42
votes
Accepted
What are these Russian characters that aren't in the alphabet in my learning material?
-small m = т
-и with line on top = й
-g = д
-mirrored s = г
These are handwriting-style characters, but some of them (m, -и with line on top and mirrored s in particular) are also used in the ...
- 19.6k
41
votes
Accepted
What Russian letter is this?
The character "д" is the lowercase italic version of "Д", which both derive from the greek letter Delta (compare with "Δ", "δ"). In most fonts the straight lowercase letter is written as "д", while "д"...
- 812
40
votes
Do adult Russians normally hand-write Cyrillic as cursive or as block letters?
In school it's taught cursive and only cursive, in many "serious" places (like government jobs, jobs in financial sector etc.) it will be considered very non-professional if you can not do cursive. In ...
- 37.8k
29
votes
What are these Russian characters that aren't in the alphabet in my learning material?
Those are cursive forms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_cursive
The letters you were surprised by are, in order listed, Тт Йй Дд Гг.
- 1,955
27
votes
Do adult Russians normally hand-write Cyrillic as cursive or as block letters?
Things may be changing, but I dare say an overwhelming majority of 'adult' Russians (those finished primary school 10+ years ago) write in cursive - when they have to hand write at all.
Writing in ...
- 3,098
16
votes
What Russian letter is this?
It is a valid letter "д", the fifth letter of the alphabet. The glyph in the example is produced with a cursive/italic font. The other one is a glyph from a regular straight font.
- 3,088
13
votes
Accepted
What is the stroke order for Cyrillic?
Here is the classic one. I used to do it in my 1st grade.
http://xn----gtbdmbeft1bdk.net/%D0%A0%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8/40/415/
Though this one does not contain old Cyrillic.
- 1,758
12
votes
Accepted
"The Grand Inquisitor" book cover - what does cyrillic letters stand for?
It means nothing. It just reads "The Grand Inquisitor" in English with a few Cyrillic letters thrown in to replace English letters that they look vaguely similar to. This is an example of Faux ...
- 401
12
votes
Do adult Russians normally hand-write Cyrillic as cursive or as block letters?
As already said, all Russians are taught in school how to write in cursive and use it in everyday life. Writing with cursive letters is much more faster but everyone has his own style, that is ...
- 121
10
votes
Accepted
What is the difference in how shah and schchah are written (by hand) in practice?
This is an incorrect (and poor quality) picture. These letters look different in every script. Like this:
Ш ш
Щ щ
Ш ш
Щ щ
- 3,098
9
votes
What are these Russian characters that aren't in the alphabet in my learning material?
In some fonts you might also encounter 'mirrored 6' which is 'small д'.
- 1,675
8
votes
Accepted
Why are the dotted i (І/і) and yi (Ї/ї) from Ukrainian not present in Russian?
The Russian alphabet had both і and ї in the past, but they became obsolete.
"Изменялись также правила относительно числа точек над І: Пётр отменил было их; затем было предписано ставить по две ...
- 4,294
7
votes
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Names of pre-1918 letters
Поскольку ответы в одно предложение, насколько я помню, против правил (в таких случаях рекомендуется дать больше информации), даю название всех букв.
Названия букв в старой орфографии. В квадратных ...
- 8,522
7
votes
What are these Russian characters that aren't in the alphabet in my learning material?
Nobody posted these letters italicized yet, so here you go:
Тт Тт
Йй Йй
Дд Дд
Гг Гг
Examine this answer's markdown by clicking "edit" to make sure I didn't trick you :ь
- 921
7
votes
Do adult Russians normally hand-write Cyrillic as cursive or as block letters?
Many responders have already mentioned the cursive handwriting as faster...
In fact, perhaps unlike some cursive scripts I see daily used in Europe/US at least, the seeming purpose of Russian cursive ...
- 181
5
votes
Accepted
What are the Latin Transliterations of Hard Consonants Converted to Soft Consonants?
I understand that there are certain vowels that indicate whether a
consonant succeeding it would be hard or soft, for example the vowel
'e' would indicate that the consonant after it would soften ...
- 19.6k
5
votes
What Russian letter is this?
Every language has its quirkiness. With Russian,this is evident when one starts typing texts on a PC - and then formatting parts of it. Hence, the сведения seems to differ from "сведения". But, this ...
- 51
5
votes
Accepted
Difference between ь and ъ
Have you tried reading about them? On wiki, for example: Russian alphabet, Ъ, Ь
Your second question does not make sense, really. They are used because they must be used for the correct spelling.
- 3,012
4
votes
Accepted
What is the Russian Homophonic Group?
бос = босс, без = бес, бал = балл, сум = сумм, мая = майя, тон = тонн, серб = серп, гриб = грипп, маг = мак, юг = юкк ⇒ с = з = л = м = й = н = б = п = г = к = 1.
спиться = спится = спица, питься = ...
4
votes
Names of pre-1918 letters
They're named Иже and І (pronounced as [и] i surmise) or И восьмеричное and И десятиричное respectively [ 1 ] due to numerical values used to be assigned to them [ 2 ]
- 19.6k
4
votes
What is the stroke order for Cyrillic?
The only thing I know from top of my head that you should be able to write most words in full without ever taking pen off paper. Maybe adding some diacritics later. So, there's only one stroke. Start ...
- 2,645
4
votes
Difference between ь and ъ
Твёрдый знак выполняет в русском языке разделительную функцию — указывает, что после согласного йотированная гласная буква обозначает не мягкость согласного, а два звука: я — [й’а], е — [й’э], ё — [й’...
- 21.3k
4
votes
Do adult Russians normally hand-write Cyrillic as cursive or as block letters?
Here's a sample of hand-written lyrics done by a Russian born adult (me) prior to seeing this question. I will leave it you to decide whether it's block or cursive. I wanted it to be easy for my son ...
- 15.9k
4
votes
Spoken versus written Russian
Drastye!
This is an approximated rendition of the Russian word zdravstvuytyе, "hello". If you count the letters, you may get an idea of how far off the elided forms of some words can be.
...
- 51.6k
3
votes
Difference between ь and ъ
Both letters change the pronuncation of preceding and/or succeeding letter.
Мягкий знак (ь) смягчает предшествующую согласную (а если она должна быть мягкой из-за того, что после неё стоит е,ё,и,ю,я ,...
- 8,522
3
votes
Why are the dotted i (І/і) and yi (Ї/ї) from Ukrainian not present in Russian?
Russian language has [йе] е [йо] ё [йу] ю and [йа] я, but it doesn't have a dedicated letter for [йи] since it is usually covered by ьи or similar. So naturally there's no ї and it had to be invented ...
- 2,645
3
votes
Do adult Russians normally hand-write Cyrillic as cursive or as block letters?
I wanna add my $0.02. As someone who grew up in Russia and went through school there. I'd say, writing other than cursive would just slow me down. Because in cursive your blue line just flows from one ...
- 31
3
votes
Accepted
Avoiding spelling ambiguity when writing in cursive - a, o
So here's "classic" handwriting cursive:
You'll find more at the google pictures search for "handwriting cursive"
(I'd just want to stress this is not something specific to the Russian cursive).
...
- 444
2
votes
What is the Russian Homophonic Group?
Russian is not as big on silent letters as English and French are, however, double letters in loanwords, devoicing the consonants and vowel reduction seem to be the most prominent vectors.
Here's what ...
2
votes
Why are the dotted i (І/і) and yi (Ї/ї) from Ukrainian not present in Russian?
Russian vowels come in pairs: а/я, о/ё, у/ю, ы/и, э/е.
The first three pairs are "good" ones. The second one in each pair is a front vowel (pronounced with the tongue closer to the front of the mouth ...
- 51.6k
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