En (Cyrillic)


En is a letter of the Cyrillic script.
It commonly represents the dental nasal consonant, like the pronunciation of in "neat".
And it can be palatalized like in the pair of hard and soft consonants for the word: жена́ 'wife' and же́нин 'wife's'.

Glyph

The capital Cyrillic letter En looks the same as the capitals Greek letter Eta and Latin letter H.
As with most Cyrillic letters, the lowercase form is simply a smaller version of the uppercase.
However, in modern Church Slavonic publications, the old N-shaped form is still often used.
It should not be confused with the letter И :
  • The cursive of the capital letter is similar to the English model Copperplate script, with a modification: the line between the two columns is a rising diagonal, exactly as in letter И. And the minuscule, use quite the same ductus, leading generally to a rising diagonal too.
  • In some handwritten and typographic fonts, these two Cyrillic letters may be difficult to distinguish because they are both drawn with two wide columns and with an almost illegible line between these two columns.
  • In some context, it is frequent to see on the same page the modern shape and the previous forms.

    History

In the Early Cyrillic alphabet, the letter was created according to the model of the Greek letter Nu. The modifications of the glyph N over the centuries have led to the adoption of the current form of Greek letter Eta, a shape that has been formerly used as a model for the letter И.

Theories

The theory that "the reason En has a horizontal bar, like H, instead of a diagonal line, is to avoid confusion with the letter И" has no grounding:
  • The original shapes of the letters Н and И were N and H respectively, and were perfectly legible for centuries. The Greek and Latin glyphs N and H are both still the same today.
  • It is difficult to say whether the mirrored shapes N and И would be confusing in the same alphabet as the Latin alphabet has many mirrored letters such as b and d or p and q, and very similar letters such as O and Q or C and G. Even the Cyrillic alphabet has preserved the very similar letters Б and В or has created a confusion between letters Л and П.
It seems more probable that the change of shapes in Cyrillic resulted from a cascade of consequences, apparently around the letter И, and maybe also letter І and the letter П.

Initial shape

From c. 893 in Bulgaria, the Early Cyrillic alphabet was made of uncial Greek letters and glagolitic letters. This Cyrillic uncial, called "" in Russian, is a style developed on the model of the Greek uncial.
The name of En was , meaning "ours".
The letter was created according to the model of the Greek letter Nu as they share the same sound /n/. Therefore, the letter had a descending diagonal "\" between the two vertical lines.
At the same time, the letter И was created according to the model of the Greek letter Eta for the same reason. Therefore, the letter had a horizontal line "-" between the two vertical lines.
In Cyrillic uncial style, for the two letters Н and И, the vertical columns are drawn wide and the line between is thin.
These shapes are mainly used up to the 13th century, and since the 19th century, in academic publishing to reproduce old Slavonic texts.
See for example:
The letter И like an H can still be seen in a book "Arithmetic" from Leonty Magnitsky published in Moscow in 1703, or in a book printed by order of the Tsar in 1706.

First modification

In the Cyrillic letter Н with the Greek shape N, the descending diagonal "\" will progressively become shorter:
  • the diagonal starts either at the top of the first vertical line, or lower with a very small angle.
  • the diagonal ends in the middle of the second vertical line;
See for example:
One of the explanations may be the management of the virtual line horizontally dividing the letters as А,Б,В,Є,Ж,З,Н,К,Х,Ч,Э,Ю. And this was also applied to the glyph N for some unknown reason. For example, the scribe draws the horizontal in the glyph H higher than the middle, then the other similar letters will be drawn with a virtual line higher. Therefore, in the glyph N, the scribe must shorten the diagonal and make it end at the level of the virtual line. Then, other scribes repeat the same modifications but sometimes without respecting the same virtual line for all the letters, thus making the root cause disappear.
In uncial Greek, the shape of the letter H sometimes sees the horizontal line rise upwards, and the shape of the letter N either does not change, or moves accordingly, and sometimes we can see both versions in the same text.

Second modification

From the 15th century, the a semi-uncial style developed, and is notably still used today by the Church Slavonic publishing.
This style turns into a more fluid writing: there is a slope, letters descending below the line, capital letters, transitional cursive.
In parallel, the first printing fonts are being developed. In 1517, a work of simplification and "romanization" of the Cyrillic alphabet by the first Belarusian printer Francysk Skaryna will give a writing of capitals close to modern. This font was further improved thanks to the Belarusian printer Ilya Kopievich, who from 1700 to 1706, by order of Peter I, published about 25 books in Amsterdam and Danzig. The font of his publications was extremely close to the civil font adopted by the Russian emperor in 1708.
In the Cyrillic И with the Greek shape H, the horizontal line "-" has become an ascending diagonal:
  • the diagonal starts at the bottom of the first vertical line, in the middle or at three-quarter;
  • the diagonal ends either at the top of the second vertical line, or lower with a very small angle.
See for examples:
Therefore, the H-shape for the letter И became less frequent and eventually became available for another letter as... Н. Then the official Civil Script made it mandatory to use the H-shape for the letter Н at the detriment of the original N-shape. No specific explanation is available for this choice and if there was a problem with readability, it could have been decided to return to the original shape as in the Greek or Latin alphabet. We can only note that the Church prefers to continue using the old shape, thus refusing to reverse two glyphs in the Cyrillic alphabet created specifically to translate the Bible, and thus avoiding repeating the instability of this H-shape.

Utilization