Russian alphabet

Letter	Cursive	Italics	Name	Old name	IPA	Common transliteration	Approximate English equivalent	Examples	No.	Unicode (Hex)
Аа		А а	а [a]	азъ [as]	/a/	a	father	два dva "two"	1	U+0410 / U+0430
Бб		Б б	бэ [bɛ]	буки [ˈbukʲɪ]	/b/ or /bʲ/	b	bad	оба óba "both"	–	U+0411 / U+0431
Вв		В в	вэ [vɛ]	вѣди [ˈvʲedʲɪ]	/v/ or /vʲ/	v	vine	вот vot "here"	2	U+0412 / U+0432
Гг		Г г	гэ [ɡɛ]	глаголь [ɡɫɐˈɡolʲ]	/ɡ/ or /gʲ/	g	go	год god "year"	3	U+0413 / U+0433
Дд		Д д	дэ [dɛ]	добро [dɐˈbro]	/d/ or /dʲ/	d	do	да da "yes"	4	U+0414 / U+0434
Ее		Е е	е [je]	есть [jesʲtʲ]	/je/, / ʲe/ or /e/	e, ye	yes	не ne "not"	5	U+0415 / U+0435
Ёё		Ё ё	ё [jo]	–	/jo/ or / ʲo/	yo, jo, ë	your	ёж yozh "hedgehog"	–	U+0401 / U+0451
Жж		Ж ж	жэ [ʐɛ] (listen)	живѣте [ʐɨˈvʲetʲɪ][lower-alpha 1]	/ʐ/	zh, ž	similar to pleasure	жук zhuk "beetle"	–	U+0416 / U+0436
Зз		З з	зэ [zɛ]	земля [zʲɪˈmlʲæ]	/z/ or /zʲ/	z	zoo	зной znoy "heat"	7	U+0417 / U+0437
Ии		И и	и [i]	иже [ˈiʐɨ]	/i/, / ʲi/, or /ɨ/	i	police	или íli "or"	8	U+0418 / U+0438
Йй		Й й	и краткое [i ˈkratkəjɪ]	и съ краткой [ɪ s ˈkratkəj]	/j/	y, i, j	toy	мой moy "my, mine"	–	U+0419 / U+0439
Кк		К к	ка [ka]	како [ˈkakə]	/k/ or /kʲ/	k	kept	кто kto "who"	20	U+041A / U+043A
Лл†		Л л	эл or эль [ɛɫ] or [ɛlʲ]	люди [ˈlʲʉdʲɪ]	/ɫ/ or /lʲ/	l	feel or lamp	ли li "whether"	30	U+041B / U+043B
Мм		М м	эм [ɛm]	мыслѣте [mɨˈsʲlʲetʲɪ][2]	/m/ or /mʲ/	m	map	меч mech "sword"	40	U+041C / U+043C
Нн		Н н	эн [ɛn]	нашъ [naʂ]	/n/ or /nʲ/	n	not	но no "but"	50	U+041D / U+043D
Оо		О о	о [о]	онъ [on]	/o/	o	more	он on "he"	70	U+041E / U+043E
Пп		П п	пэ [pɛ]	покой [pɐˈkoj]	/p/ or /pʲ/	p	pet	под pod "under"	80	U+041F / U+043F
Рр		Р р	эр [ɛr]	рцы [rtsɨ]	/r/ or /rʲ/	r	rolled r	река reká "river"	100	U+0420 / U+0440
Сс		С с	эс [ɛs]	слово [ˈsɫovə]	/s/ or /sʲ/	s	set	если yésli "if"	200	U+0421 / U+0441
Тт		Т т	тэ [tɛ]	твердо [ˈtvʲerdə]	/t/ or /tʲ/	t	top	тот tot "that"	300	U+0422 / U+0442
Уу		У у	у [u]	укъ [uk]	/u/	u	tool	уже uzhé "already"	400	U+0423 / U+0443
Фф		Ф ф	эф [ɛf]	фертъ [fʲert]	/f/ or /fʲ/	f	face	форма fórma "form"	500	U+0424 / U+0444
Хх		Х х	ха [xa]	хѣръ [xʲer]	/x/ or /xʲ/	kh, h, x	loch	дух dukh "spirit"	600	U+0425 / U+0445
Цц		Ц ц	цэ [tsɛ]	цы [tsɨ]	/ts/	ts, c	sits	конец konéts "end"	900	U+0426 / U+0446
Чч		Ч ч	че [tɕe]	червь [tɕerfʲ]	/tɕ/	ch, č	check	час chas "hour"	90	U+0427 / U+0447
Шш		Ш ш	ша [ʂa]	ша [ʂa]	/ʂ/	sh, š	similar to "sh" in sharp	ваш vash "yours"	–	U+0428 / U+0448
Щщ		Щ щ	ща [ɕːæ]	ща [ɕtɕæ]	/ɕː/, /ɕ/	shch, sch, šč	similar to "sh" in sheer	щека shcheká "cheek"	–	U+0429 / U+0449
Ъъ		Ъ ъ	твёрдый знак [ˈtvʲɵrdɨj znak] (listen)	еръ [jer]		ʺ	(called "hard sign") silent, prevents palatalization of the preceding consonant	объект obyékt "object"	–	U+042A / U+044A
Ыы		Ы ы	ы [ɨ]	еры [jɪˈrɨ]	[ɨ]	y	roses, hit (rough equivalent)	ты ty "you"	–	U+042B / U+044B
Ьь		Ь ь	мягкий знак [ˈmʲæxʲkʲɪj znak] (listen)	ерь [jerʲ]	/ ʲ/	'	(called "soft sign") silent, palatalizes the preceding consonant (if phonologically possible)	весь vyes' "all"	–	U+042C / U+044C
Ээ		Э э	э [ɛ]	э оборотное [ˈɛ ɐbɐˈrotnəjɪ]	/e/	e, è	met	это èto "this, that"	–	U+042D / U+044D
Юю		Ю ю	ю [ju]	ю [ju]	/ju/ or / ʲu/	yu, ju	use	юг yug "south"	–	U+042E / U+044E
Яя		Я я	я [ja]	я [ja]	/ja/ or / ʲa/	ya, ja	yard	ряд ryad "row"	–	U+042F / U+044F
Letters eliminated in 1917–18
Letter	Cursive	Italics	Name	Old name	IPA	Common transliteration	Similar Russian letter	Examples	No.	Unicode (Hex)
Іі		І і	–	і десятеричное [i dʲɪsʲɪtʲɪˈrʲitɕnəjə]	/i/, / ʲi/, or /j/	i	Like и or й	стихотворенія (now стихотворения) stikhotvoréniya "poems, (of) poem"	10	U+0406 / U+0456
Ѣѣ		Ѣ ѣ	–	ять [jætʲ]	/e/ or / ʲe/	ě	Like е	Алексѣй (now Алексей) Aleksěy Alexey	–	U+0462 / U+0463
Ѳѳ		Ѳ ѳ	–	ѳита [fʲɪˈta]	/f/ or /fʲ/	f	Like ф	орѳографія (now орфография) orfográfiya "orthography, spelling"	9	U+0472 / U+0473
Ѵѵ		Ѵ ѵ	–	ижица [ˈiʐɨtsə]	/i/ or / ʲi/	í	Usually like и, see below	мѵро (now миро) míro "chrism (myrrh)"	–	U+0474 / U+0475
Letters eliminated before 1750
Letter	Cursive	Italics	Name	Old name	IPA	Common transliteration	Similar Russian letter	Examples	No.	Unicode (Hex)
Ѕѕ	–	Ѕ ѕ	–	зѣло [zʲɪˈɫo][3]	/z/ or /zʲ/	z	Like з	sѣлѡ (now очень) "very"	6	U+0405 / U+0455
Ѯѯ	–	Ѯ ѯ	–	кси [ksʲi]	/ks/ or /ksʲ/	ks	Like кс	N/A	60	U+046e / U+046f
Ѱѱ	–	Ѱ ѱ	–	пси [psʲi]	/ps/ or /psʲ/	ps	Like пс	N/A	700	U+0470 / U+0471
Ѡѡ	–	Ѡ ѡ	–	омега [ɐˈmʲeɡə]	/o/	o	Like о	N/A	800	U+0460 / U+0461
Ѫѫ	–	Ѫ ѫ	–	юсъ большой [jus bɐlʲˈʂoj]	/u/, /ju/ or / ʲu/	ǫ	Like у or ю	N/A	–	U+046a / U+046b
Ѧѧ	–	Ѧ ѧ	–	юсъ малый [jus ˈmaɫɨj]	/ja/ or / ʲa/	ę	Like я	N/A	–	U+0466 / U+0467
Ѭѭ	–	Ѭ ѭ	–	юсъ большой іотированный [jus bɐlʲˈʂoj jɪˈtʲirəvənnɨj]	/ju/ or / ʲu/	yǫ	Like ю	N/A	–	U+046c / U+046d
Ѩѩ	–	Ѩ ѩ	–	юсъ малый іотированный [jus ˈmaɫɨj jɪˈtʲirəvən.nɨj]	/ja/ or / ʲa/	yę	Like я	N/A	–	U+0468 / U+0469

Consonant letters represent both "soft" (palatalized, represented in the IPA with a ⟨ʲ⟩) and "hard" consonant phonemes. If consonant letters are followed by vowel letters, the soft/hard quality of the consonant depends on whether the vowel is meant to follow "hard" consonants ⟨а, о, э, у, ы⟩ or "soft" consonants ⟨я, ё, е, ю, и⟩; see below. A soft sign indicates ⟨Ь⟩ palatalization of the preceding consonant without adding a vowel. However, in modern Russian six consonant phonemes do not have phonemically distinct "soft" and "hard" variants (except in foreign proper names) and do not change "softness" in the presence of other letters: /ʐ/, /ʂ/ and /ts/ are always hard; /j/, /ɕː/ and /tɕ/ are always soft. See Russian phonology for details.

^† An alternate form of the letter El (Л л) closely resembles the Greek letter lambda (Λ λ).

The vowels ⟨е, ё, и, ю, я⟩ indicate a preceding palatalized consonant and with the exception of ⟨и⟩ are iotated (pronounced with a preceding /j/) when written at the beginning of a word or following another vowel (initial ⟨и⟩ was iotated until the nineteenth century). The IPA vowels shown are a guideline only and sometimes are realized as different sounds, particularly when unstressed. However, ⟨е⟩ may be used in words of foreign origin without palatalization (/e/), and ⟨я⟩ is often realized as [æ] between soft consonants, such as in мяч ("toy ball").

⟨ы⟩ is an old Proto-Slavic close central vowel, thought to have been preserved better in modern Russian than in other Slavic languages. It was originally nasalized in certain positions: камы [ˈkamɨ̃]; камень [ˈkamʲɪnʲ] ("rock"). Its written form developed as follows: ⟨ъ⟩ + ⟨і⟩ → ⟨ꙑ⟩ → ⟨ы⟩.

⟨э⟩ was introduced in 1708 to distinguish the non-iotated/non-palatalizing /e/ from the iotated/palatalizing one. The original usage had been ⟨е⟩ for the uniotated /e/, ⟨ѥ⟩ or ⟨ѣ⟩ for the iotated, but ⟨ѥ⟩ had dropped out of use by the sixteenth century. In native Russian words, ⟨э⟩ is found only at the beginnings of words or in compound words (e.g. поэтому "therefore" = по + этому). In words that come from foreign languages in which iotated /e/ is uncommon or nonexistent (such as English, for example), ⟨э⟩ is usually written in the beginning of words and after vowels except ⟨и⟩ (e.g. поэт, poet), and ⟨е⟩ after ⟨и⟩ and consonants. However, the pronunciation is inconsistent. Many words, especially monosyllables, words ending in ⟨е⟩ and many words where ⟨е⟩ follows ⟨т⟩, ⟨д⟩, ⟨н⟩, ⟨с⟩, ⟨з⟩ or ⟨р⟩ are pronounced with /e/ without palatalization or iotation: секс (seks — "sex"), проект (proekt — "project") (in this example, the spelling is etymological but the pronunciation is counteretymological). But many other words are pronounced with /ʲe/: секта (syekta — "sect"), дебют (dyebyut — "debut"). Proper names are usually not concerned by the rule (Сэм — "Sam", Пэмела — "Pamela", Мао Цзэдун — "Mao Zedong"); the use of ⟨э⟩ after consonants is common in East Asian names and in English names with the sounds /æ/ and /ɛər/, with some exceptions such as Джек ("Jack") or Шепард ("Shepard"), since both ⟨э⟩ and ⟨е⟩ are following always hard (non-palatalized) consonants in cases of же ("zhe"), ше ("she") and це ("tse"), yet in writing ⟨е⟩ usually prevails.

⟨ё⟩, introduced by Karamzin in 1797 and made official in 1943 by the Soviet Ministry of Education,[7] marks a /jo/ sound that historically developed from stressed /je/. The written letter ⟨ё⟩ is optional; it is formally correct to write ⟨e⟩ for both /je/ and /jo/. None of the several attempts in the twentieth century to mandate the use of ⟨ё⟩ have stuck.

⟨ѯ⟩ and ⟨ѱ⟩ derived from Greek letters xi and psi, used etymologically though inconsistently in secular writing until the eighteenth century, and more consistently to the present day in Church Slavonic.

⟨ѡ⟩ is the Greek letter omega, identical in pronunciation to ⟨о⟩, used in secular writing until the eighteenth century, but to the present day in Church Slavonic, mostly to distinguish inflexional forms otherwise written identically.

⟨ѕ⟩ corresponded to a more archaic /dz/ pronunciation, already absent in East Slavic at the start of the historical period, but kept by tradition in certain words until the eighteenth century in secular writing, and in Church Slavonic and Macedonian to the present day.

The yuses ⟨ѫ⟩ and ⟨ѧ⟩, letters that originally used to stand for nasalized vowels /õ/ and /ẽ/, had become, according to linguistic reconstruction, irrelevant for East Slavic phonology already at the beginning of the historical period, but were introduced along with the rest of the Cyrillic script. The letters ⟨ѭ⟩ and ⟨ѩ⟩ had largely vanished by the twelfth century. The uniotated ⟨ѫ⟩ continued to be used, etymologically, until the sixteenth century. Thereafter it was restricted to being a dominical letter in the Paschal tables. The seventeenth-century usage of ⟨ѫ⟩ and ⟨ѧ⟩ (see next note) survives in contemporary Church Slavonic, and the sounds (but not the letters) in Polish.

The letter ⟨ѧ⟩ was adapted to represent the iotated /ja/ ⟨я⟩ in the middle or end of a word; the modern letter ⟨я⟩ is an adaptation of its cursive form of the seventeenth century, enshrined by the typographical reform of 1708.

Until 1708, the iotated /ja/ was written ⟨ꙗ⟩ at the beginning of a word. This distinction between ⟨ѧ⟩ and ⟨ꙗ⟩ survives in Church Slavonic.

Although it is usually stated that the letters labelled "fallen into disuse by the eighteenth century" in the table above were eliminated in the typographical reform of 1708, reality is somewhat more complex. The letters were indeed originally omitted from the sample alphabet, printed in a western-style serif font, presented in Peter's edict, along with the letters ⟨з⟩ (replaced by ⟨ѕ⟩), ⟨и⟩, and ⟨ф⟩ (the diacriticized letter ⟨й⟩ was also removed), but were reinstated except ⟨ѱ⟩ and ⟨ѡ⟩ under pressure from the Russian Orthodox Church in a later variant of the modern typeface (1710). Nonetheless, since 1735 the Russian Academy of Sciences began to use fonts without ⟨ѕ⟩, ⟨ѯ⟩, and ⟨ѵ⟩; however, ⟨ѵ⟩ was sometimes used again since 1758.

Because Russian borrows terms from other languages, there are various conventions for sounds not present in Russian.

For example, while Russian has no [h], there are a number of common words (particularly proper nouns) borrowed from languages like English and German that contain such a sound in the original language. In well-established terms, such as галлюцинация [ɡəlʲʊtsɨˈnatsɨjə] ('hallucination'), this is written with ⟨г⟩ and pronounced with /ɡ/, while newer terms use ⟨х⟩, pronounced with /x/, such as хобби [ˈxobʲɪ] ('hobby').[11]

Similarly, words originally with [θ] in their source language are either pronounced with /t(ʲ)/), as in the name Тельма ('Thelma') or, if borrowed early enough, with /f(ʲ)/ or /v(ʲ)/, as in the names Фёдор ('Theodore') and Матве́й ('Matthew').

For the [d͡ʒ] affricate, which is common in the Asian countries that were parts of the Russian Empire and USSR, the letter combination ⟨дж⟩ is used: this is often transliterated into English either as ⟨dzh⟩ or the Dutch form ⟨dj⟩.

The numerical values correspond to the Greek numerals, with ⟨ѕ⟩ being used for digamma, ⟨ч⟩ for koppa, and ⟨ц⟩ for sampi. The system was abandoned for secular purposes in 1708, after a transitional period of a century or so; it continues to be used in Church Slavonic, while general Russian texts use Hindu-Arabic numerals and Roman numerals.

Russian spelling uses fewer diacritics than those used for most European languages. The only diacritic, in the proper sense, is the acute accent ⟨◌́⟩ (Russian: знак ударения 'mark of stress'), which marks stress on a vowel, as it is done in Spanish and Greek. Although Russian word stress is often unpredictable and can fall on different syllables in different forms of the same word, the diacritic is used only in dictionaries, children's books, resources for foreign-language learners, the defining entry (in bold) in articles on Russian Wikipedia, or on minimal pairs distinguished only by stress (for instance, за́мок 'castle' vs. замо́к 'lock'). Rarely, it is used to specify the stress in uncommon foreign words and in poems with unusual stress used to fit the meter. Unicode has no code points for the accented letters; they are instead produced by suffixing the unaccented letter with U+0301 ◌́ COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT.

The letter ⟨ё⟩ is a special variant of the letter ⟨е⟩, which is not always distinguished in written Russian, but the umlaut-like sign has no other uses. Stress on this letter is never marked, as it is always stressed except in some loanwords.

Unlike the case of ⟨ё⟩, the letter ⟨й⟩ has completely separated from ⟨и⟩. It has been used since the 16th century except that it was removed in 1708 but reinstated in 1735. Since then, its usage has been mandatory. It was formerly considered a diacriticized letter, but in the 20th century, it came to be considered a separate letter of the Russian alphabet. It was classified as a "semivowel" by 19th- and 20th-century grammarians but since the 1970s, it has been considered a consonant letter.

The standard Russian keyboard layout for personal computers is as follows:

However, there are several variations of so-called "phonetic keyboards" that are often used by non-Russians, where, as far as is possible, pressing an English letter key will type the Russian letter with a similar sound (A → А, S → С, D → Д, F → Ф, etc.).

Until approximately the year 1900, mnemonic names inherited from Church Slavonic were used for the letters. They are given here in the pre-1918 orthography of the post-1708 civil alphabet.

The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin wrote: "The [names of the] letters that make up the Slavonic alphabet do not make any sense. Аз, буки, веди, глаголь, добро etc. are separate words, chosen just for their initial sound". However, since the names of the first few letters of the Slavonic alphabet seem to form readable text, attempts have been made to compose meaningful snippets of text from groups of consecutive letters for the rest of the alphabet.[12][13]

Here is one such attempt to "decode" the message:

In this attempt only lines 1, 2 and 5 somewhat correspond to real meanings of the letters' names, while "translations" in other lines seem to be fabrications or fantasies. For example, "покой" ("rest" or "apartment") does not mean "the Universe", and "ферт" does not have any meaning in Russian or other Slavic languages (there are no words of Slavic origin beginning with "f" at all). The last line contains only one translatable word – "червь" ("worm"), which, however, was not included in the "translation".

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Russian alphabet.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Introduction of the civil Russian alphabet by Peter I.

• Bulgarian alphabet
• Computer russification
• Cyrillic alphabets
• Cyrillic script
• Euro-Ukrainian alphabet
• Greek alphabet
• Montenegrin alphabet
• List of Cyrillic digraphs and trigraphs
• Reforms of Russian orthography
• Romanization of Belarusian
• Romanization of Bulgarian
• Romanization of Greek
• Romanization of Macedonian
• Romanization of Russian
• Romanization of Ukrainian
• Russian Braille
• Russian cursive (handwritten letters)
• Russian manual alphabet
• Russian Morse code
• Russian orthography
• Russian phonology
• Scientific transliteration of Cyrillic
• Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
• Yoficator

• Ivan G. Iliev. Kurze Geschichte des kyrillischen Alphabets. Plovdiv. 2015.
• Ivan G. Iliev. Short History of the Cyrillic Alphabet.
• Benson, Morton (1960), "Review of The Russian Alphabet by Thomas F. Magner", The Slavic and East European Journal, 4 (3): 271–72, doi:10.2307/304189
• Dunn, John; Khairov, Shamil (2009), Modern Russian Grammar, Modern Grammars, Routledge
• Halle, Morris (1959), Sound Pattern of Russian, MIT Press
• Smirnovskiy, P (1915), A Textbook in Russian Grammar, Part I. Etymology (26th ed.), CA: Shaw
• Vasmer, Max (1979), Russian Etymological Dictionary, Winter