Dzhe or Gea (Џ џ; italics: ''Џ џ'') is a letter of the

Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking c ...

used in

Macedonian Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia. Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to: People Modern * Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Ma ...

and varieties of

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia an ...

( Bosnian, Montenegrin, and

Serbian Serbian may refer to: * someone or something related to Serbia, a country in Southeastern Europe * someone or something related to the Serbs, a South Slavic people * Serbian language * Serbian names See also * * * Old Serbian (disambiguation ...

) to represent the

voiced postalveolar affricate The voiced palato-alveolar sibilant affricate, voiced post-alveolar affricate or voiced domed postalveolar sibilant affricate, is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic ...

, like the pronunciation of j in “jump”. Dzhe corresponds in other Cyrillic alphabets to the digraphs дж or чж, or to the letters Che with descender (Ҷ ҷ), Che with vertical stroke (Ҹ ҹ), Khakassian Che (Ӌ ӌ), Zhe with breve (Ӂ ӂ), Zhe with diaeresis (Ӝ ӝ), or

Zhje Zhje or Zhe with descender (Җ җ; italics: ) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. Its form is derived from the Cyrillic letter Zhe (Ж ж ) with an addition of a descender on its right leg. Zhje is used in the alphabets of the D ...

(Җ җ). In the Latin version of

, it corresponds with the digraph dž which, like the digraphs lj and nj, is treated as a single letter, including in crossword puzzles and for purposes of

collation Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office filin ...

. Abkhaz uses it to represent the

voiced retroflex affricate The voiced retroflex sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , sometimes simplified to or . It occurs in such language ...

. The ligature џь is used to represent the sound.

History

The letter Dzhe was first used in the 15th-century Romanian Cyrillic alphabet, as a modified form of the letter ч.Maretić, Tomislav. ''Gramatika i stilistika hrvatskoga ili srpskoga književnog jezika''. 1899. Serbian scribes began using it in the 17th century.Petar Đorđić, "Istorija srpske ćirilice", Belgrade 1970, p. 203 Vuk Karadžić included it in his

reform, when the letter entered widespread use.

Related letters and other similar characters

*Dž : Digraph Dž *J j : Latin letter J *G g : Latin letter soft G, the romanization and Latin equivalent of in the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet *Ӂ ӂ : Cyrillic letter Ӂ *Ӝ ӝ : Cyrillic letter Ӝ *Җ җ : Cyrillic letter Җ *Ҷ ҷ : Cyrillic letter Ҷ *Ӌ ӌ : Cyrillic letter Ӌ *Ҹ ҹ : Cyrillic letter Ҹ

References

External links

* *{{Wiktionary-inline, џ