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
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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
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
19
votes
What are these two words with obsolete letters?
First word (Уездная) has an obsolete letter "yat" ("ять") in cursive, so it looks different form its typical form (ѣ).
Second word (Нарымъ) has no obsolete letters, although the first letter "Н" is ...
- 4,254
18
votes
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Why does ы have a soft sign in it?
The letter ы is a ligature of ъ and і.
In the past, these were both vowels (something like /ɤ̞/ and /i/) and ы was considered as some mixture of those two vowels.
- 1,273
16
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What are these two words with obsolete letters?
The first word is Уездная (County, district).
The second word is Нарым. It's a geographic title, no translation.
- 8,261
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.
- 3,058
15
votes
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What is "Э оборотное"?
"Э оборотное" is just other name for "э". The reason why it's called "оборотное" (sort of reversed) is that modern Russian "е" initially was written as "є" - well, more strictly among other form this ...
- 37.6k
14
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Н > И change in Cyrillic, when and why?
Думаю что целенаправленного изменения штриха не было. Если посмотреть на заглавные буквы печатных книг, видно что штрих в букве И сначала был ровным, потом слегка наклоненным (как бы для удобства ...
- 11.3k
13
votes
What is the first letter in the first name and in the surname in Cyrillic?
As Alissa correctly said, the first letter in both words is Я, and the first name is Янъ (Yan). But the first word is "Явился". It is neither a first name nor a surname, it means "[there] came". The ...
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12
votes
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What's the meaning of "б" on its own?
б is a variant of бы that can be used (entirely optionally) if the preceding word ends with a vowel. Чтобы, being что+бы, always has the variant чтоб.
Similarly (with the same after-a-vowel rule), ли ...
- 19.1k
10
votes
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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
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9
votes
What is the difference between the letter Е and Э?
Russian letter 'Е' sounds differently when it's the first letter of a word, or when it follows a consonant in the middle of a word. Letter 'Э' sounds the same in any part of the word. Both letters are ...
- 3,058
9
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What is the difference between the letter Е and Э?
The consonant letter resembling a vowel by its form is З з (like number three), so your friend might inintentionally mistake the З з for Э э.
The letter Э э is closer to the first part [ε] in the ...
- 4,460
9
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Why does the word "четверг" sound as "четвергх"?
Well, while V.V is not wrong about voicelessness, there's actually something else out there. What you seem to hear is actually an evidence of so called "явления придыхательности глухих согласных" (...
- 37.6k
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'.
- 1,655
8
votes
Is there a difference between "эго" and "это" or the are the same?
These are two completely different words.
Эго is a noun which means ego. In most cases, it means a (usually boosted) sense of self-importance, for example у него непомерно раздутое эго. In Russian, ...
- 8,492
8
votes
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Alternate shapes of cyrillic letters?
The word prelude "прелюдия" is printed with an older font. Hence glyphs are slightly different from the modern fonts. In the future you can check such glyphs against the table of Old Cyrillic ...
- 3,058
7
votes
Why does the word "четверг" sound as "четвергх"?
Consonants in Russian (and in all other languages) are either voiced or voiceless.
The consonants in each pair below are pronounced in exactly the same manner, the only difference being in the ...
- 21.2k
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
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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 ...
- 8,492
5
votes
Is it considered a mistake to write "его" and "ето" instead of эго and это?
Yes, because E e at a beginning of a word is heard as [je]. Moreover,
это = this / it
эго = Ego (as in Freudian personality theory).
I haven't ever seen ето written instead of это by a native ...
- 4,460
5
votes
Is there a difference between "эго" and "это" or the are the same?
My intuition is that perhaps you meant его (as a Single Genitive Case of он(о)) instead of эго, which is more likely to be 'used almost in the same context' as это, or perhaps него.
The differences ...
- 4,460
5
votes
Accepted
Church Slavonic lettering style
If i'm not mistaken it must be титульный шрифт (from the obsolete титул - title, since it was used to inscribe book/chapter titles), or титульная вязь, which i'm not sure is an accurate name because ...
- 19.6k
5
votes
Why does the word "четверг" sound as "четвергх"?
Would you describe it as [-rx] or as [-rkʰ]? If it's the first, it's not just a четверг thing, but a Southern pronunciation feature where the final /г/ is pronounced [x] instead of simply devoicing to ...
- 19.1k
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
Should "йе" after vowel be pronounced [jje]?
Gemination is a bit fuzzy in Russian:
Words such as касса, масса, тонна, ванна, Мекка, поддать, Приенисейе [йй] have 'true doubles': saying them with a single consonant can hinder understanding. ...
- 15.6k
5
votes
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Identifying characters
Looks like
А́щє лю́битє мiа́, за́повѣди моiа́ соблюди́тє (Ин. 14:15)
If you love me, keep my commands (John 14:15)
- 19.6k
5
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Accepted
Why do names such as Гаянэ or Арминэ have "э" rather than "е"?
Actually your assumption is wrong - de-facto both versions, Гаянэ and Гаяне are used (the same about Armine), this is even mentioned in Wikipedia:
Гаянэ́ или Гаяне́ (арм. Գայանե) — армянское женское ...
- 37.6k
4
votes
What are these two words with obsolete letters?
I don't see any obsolete letters in that second one. It's Нарымъ.
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