Sha (Cyrillic)

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Cyrillic letter Sha
Phonetic usage:[ʂ], [ʃ], [ɕ]
The Cyrillic script
Slavic letters
АА̀А̂А̄ӒБВГ
ҐДЂЃЕЀЕ̄Е̂
ЁЄЖЗЗ́ЅИІ
ЇЍИ̂ӢЙЈК
ЛЉМНЊОО̀О̂
ŌӦПРСС́ТЋ
ЌУУ̀У̂ӮЎӰФ
ХЦЧЏШЩЪ
Ъ̀ЫЬѢЭЮЮ̀Я
Я̀
Non-Slavic letters
ӐА̊А̃Ӓ̄ӔӘӘ́Ә̃
ӚВ̌ԜГ̑Г̇Г̣Г̌Г̂
Г̆Г̈ҔҒӺҒ̌Ӷ
Д́Д̌Д̈Д̣Д̆ӖЕ̃
Ё̄Є̈ԐԐ̈ҖӜӁЖ̣
ҘӞЗ̌З̣З̆ӠИ̃Ӥ
ҊҚӃҠҞҜК̣Ԛ
Л́ӅԮԒЛ̈Ӎ
Н́ӉҢԨӇҤО̆О̃
Ӧ̄ӨӨ̄Ө́Ө̆ӪԤП̈
Р̌ҎС̌ҪС̣С̱Т́Т̈
Т̌Т̇Т̣ҬУ̃ӲУ̊
Ӱ̄ҰҮҮ́Х̣Х̱Х̮Х̑
Х̌ҲӼӾҺҺ̈ԦЦ̌
Ц̈ҴҶҶ̣ӴӋҸ
Ч̇Ч̣ҼҾШ̈Ш̣Ы̆
Ы̄ӸҌҨЭ̆Э̄Э̇
ӬӬ́Ӭ̄Ю̆Ю̈Ю̄Я̆Я̄
Я̈Ӏʼˮ
Archaic or unused letters
А̨Б̀Б̣Б̱В̀Г̀Г̧
Г̄Г̓Г̆Ҕ̀Ҕ̆ԀД̓
Д̀Д̨ԂЕ̇Е̨
Ж̀Ж̑Џ̆
Ꚅ̆З̀З̑ԄԆ
ԪІ̂І̣І̨
Ј̵Ј̃К̓К̀К̆Ӄ̆
К̑К̇К̈К̄ԞК̂
Л̀ԠԈЛ̑Л̇Ԕ
М̀М̃Н̀Н̄Н̧
Н̃ԊԢН̡Ѻ
П̓П̀
П́ҦП̧П̑ҀԚ̆Р́
Р̀Р̃ԖС̀С̈ԌҪ̓
Т̓Т̀ԎТ̑Т̧
Ꚍ̆ОУУ̇
У̨ꙋ́Ф̑Ф̓Х́Х̀Х̆Х̇
Х̧Х̾Х̓һ̱ѠѼ
ѾЦ̀Ц́Ц̓Ꚏ̆
Ч́Ч̀Ч̆Ч̑Ч̓
ԬꚆ̆Ҽ̆Ш̀
Ш̆Ш̑Щ̆Ꚗ̆Ы̂
Ы̃Ѣ́Ѣ̈Ѣ̆Э̨Э̂
Ю̂Я̈Я̂Я̨
ԘѤѦѪѨ
ѬѮѰѲѴѶ
Sha, from Alexandre Benois' 1904 alphabet book. It shows Shuty ("jesters") and sharʺ ("sphere").

Sha or Shu, alternatively transliterated Ša (Ш ш; italics: Ш ш) is a letter of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic scripts. It commonly represents the voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/. More precisely, the sound in Russian denoted by ш is commonly transcribed as a palatoalveolar fricative but is actually a voiceless retroflex fricative /ʂ/. It is used in every variation of the Cyrillic alphabet for Slavic and non-Slavic languages.[citation needed]

In English, Sha is romanized as sh or as š, the latter being the equivalent letter in the Latin alphabets of Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Latvian and Lithuanian.

History[edit]

Sha has its earliest origins in Phoenician Shin and is possibly linked closely to Shin's Greek equivalent: Sigma (Σ, σ, ς). (The similar form of the modern Hebrew Shin (ש), which is probably where the Cyrillic letter was actually derived from, derives from the same Proto-Canaanite source). Sha already possessed its current form in Saints Cyril and Methodius's Glagolitic alphabet. Most Cyrillic letter-forms were derived from the Greek, but as there was no Greek sign for the Sha sound (modern Greek uses simply "Σ/σ/ς" to spell the sh-sound in foreign words and names), Glagolitic Sha (Ⱎ) was adopted unchanged. There is also a possibility that Sha was taken from the Coptic alphabet, which is the same as the Greek alphabet but with a few letters added at the end, including one called "shai" (Ϣϣ) which somewhat resembles both sha and shcha (Щ, щ) in appearance.

Usage[edit]

Sha 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 27th voiceless retroflex fricative /ʂ/ sh
Bulgarian 25th voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ sh
Macedonian 31st voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ š or sh
Russian 26th voiceless retroflex fricative /ʂ/ sh
Serbian 30th voiceless retroflex fricative /ʂ/ š
Ukrainian 29th voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ sh
Uzbek (1940–1994) 20th voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ sh
Mongolian 28th voiceless postalveolar affricate /ʃ/ š
Kazakh 34th voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative /ɕ/ ş
Kyrgyz 29th voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ ş
Dungan 32nd voiceless retroflex fricative /ʂ/ sh
other non-Slavic languages voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/

Use in mathematics[edit]

The Cyrillic letter Ш is internationally used in mathematics for several concepts:

In algebraic geometry, the Tate–Shafarevich group of an Abelian variety A over a field K is denoted Ш(A/K), a notation first suggested by J. W. S. Cassels. (Previously it had been denoted TS.) Presumably the choice comes from the first letter of Шафаре́вич = Shafarevich.

In a different mathematical context, some authors allude to the shape of the letter Sha when they use the term Shah function for what is otherwise called a Dirac comb.

The shuffle product is often denoted by ш.[1]

Related letters[edit]

Computing codes[edit]

Character information
Preview Ш ш
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER SHA CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER SHA
Encodings decimal hex dec hex
Unicode 1064 U+0428 1096 U+0448
UTF-8 208 168 D0 A8 209 136 D1 88
Numeric character reference Ш Ш ш ш
Named character reference Ш ш
KOI8-R and KOI8-U 251 FB 219 DB
Code page 855 246 F6 245 F5
Code page 866 152 98 232 E8
Windows-1251 216 D8 248 F8
ISO-8859-5 200 C8 232 E8
Macintosh Cyrillic 152 98 248 F8

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Unicode Character 'SHUFFLE PRODUCT' (U+29E2)".

External links[edit]

  • The dictionary definition of Ш at Wiktionary
  • The dictionary definition of ш at Wiktionary