter Tsadi (צ) (Arabic:Tsad ص), via the Glagolitic letter Tsi: Image:GlagolitsaTsi.gif

[edit] Usage in Russian

It is used both in native Slavic words and borrowed words: as a match for the Latin C in words of Latin origin, for example цирк (circus), центр (center); and for the German Z in words borrowed from German, for example плац (Platz), цинк (Zink).

Russian words starting with ц, such as tsar, are rare, and almost none of them are of Slavic origin.

A notable rule of Russian orthography is that ц is seldom followed by 'ы', with the exception of the ending -ы of the plural number (танец–танцы) and some declensions (девица–девицы). The very few words with цы inside or at the beginning are learned by school children by heart: цыган, цыкать, цыпленок, цыпочки, цып-цып, цыц. Also, there are some obsolete usages, seen in old texts, such as цынга (цинга), цыновка (циновка), панцырь (панцирь) etc.

[edit] Transliteration

A regular transliteration of ц into English is ts. However, in proper names (personal names, toponyms, etc.) and titles it may also be rendered as c, z, cz or tz.


[edit] See Also