Dze
Encyclopedia
Dze is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet
, used in the Macedonian language
to represent the voiced alveolar affricate
/dz/, pronounced like ⟨ds⟩ in "pods".
It is derived from the letter dzelo or zelo of the old Cyrillic alphabet, used historically for Old Church Slavonic
, Ukrainian
, Russian
, and Romanian
, and in the modern Macedonian language
as well as the modern Montenegrin language
. The most common early letterform ⟨⟩ resembles the Latin letter S
⟨S s⟩, but it is also seen reversed like the Latin letter Reversed S ⟨Ƨ ƨ⟩, or with a tail and a tick .
The Abkhaz language
includes a letter of identical function and name, but different shape. See Abkhazian Dze
for more information.
) in the Early Cyrillic alphabet
, where it had the numerical value 6. The letter Dzělo was itself based on the letter Dzelo in the Glagolitic alphabet
. In the Glagolitic alphabet
, it was written ⟨Ⰷ⟩, and had the numerical value of 8. In Old Church Slavonic
it was called "" , and in Church Slavonic it is called "" .
The origin of Glagolitic
letter dzelo is unclear, however, the Cyrillic Ѕ is probably derived in some way from the Greek
⟨⟩ (stigma
), which had the same numerical value (6), although had a different pronunciation (/st/ in Greek
, /dz/ in Slavic
). Thus the homoglyph
ic traits of the Cyrillic
⟨Ѕ⟩ and Latin
⟨S
⟩ are largely coincidental, although the letters are distantly related: the Latin letter originates directly from the Greek
sigma
(Σ
), whereas the Cyrillic letter originates from the pair of letters Στ (upper case) στ (lower case).
was a soft /dz/ or /z/, which often corresponds in cognates to a /ɡ/ sound in modern Russian
, as in мъноѕи , , and растрьѕати . However, already in the Old Slavic period the difference between ⟨Ѕ⟩ and ⟨З
⟩ began to be blurred, and in the written Church Slavonic language from the middle of the 17th century ⟨Ѕ⟩ was used only formally. The letter's distinguishing features from ⟨З
⟩ are
In Russian
it was known as or zelo ˈzʲɛlə and had the phonetic value of /dz/, /z/ or /zʲ/.
In the initial version of Russian civil script of Tsar Peter I
(1708), the ⟨Ѕ⟩ was assigned the sound /z/, and the letter ⟨З
⟩ was abolished. However, in the second version of the civil script (1710), ⟨З
⟩ was restored, and ⟨Ѕ⟩ was abolished. Both versions of alphabet were used until 1735, which is considered the date of the final elimination of ⟨Ѕ⟩ in Russian.
⟨Ѕ⟩ was used in the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet
(where it represented /dz/) until the alphabet was abolished in favor of a Latin
-based alphabet
in 1860-62. ⟨Ѕ⟩ was also used—albeit rarely—to the middle of the 19th century in the Serbian
civil script, whose orthography was closer to Church Slavonic
(compared to Russian
). Vuk Karadžić
's Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
(1868) did not include ⟨Ѕ⟩, instead favoring the digraph
⟨ДЗ⟩ to represent /dz/.
In Ukrainian
the sound is written as the digraph
⟨ДЗ⟩ to represent /dz/. That happened after various linguistic reforms coducted in Russian Empire
to eliminate the similarities with Latin
.
. A commission formed to standardize the Macedonian language
and orthography
decided on December 4, 1944—after a vote of 10-1—to adopt the letter. The letter represents /dz/ (examples including: ѕид/dzid, 'wall' and ѕвезда/dzvezda, 'star'). The corresponding sound is used in all dialects of Macedonian
, usually at the beginning of a word.
⟨Ѕ⟩ is also included on the standard Serbian Cyrillic keyboard, although it is not used in the Serbian Cyrillic Alphabet
.
Cyrillic alphabet
The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
, used in the Macedonian language
Macedonian language
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
to represent the voiced alveolar affricate
Voiced alveolar affricate
The voiced alveolar affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet with ⟨⟩ or ⟨⟩ , and the equivalent X-SAMPA representation is ⟨dz⟩.-Features:...
/dz/, pronounced like ⟨ds⟩ in "pods".
It is derived from the letter dzelo or zelo of the old Cyrillic alphabet, used historically for Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
, Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, and Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, and in the modern Macedonian language
Macedonian language
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
as well as the modern Montenegrin language
Montenegrin language
Montenegrin is a name used for the Serbo-Croatian language as spoken by Montenegrins; it also refers to an incipient standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian used as the official language of Montenegro...
. The most common early letterform ⟨⟩ resembles the Latin letter S
S
S is the nineteenth letter in the ISO basic Latin alphabet.-History: Semitic Šîn represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative . Greek did not have this sound, so the Greek sigma came to represent...
⟨S s⟩, but it is also seen reversed like the Latin letter Reversed S ⟨Ƨ ƨ⟩, or with a tail and a tick .
The Abkhaz language
Abkhaz language
Abkhaz is a Northwest Caucasian language spoken mainly by the Abkhaz people. It is the official language of Abkhazia where around 100,000 people speak it. Furthermore, it is spoken by thousands of members of the Abkhazian diaspora in Turkey, Georgia's autonomous republic of Adjara, Syria, Jordan...
includes a letter of identical function and name, but different shape. See Abkhazian Dze
Abkhazian Dze
Abkhazian Dze is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. It is used in the Abkhazian language where it represents the voiced alveolar affricate , pronounced like ⟨ds⟩ in "pods"....
for more information.
Origin
The letter is descended from dzělo (Early Cyrillic alphabet
The Early Cyrillic alphabet is a writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire in the 9th or 10th century to write the Old Church Slavonic liturgical language...
, where it had the numerical value 6. The letter Dzělo was itself based on the letter Dzelo in the Glagolitic alphabet
Glagolitic alphabet
The Glagolitic alphabet , also known as Glagolitsa, is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. The name was not coined until many centuries after its creation, and comes from the Old Slavic glagolъ "utterance" . The verb glagoliti means "to speak"...
. In the Glagolitic alphabet
Glagolitic alphabet
The Glagolitic alphabet , also known as Glagolitsa, is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. The name was not coined until many centuries after its creation, and comes from the Old Slavic glagolъ "utterance" . The verb glagoliti means "to speak"...
, it was written ⟨Ⰷ⟩, and had the numerical value of 8. In Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
it was called "" , and in Church Slavonic it is called "" .
The origin of Glagolitic
Glagolitic alphabet
The Glagolitic alphabet , also known as Glagolitsa, is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. The name was not coined until many centuries after its creation, and comes from the Old Slavic glagolъ "utterance" . The verb glagoliti means "to speak"...
letter dzelo is unclear, however, the Cyrillic Ѕ is probably derived in some way from the Greek
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
⟨⟩ (stigma
Stigma (letter)
Stigma is a ligature of the Greek letters sigma and tau , which was used in writing Greek between the middle ages and the 19th century. It is also used as a numeral symbol for the number 6...
), which had the same numerical value (6), although had a different pronunciation (/st/ in Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
, /dz/ in Slavic
Proto-Slavic language
Proto-Slavic is the proto-language from which Slavic languages later emerged. It was spoken before the seventh century AD. As with most other proto-languages, no attested writings have been found; the language has been reconstructed by applying the comparative method to all the attested Slavic...
). Thus the homoglyph
Homoglyph
In typography, a homoglyph is one of two or more characters, or glyphs, with shapes that either appear identical or cannot be differentiated by quick visual inspection. This designation is also applied to sequences of characters sharing these properties....
ic traits of the Cyrillic
Cyrillic alphabet
The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
⟨Ѕ⟩ and Latin
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
⟨S
S
S is the nineteenth letter in the ISO basic Latin alphabet.-History: Semitic Šîn represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative . Greek did not have this sound, so the Greek sigma came to represent...
⟩ are largely coincidental, although the letters are distantly related: the Latin letter originates directly from the Greek
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
sigma
Sigma
Sigma is the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, and carries the 'S' sound. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 200. When used at the end of a word, and the word is not all upper case, the final form is used, e.g...
(Σ
Sigma
Sigma is the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, and carries the 'S' sound. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 200. When used at the end of a word, and the word is not all upper case, the final form is used, e.g...
), whereas the Cyrillic letter originates from the pair of letters Στ (upper case) στ (lower case).
Development
The initial sound of ⟨Ѕ⟩ in Old Church SlavonicOld Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
was a soft /dz/ or /z/, which often corresponds in cognates to a /ɡ/ sound in modern Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, as in мъноѕи , , and растрьѕати . However, already in the Old Slavic period the difference between ⟨Ѕ⟩ and ⟨З
Ze (Cyrillic)
Ze is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet.It commonly represents the voiced alveolar fricative , like the pronunciation of ⟨z⟩ in "zoo".Ze is romanized using the Latin letter ⟨z⟩....
⟩ began to be blurred, and in the written Church Slavonic language from the middle of the 17th century ⟨Ѕ⟩ was used only formally. The letter's distinguishing features from ⟨З
Ze (Cyrillic)
Ze is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet.It commonly represents the voiced alveolar fricative , like the pronunciation of ⟨z⟩ in "zoo".Ze is romanized using the Latin letter ⟨z⟩....
⟩ are
- ⟨Ѕ⟩ is used in root derived from these seven words beginning with ⟨Ѕ⟩: ;
- ⟨ЗZe (Cyrillic)Ze is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet.It commonly represents the voiced alveolar fricative , like the pronunciation of ⟨z⟩ in "zoo".Ze is romanized using the Latin letter ⟨z⟩....
⟩ is used in all remaining cases. - ⟨Ѕ⟩ has the numerical value of 6, whereas ⟨ЗZe (Cyrillic)Ze is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet.It commonly represents the voiced alveolar fricative , like the pronunciation of ⟨z⟩ in "zoo".Ze is romanized using the Latin letter ⟨z⟩....
⟩ has the numerical value of 7;
In Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
it was known as or zelo ˈzʲɛlə and had the phonetic value of /dz/, /z/ or /zʲ/.
In the initial version of Russian civil script of Tsar Peter I
Peter I of Russia
Peter the Great, Peter I or Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov Dates indicated by the letters "O.S." are Old Style. All other dates in this article are New Style. ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his half-brother, Ivan V...
(1708), the ⟨Ѕ⟩ was assigned the sound /z/, and the letter ⟨З
Ze (Cyrillic)
Ze is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet.It commonly represents the voiced alveolar fricative , like the pronunciation of ⟨z⟩ in "zoo".Ze is romanized using the Latin letter ⟨z⟩....
⟩ was abolished. However, in the second version of the civil script (1710), ⟨З
Ze (Cyrillic)
Ze is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet.It commonly represents the voiced alveolar fricative , like the pronunciation of ⟨z⟩ in "zoo".Ze is romanized using the Latin letter ⟨z⟩....
⟩ was restored, and ⟨Ѕ⟩ was abolished. Both versions of alphabet were used until 1735, which is considered the date of the final elimination of ⟨Ѕ⟩ in Russian.
- See also Reforms of Russian orthographyReforms of Russian orthographyThe reform of Russian orthography refers to changes made to the Russian alphabet over the course of the history of the Russian language.- Early Changes :...
.
⟨Ѕ⟩ was used in the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet
Romanian Cyrillic alphabet
The Romanian Cyrillic alphabet was used to write the Romanian language before 1860–1862, when it was officially replaced by a Latin-based Romanian alphabet. Cyrillic remained in occasional use until circa 1920...
(where it represented /dz/) until the alphabet was abolished in favor of a Latin
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
-based alphabet
Romanian alphabet
The Romanian alphabet is a modification of the Latin alphabet and consists of 31 letters:The letters Q , W , and Y were officially introduced in the Romanian alphabet in 1982, although they had been used earlier...
in 1860-62. ⟨Ѕ⟩ was also used—albeit rarely—to the middle of the 19th century in the Serbian
Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet is an adaptation of the Cyrillic script for the Serbian language, developed in 1818 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić. It is one of the two standard modern alphabets used to write the Serbian language, the other being Latin...
civil script, whose orthography was closer to Church Slavonic
Early Cyrillic alphabet
The Early Cyrillic alphabet is a writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire in the 9th or 10th century to write the Old Church Slavonic liturgical language...
(compared to Russian
Russian alphabet
The Russian alphabet is a form of the Cyrillic script, developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
). Vuk Karadžić
Vuk Stefanovic Karadžic
Vuk Stefanović Karadžić was a Serbian philolog and linguist, the major reformer of the Serbian language, and deserves, perhaps, for his collections of songs, fairy tales, and riddles to be called the father of the study of Serbian folklore. He was the author of the first Serbian dictionary...
's Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet is an adaptation of the Cyrillic script for the Serbian language, developed in 1818 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić. It is one of the two standard modern alphabets used to write the Serbian language, the other being Latin...
(1868) did not include ⟨Ѕ⟩, instead favoring the digraph
Digraph (orthography)
A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...
⟨ДЗ⟩ to represent /dz/.
In Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
the sound is written as the digraph
Digraph (orthography)
A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...
⟨ДЗ⟩ to represent /dz/. That happened after various linguistic reforms coducted in Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
to eliminate the similarities with Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
.
Usage
⟨Ѕ⟩ is now only used in the Macedonian alphabetMacedonian alphabet
The orthography of Macedonian includes an alphabet , which is an adaptation of the Cyrillic script, as well as language-specific conventions of spelling and punctuation....
. A commission formed to standardize the Macedonian language
Macedonian language
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
and orthography
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
decided on December 4, 1944—after a vote of 10-1—to adopt the letter. The letter represents /dz/ (examples including: ѕид/dzid, 'wall' and ѕвезда/dzvezda, 'star'). The corresponding sound is used in all dialects of Macedonian
Macedonian language
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people principally in the region of Macedonia but also in the Macedonian diaspora...
, usually at the beginning of a word.
⟨Ѕ⟩ is also included on the standard Serbian Cyrillic keyboard, although it is not used in the Serbian Cyrillic Alphabet
Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet is an adaptation of the Cyrillic script for the Serbian language, developed in 1818 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić. It is one of the two standard modern alphabets used to write the Serbian language, the other being Latin...
.
Related letters and other similar characters
- З з : Cyrillic letter Ze
- S s : Latin letter SSS is the nineteenth letter in the ISO basic Latin alphabet.-History: Semitic Šîn represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative . Greek did not have this sound, so the Greek sigma came to represent...
- Ƨ ƨ : Latin letter Reversed S
Computing codes
| character | Ѕ | ѕ | ||
| Unicode name | CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER DZE | CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER DZE | ||
| character encoding | decimal | hex | decimal | hex |
| Unicode Unicode Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems... |
1029 | 0405 | 1109 | 0455 |
| UTF-8 UTF-8 UTF-8 is a multibyte character encoding for Unicode. Like UTF-16 and UTF-32, UTF-8 can represent every character in the Unicode character set. Unlike them, it is backward-compatible with ASCII and avoids the complications of endianness and byte order marks... |
208 133 | D0 85 | 209 149 | D1 95 |
| Numeric character reference Numeric character reference A numeric character reference is a common markup construct used in SGML and other SGML-related markup languages such as HTML and XML. It consists of a short sequence of characters that, in turn, represent a single character from the Universal Character Set of Unicode... |
Ѕ | Ѕ | ѕ | ѕ |
| Code page 855 Code page 855 Code page 855 is a code page used under MS-DOS to write Cyrillic script. This code page is not used much.-Code page layout:... |
137 | 89 | 136 | 88 |
| Windows-1251 Windows-1251 Windows-1251 is a popular 8-bit character encoding, designed to cover languages that use the Cyrillic alphabet such as Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian Cyrillic and other languages... |
189 | BD | 190 | BE |
| ISO-8859-5 | 165 | A5 | 245 | F5 |
| Macintosh Cyrillic | 193 | C1 | 207 | CF |
See also
- Glagolitic alphabetGlagolitic alphabetThe Glagolitic alphabet , also known as Glagolitsa, is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. The name was not coined until many centuries after its creation, and comes from the Old Slavic glagolъ "utterance" . The verb glagoliti means "to speak"...
- Early Cyrillic alphabetEarly Cyrillic alphabetThe Early Cyrillic alphabet is a writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire in the 9th or 10th century to write the Old Church Slavonic liturgical language...
- Cyrillic alphabetCyrillic alphabetThe Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
- Russian alphabetRussian alphabetThe Russian alphabet is a form of the Cyrillic script, developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
- Reforms of Russian orthographyReforms of Russian orthographyThe reform of Russian orthography refers to changes made to the Russian alphabet over the course of the history of the Russian language.- Early Changes :...
- Romanian Cyrillic alphabetRomanian Cyrillic alphabetThe Romanian Cyrillic alphabet was used to write the Romanian language before 1860–1862, when it was officially replaced by a Latin-based Romanian alphabet. Cyrillic remained in occasional use until circa 1920...
- Macedonian alphabetMacedonian alphabetThe orthography of Macedonian includes an alphabet , which is an adaptation of the Cyrillic script, as well as language-specific conventions of spelling and punctuation....
External links
- A Berdnikov and O Lapko, "Old Slavonic and Church Slavonic in TEX and Unicode", EuroTEX ’99 Proceedings, September 1999 (PDFPortable Document FormatPortable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
) - 18th century Macedonian fresco depicting Church Slavonic alphabet