Tshe (or ) (Ћ ћ; italics: ''Ћ ћ'') is a letter of the

Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, Mongolic, Uralic languages, Uralic, C ...

, used only in the

Serbian Cyrillic alphabet The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet (, ), also known as the Serbian script, (, ), is a standardized variation of the Cyrillic script used to write the Serbian language. It originated in medieval Serbia and was significantly reformed in the 19th cen ...

, where it represents the voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate , somewhat like the pronunciation of in "chew"; however, it must not be confused with the voiceless retroflex affricate Che (Ч ч), which represents and which also exists in Serbian Cyrillic script. The sound of Tshe is produced from the

voiceless alveolar plosive The voiceless alveolar, dental and postalveolar plosives (or stops) are types of consonantal sounds used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postal ...

by iotation. Tshe is the 23rd letter in the Serbian alphabet. It was first used by

Dositej Obradović Dositej Obradović ( sr-Cyrl, Доситеј Обрадовић, ; 17 February 1739 – 7 April 1811) was a Serbian writer, biographer, diarist, philosopher, pedagogue, educational reformer, linguist and the first minister of education of Se ...

as a revival of the old Cyrillic letter Djerv (Ꙉ), and was later adopted in the 1818 Serbian dictionary of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić. The equivalent character to Tshe in

Gaj's Latin alphabet Gaj's Latin alphabet ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Gajeva latinica, separator=" / ", Гајева латиница}, ), also known as ( sr-Cyrl, абецеда, ) or ( sr-Cyrl, гајица, link=no, ), is the form of the Latin script used for writing all ...

is Ć. Despite being a Cyrillic letter, Tshe was also used in Latin-based Slovincian phonetic transcriptions with the same value as in Serbian. Being part of the most common Serbian last names, the transliteration of Tshe to the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...

is very important; however, there are many ways to transliterate it. It is typically transliterated as , as per the Serbo-Croatian Latin alphabet or, without the

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

, as ; less frequent transliterations are , , , , , (also used for Che), and , (the last one in Hungarian only, but and are more common). It looks similar to the Shha (Һ һ) but stroked. As it is one of the letters unique to the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, and also the first letter of the Serbian word for Cyrillic (), Tshe is often used as the basis for

logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name that it represents, as in ...

s for various groups involved with the Cyrillic alphabet.

Other uses

The capital Tshe has seen uses in the English language as a symbol for the definite article '' The''—similarly to the Ampersand & At sign—due to it appearing as a ligature of the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

letters ''uppercase T'' & ''lowercase H''—which are the first 2 letters of the English word '' The.'' However, unlike common symbols such as the ampersand & at sign, the use of the capital Tshe as a symbol in English is not widely known or recognized.

Related letters and other similar characters

*Т т : Cyrillic letter Te *Ч ч : Cyrillic letter Che *Ђ ђ : Cyrillic letter Dje *Һ һ : Cyrillic letter Shha *Ќ ќ : Cyrillic letter Kje *Ć ć : Latin letter C with acute *Ħ ħ : Latin letter H with stroke

Computing codes

References

External links

* * {{Cyrillic navbox South Slavic languages Serbian letters