Tse (Cyrillic)

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Cyrillic letter Tse
Cyrillic letter Tse - uppercase and lowercase.svg
Numeric value:900
Phonetic usage:[ts]
The Cyrillic script
Slavic letters
АБВГҐДЂ
ЃЕЀЁЄЖЗ
З́ЅИЍІЇЙ
ЈКЛЉМНЊ
ОПРСС́ТЋ
ЌУЎФХЦЧ
ЏШЩЪЫЬЭ
ЮЯ
Non-Slavic letters
А́А̀ӐА̄А̊А̃Ӓ
Ӓ̄В̌ӘӘ́Ә̃ӚӔ
ҒГ̧Г̑Г̄Г̣Г̌Ҕ
ӺҒ̌ӶԀԂ
Д̆Д̣ԪԬД̆Ӗ
Е̄Е̃Ё̄Є̈ӁҖ
ӜԄҘӞЗ̌З̱З̣
ԐԐ̈ӠԆӢИ̃Ҋ
ӤИ́ҚӃҠҞҜ
ԞК̣ԚӅԮԒԠ
ԈԔӍӉҢԨӇ
ҤԢԊО́О̀О̆О̂
О̃О̄ӦӦ̄ӨӨ̄Ө́
Ө̆ӪҨԤҦР̌Ҏ
ԖҪС̣С̱ԌТ̌Т̣
ҬԎУ̃Ӯ
ӰӰ́ӲҮҮ́ҰХ̣
Х̱Х̮Х̑ҲӼӾҺ
Һ̈ԦҴҶӴ
ӋҸҼҾ
Ы̆Ы̄ӸҌЭ̆Э̄Э̇
ӬӬ́Ӭ̄Ю̆Ю̈Ю̈́Ю̄
Я̆Я̄Я̈ԘԜӀ
Archaic letters
ҀѺ
ѸѠѼѾ
ѢѤѦ
ѪѨѬѮ
ѰѲѴѶ

Tse (Ц ц; italics: Ц ц), also known as Ce, is a letter of the Cyrillic script.

It commonly represents the voiceless alveolar affricate /ts/, like the pronunciation of zz in "pizza".

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 ts. However, in proper names (personal names, toponyms, etc.) and titles it may also be rendered as c (which signifies the sound in Serbo-Croatian, Czech, Hungarian etc.), z (which signifies the sound in Italian and German), cz or tz. Its equivalent in the modern Romanian Latin alphabet is ț.

History[edit]

Tse is thought to have come from the Hebrew letter Ṣadeצ⟩, via the Glagolitic letter Tsi ⟨Ⱌ⟩.

The name of Tse in the Early Cyrillic alphabet is ци (tsi). New Church Slavonic and Russian spelling of the name is цы. In Ukrainian and Belorussian its spelling is tse (це and цэ respectively).

In the Cyrillic numeral system, Tse has a value of 900.

Usage[edit]

Russian[edit]

It is the 24th (if Yo is included) letter of the Russian alphabet. It is used both in native Slavic words (and corresponds to Proto-Indo-European *k in certain positions) and in borrowed words:

  • as a match for the Latin ⟨c⟩ in words of Latin origin, such as цирк (circus), центр (centre),
  • for the German ⟨z⟩ and ⟨tz⟩, in words borrowed from German, such as цинк (Zink), плац (Platz),
  • ⟨ци⟩ may correspond to Latin ⟨ti⟩ (before vowels), such as сцинтилляция (scintillation).

Unlike most other consonants (but like ⟨ж⟩ and ⟨ш⟩), ⟨ц⟩ never represents a palatalised consonant in Russian (except occasionally in foreign proper names with ⟨ця⟩ or ⟨цю⟩). Since /i/ after unpalatalised consonants becomes [ɨ], the combinations ⟨ци⟩ and ⟨цы⟩ are pronounced identically: [tsɨ]. A notable rule of Russian orthography is that ⟨ц⟩ is seldom followed by ⟨ы⟩, with the following exceptions:

  • the ending -⟨ы⟩ of the plural number or the genitive case (птица nominative singular → птицы nominative plural or genitive singular),
  • possessive suffix -⟨ин⟩ is spelled -⟨ын⟩ after ⟨ц⟩ and only then: троицын, курицын,
    • the suffix is very popular in Russian last names, but spelling varies and both -⟨цын⟩ and -⟨цин⟩ are possible, Ельцин is an example,
  • the ending of adjectives -⟨ый⟩ (that becomes -⟨ые⟩, -⟨ым⟩, -⟨ыми⟩, -⟨ых⟩ in declension) such as куцый or бледнолицый,
  • conjugation of a vulgar verb сцать (сцы, сцым, сцыт, сцыте, сцышь) and its prefixed derivatives,
  • a few other word roots: цыган, цык- (цыкать, цыкнуть), цып- (цыплёнок, цыпки, цыпочки, цып-цып), цыц,
    • pre-1956 lists contain words such as цыбик, цыбуля, цыгарка, цыдулка, цыкля, цымбалы, цымес, цынга, цыновка, цынубель, цырюльня, цытварный, цыфирь, панцырь etc. (examples taken from Ya. S. Khomutov's spelling dictionary, 1927 but now all those words are spelled with -ци-),
  • Pinyin's ⟨ci⟩ becomes ⟨цы⟩, and ⟨qi⟩ becomes ⟨ци⟩.

Related letters and other similar characters[edit]

Computing codes[edit]

Character Ц ц
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER TSE CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER TSE
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 1062 U+0426 1094 U+0446
UTF-8 208 166 D0 A6 209 134 D1 86
Numeric character reference Ц Ц ц ц
KOI8-R and KOI8-U 227 E3 195 C3
Code page 855 165 A5 164 A4
Code page 866 150 96 230 E6
Windows-1251 214 D6 246 F6
ISO-8859-5 198 C6 230 E6
Macintosh Cyrillic 150 96 246 F6

External links[edit]

  • The dictionary definition of Ц at Wiktionary
  • The dictionary definition of ц at Wiktionary