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From: "Vladimir Menkov" <vmenkov@cs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Re: Names of Cyrillic letters?
Message-ID: <1995Oct18.223244.20623@news.cs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Computer Science, Indiana University
References: <462ois$f0b@signal.dra.hmg.gb> <463hld$b6g@epx.cis.umn.edu>
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 22:32:36 -0500
Lines: 76
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.fonts:33636 sci.lang:44078

In article <463hld$b6g@epx.cis.umn.edu>,
Larisa Migachyov <miga0003@maroon.tc.umn.edu> wrote:
>David Bruce (dib@dra.hmg.gb) wrote:
>: Does anyone know what the names of the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet
>: (used for Russian etc.) are?  (In the same way as alpha, beta, ...)
>

Of course, the names Larisa listed are the modern ones, commonly
used since the early 1900's. I list also the older, traditional
names in the right column:

modern  traditional			source (Greek or otherwise)
name	name		meaning
>ah	az		I		alpha
>be	buki		letter		--
>ve	vedi		know		beta
>ge	glagol		say		gamma
>de	dobro		good		delta
>eh	est'		be		epsilon
>yo	--				< est' + "
>zhe	zhite		live		--
>ze	zemlya		land	   [don't remember; it's obsolete in Greek]
	[zelo		very     ]	zeta
>ee (i) izhe		which		eta
>ee kratkoye  --			< izhe + breve
	[i desyatirichnoe    i #10]	iota
>kah	kako		how, as		kappa
>el	lyudi		people		lambda
>em	myslete		think		mu
>en	nash		our		nu
>o	on		he		omicron
>pe	pokoy		world		pi
>er	rtsy		says		rho
>es	slovo		word		sigma
>te	tverdo		firm		tau
>oo	uk		--		< omicron + ypsilon
>ef	fert		--		phi
>khah	kher		--		chi
>tse	tse		--		[Hebrew tzade (sp?)]
>tcha	cherv'		red		?
>sha	sha		--		[Hebrew shin]
>scha	shta		--		< sha + tverdo	
>tvyordy znak	yer	--		--
>y		yer i	--		< yer + i
>myagkiy znak	yer'	--		--
>e		--	--		--
>yoo		yu	--		--
>yah		ya	--		< i + yus the little

Those in square brackets [] are not used these days. 

Several more letters ceased to be used (some since the late Middle
Ages, some since the time of Peter the Great in Russia or Vuk
Karadjich in Serbia, some since 1918 in Russia and 1945 in
Bulgaria). Some of them had essentially the same name as their Greek
counterparts (e.g.  psi, xi, fita=theta, although
	izhitsa < ypsilon 
and 
	on velikoi < omega
); some were Slavic inventions, such as
	yat'	(replaced with e in Russian, but dealt with differently
		in other modern Slavic languages),
and nasal vowels
	yus bol'shoi   ("the great yus") and
	yus malyi	("the little yus"), as
well as their "iotated" (i.e. preceded by a "i") counterparts. There
were a few more, whose phonetic values or names I can't remember
right now. 

Some versions of Cyrillic (e.g. those used in Serbian, Ukrainian, 
Macedonian, and some non-Slavic languages) have additional letters,
usually taken from Latin alphabet, or composed from usual Cyrillic
letters and diacritical marks. Their names, presumably, differ
depending on the language. 

	--Vladimir
