Es (С с; italics: ''С с'') 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 ...
. It commonly represents the
voiceless alveolar fricative , like the pronunciation of in "sand".
History
The Cyrillic letter Es is derived from a variant of the
Greek letter Sigma known as ''
lunate 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), in use in the Greek-speaking world in early medieval times. “Es” (Cyrillic: С) is related to the Latin letter “C” (C c),
visuo-
phono-
semantically due to being a homoglyph and having similar roots, which C is a descendant of the Greek letter Gamma (Γ γ), and therefore С is related to the Latin C and Latin G. While the Cyrillic “С” represents the /s/ sound, many languages apply the value of to the Latin letter “C,” especially before front vowels like ‘‘e’’ and ‘‘i’’ (examples include English, French, Portuguese, and
Latin American Spanish). This distinction between “hard” and “soft” C reflects historical phonetic shifts. As its name suggests, “Es” is also related to the Latin letter “S.”
The name of Es in the
Early Cyrillic alphabet
The Early Cyrillic alphabet, also called classical Cyrillic or paleo-Cyrillic, is an alphabetic writing system that was developed in Medieval Bulgaria in the Preslav Literary School during the late 9th century. It is used to write the Chur ...
was (''slovo''), meaning "word" or "speech".
In the
Cyrillic numeral system, Es had a value of 200.
Form
In the modern Latinized Cyrillic fonts in use today, the Cyrillic letter Es
looks exactly like the
Latin letter C, being one of six letters in the Cyrillic alphabet that share appearances with Latin alphabet letters but are pronounced differently (or at least differently from the most common pronunciation). This fact has been frequently abused by
plagiarism detector circumventors.
Usage
As used in the alphabets of various languages, Es represents the following sounds:
*
voiceless alveolar fricative , like the pronunciation of in "sand"
*
palatalized voiceless alveolar fricative
The pronunciations shown in the table are the primary ones for each language; for details consult the articles on the languages.
Computing codes
Related letters and other similar characters
*Σ σ/ς :
Greek letter Sigma
*S s :
Latin letter S
*Ѕ ѕ :
Cyrillic letter Ѕ
*C c :
Latin letter C
External links
*
*
References
{{Cyrillic navbox
Cyrillic letters