Tse (Cyrillic)


Tse, also known as Ce, is a letter of the Cyrillic script.
It commonly represents the voiceless alveolar affricate, similar but not identical to the pronunciation of zz in "pizza" or ts in "cats".
In the standard Iron dialect of Ossetic, it represents the voiceless alveolar sibilant fricative /s/. In other dialects, including Digoron, it has the same value as in Russian.
In English, Tse is commonly romanized as. However, in proper names and titles, it may also be rendered as,, or. Its equivalent in the modern Romanian Latin alphabet is.

History

Tse is thought to have come from the Hebrew letter Tsadi ⟨צ⟩ or the Arabic letter ص, via the Glagolitic letter Tsi. It is unclear what Egyptian hieroglyph originated the letter Tse, possibly derived from an image of a fish hook or a papyrus plant.
The name of Tse in the Early Cyrillic alphabet is . New Church Slavonic and Russian spelling of the name is. In modern Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian, the name of the letter is pronounced and spelled in Russian, in Ukrainian, and in Belarusian.
In the Cyrillic numeral system, Tse has a value of 900. Tse may also have been derived from Sampi or Fai.

Usage

Russian

It is the 24th letter of the Russian alphabet. It is used both in native Slavic words and in borrowed words:
  • as a match for the Latin in words of Latin origin, such as цирк, центр,
  • for the German and, in words borrowed from German, such as цинк, плац,
  • may correspond to Latin, such as сцинтилляция.
Unlike most other consonants, never represents a palatalised consonant in Russian. Since /i/ after unpalatalised consonants becomes, the combinations and are pronounced identically: . A notable rule of Russian orthography is that is rarely followed by, with the following exceptions:
  • the ending - of the plural number or the genitive case,
  • possessive suffix - is spelled - after and only then: троицын, курицын,
  • * the suffix is very popular in Russian last names, but spelling varies and both - and - are possible, Ельцин is an example,
  • the ending of adjectives - such as куцый or бледнолицый,
  • conjugation of a vulgar verb сцать and its prefixed derivatives,
  • a few other word roots: цыган, цык-, цып-, цыц, цыркать,
  • * pre-1956 lists contain words such as цыбик, цыбуля, цыгарка, цыдулка, цыкля, цымбалы, цымес, цынга, цыновка, цынубель, цырюльня, цытварный, цыфирь, панцырь, etc.,
  • Pinyin's becomes, and becomes.

Related letters and other similar characters