Sha, alternatively transliterated Ša (Ш ш; italics: ''Ш ш'') is a letter of the

Glagolitic The Glagolitic script ( , , ''glagolitsa'') is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is generally agreed that it was created in the 9th century for the purpose of translating liturgical texts into Old Church Slavonic by Saints Cyril and Methodi ...

and

Cyrillic The Cyrillic 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 countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

scripts. It commonly represents the

voiceless postalveolar fricative A voiceless postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some Speech, spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses the term ''voiceless postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound #Voiceless palato-alveolar frica ...

, like the pronunciation of sh in "ship". More precisely, the sound in Russian denoted by ш is often falsely transcribed as a palatoalveolar fricative, but is actually a voiceless retroflex fricative . It is used in every variation of the Cyrillic alphabet for Slavic and non-Slavic languages. In English, Sha is

romanized In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and transcription, ...

as sh or as š, the latter being the equivalent letter in the Latin alphabets of Czech, Slovak, Slovene,

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian ( / ), also known as Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually i ...

, Latvian and Lithuanian.

History

Sha has its earliest origins in Phoenician Shin and is possibly linked closely to Shin's Greek equivalent:

Sigma Sigma ( ; uppercase Σ, lowercase σ, lowercase in word-final position ς; ) is the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 200. In general mathematics, uppercase Σ is used as an operator ...

(Σ, σ, ς). (The similar form of the modern

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

Shin (ש), which is probably where the Cyrillic letter was actually derived from, derives from the same

Proto-Canaanite Proto-Canaanite is the name given to: # The Proto-Sinaitic script when found in Canaan, dating to about the 17th century BC and later. # A hypothetical ancestor of the Phoenician script before some cut-off date, typically 1050 BC, with an undefin ...

source). Sha already possessed its current form in

Saints Cyril and Methodius Cyril (; born Constantine, 826–869) and Methodius (; born Michael, 815–885) were brothers, Byzantine Christian theologians and missionaries. For their work evangelizing the Slavs, they are known as the "Apostles to the Slavs". They are ...

Glagolitic alphabet The Glagolitic script ( , , ''glagolitsa'') is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is generally agreed that it was created in the 9th century for the purpose of translating liturgical texts into Old Church Slavonic by Saints Cyril and Methodi ...

. 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 The Coptic alphabet is the script used for writing the Coptic language, the most recent development of Egyptian. The repertoire of glyphs is based on the uncial Greek alphabet, augmented by letters borrowed from the Egyptian Demotic. It was ...

, 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

Sha is used in the alphabets of all

Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavs, Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic language, Proto- ...

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.

Use in mathematics

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

algebraic geometry Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics which uses abstract algebraic techniques, mainly from commutative algebra, to solve geometry, geometrical problems. Classically, it studies zero of a function, zeros of multivariate polynomials; th ...

, 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 In mathematics, a Dirac comb (also known as sha function, impulse train or sampling function) is a periodic function, periodic Function (mathematics), function with the formula \operatorname_(t) \ := \sum_^ \delta(t - k T) for some given perio ...

. The shuffle product is often denoted by ш.

Related letters

*ש : Hebrew letter ש *श: Devanagari letter श *ष: Devanagari letter ष *श़: Devanagari letter श़ *Ⱎ : Glagolitic letter Sha/ša *Ⱋ : Glagolitic letter Shta/šta or Shcha/šča *Ꚗ ꚗ : Cyrillic letter Shwe *Щ щ : Cyrillic letter Shcha *⧢ : Shuffle product *Ʃ ʃ : Latin letter Esh *Š š : Latin letter S with caron *Ŝ ŝ : Latin letter S with circumflex *Ş ş : Latin letter S with cedilla *Ș ș : Latin letter S with comma below

Computing codes

References

External links

* * {{Cyrillic navbox Cyrillic letters