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In English (at least in North America, don't know about other English area) you see things like 10k as an abbreviation of 10000. I'm wondering if Russian does something similar, particularly regarding this ҂ symbol I came across in Unicode's Cyrillic block, or is that and its related symbols like ҈ firmly a historic relic?

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2 Answers 2

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҂ is indeed a historic relic. It was only used in the letter-based numerals (a system where A = 1, B = 2, etc; ҂A = 1000). It is not in active use for at least three centuries.

One can see 10k (or 10K) for 10000 in a modern text, but only informally1 (just like in English). This is an unrelated thing; after all, it's only an abbreviation for convenience, whereas ҂ was the standard way to express a thousand.


1 Outside of certain technical context. For example, k may officially stand for kΩ (kOhm) (electrical resistance): 10k = 10 kΩ; 4k7 = 4.7 kΩ. This is standard (more or less) worldwide.

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    Re "Outside of certain technical context", Specifically: Except when attached to an SI unit. (kΩ, km, kg, etc)
    – ikegami
    Apr 13, 2022 at 15:15
  • @ikegami, not quite. Units are obvious; but here, k alone is used (attached to the number, not the unit) in electrical engineering. Ohm is implicit, and this doesn't apply to other units. "Take a 10K resistor and a 22 nF capacitor."
    – Zeus
    Apr 14, 2022 at 0:24
  • oh, I see what you were saying.
    – ikegami
    Apr 14, 2022 at 1:29
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    I'd note that it's also customary to use Cyrillic letter 'к' when speaking informally—like "на счёте осталось 25к". In a very informal context it's also possible to use the "word" "тыр" which is an abbreviation of тысяч рублей.
    – kostix
    Apr 14, 2022 at 9:17
  • Specific for monetary values nominated in rubles one can often see "т.р." used for thousands rubles, e.g. "1300 т.р." for 1,300,000 rubles. Apr 14, 2022 at 13:34
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No special signs regarding number or quantity are used in modern Russian, only abbreviations like:

5 тыс = 5 тысяч = 5 thousands
1 млн = 1 миллион = 1 million
2 млрд = 2 миллиарда = 2 billions
6 трлн = 6 триллионов = 6 trillions
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  • Here 2 billion stands for 2.000.000.000.000 (european billion) or 2.000.000.000 (US billion)?. Apr 14, 2022 at 10:45
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    @OscarGarcia it's US billion (2 000 000 000) Apr 14, 2022 at 10:48

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