Zhe (Cyrillic)

Zhe (Ж ж; italics: Ж ж) is a letter of the Cyrillic script.

Cyrillic letter Zhe
Phonetic usage:[ʐ], [ʒ]
The Cyrillic script
Slavic letters
АБВГҐДЂ
ЃЕЀЁЄЖЗ
З́ЅИЍЙІЇ
ЈКЛЉМНЊ
ОŌПРСС́Т
ЋЌУӮЎФХ
ЦЧЏШЩЪЫ
ЬЭЮЯ
Non-Slavic letters
А́А̀ӐА̄А̊А̃Ӓ
Ӓ̄ӔӘӘ́Ә̃ӚВ̌
ҒГ̧Г̑Г̄Г̣Г̌Ҕ
ӺҒ̌ӶԀԂꚂꚀ
ꚈД̆Д̣ԪԬД̆Ӗ
Е̄Е̃Ё̄Є̈ӁҖꚄ
ӜԄҘӞЗ̌З̱З̣
ԐԐ̈ӠԆӢИ̃Ҋ
ӤИ́ҚӃҠҞҜ
ԞК̣ԚӅԮԒԠ
ԈԔӍӉҢԨӇ
ҤԢԊО́О̀О̆О̂
О̃ӦӦ̄ӨӨ̄Ө́Ө̆
ӪҨԤҦР̌ҎԖ
ҪС̣С̱ԌТ̌Т̣Ꚑ
ҬꚊꚌԎУ̃ӰӰ́
ӲҮҮ́ҰХ̣Х̱Х̮
Х̑ҲӼӾҺҺ̈Ԧ
ꚔҴꚎҶӴӋҸ
ꚒꚖꚆҼҾЫ̆Ы̄
ӸҌЭ̆Э̄Э̇ӬӬ́
Ӭ̄Ю̆Ю̈Ю̈́Ю̄Я̆Я̄
Я̈ԘԜӀ
Archaic letters
ꙀꙂꙄꙆꙈҀѺ
ОУꙊѠѼꙌѾꙎ
ѢꙐꙒꙔꙖѤѦ
ꙘѪꙚѨꙜѬѮ
ѰѲѴѶꙞꙠꙢ
ꙤꙦꙨꙪꙬꙮꚘ
Ꚛ

It commonly represents the voiced palato-alveolar sibilant /ʒ/ (listen), or the somewhat similar voiced retroflex sibilant /ʐ/ (listen), like the pronunciation of ⟨s⟩ in "treasure".

Zhe is romanized as ⟨zh⟩ or ⟨ž⟩.

History

It is not known how the character for Zhe was derived. No similar letter exists in Greek, Latin or any other alphabet of the time, though there is some graphic similarity with its Glagolitic counterpart Zhivete ⟨Ⰶ⟩ (Image: ) which represents the same sound. However, the origin of Zhivete, like that of most Glagolitic letters, is unclear. One possibility is that it was formed from two connecting Hebrew letters Shin ⟨ש⟩, the bottom one inverted.

In the Early Cyrillic alphabet the name of Zhe was живѣтє (živěte), meaning "live" (imperative).

Zhe was not used in the Cyrillic numeral system.

Usage

Zhe is used in the alphabets of all Slavic languages using a Cyrillic alphabet, and of most non-Slavic languages which use a Cyrillic alphabet. The position in the alphabet and the sound represented by the letter vary from language to language.

LanguagePosition in
alphabet		Represented soundRomanization
Belarusian8thvoiced retroflex fricative /ʐ/ž
Bulgarian7thvoiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/zh
Macedonian8thvoiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/zh
Russian8thvoiced retroflex fricative /ʐ/zh
Serbian8thvoiced retroflex fricative /ʐ/ž
Ukrainian9thvoiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/ž
Uzbek (1940–1994)8thvoiced postalveolar affricate /dʒ/ or voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/ (in Russian loanwords only)j
Mongolian8thvoiceless postalveolar affricate /tʃ/j
Kyrgyz8thvoiced postalveolar affricate /dʒ/j
Dungan8thvoiced retroflex fricative /ʐ/r
other non-Slavic languagesvoiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/

Zhe can also be used in Leet speak or faux Cyrillic in place of the letter ⟨x⟩, or to represent the symbol of the rap duo Kris Kross (a ligature of two back-to-back letter K's).

Transliteration

Ж is most often transliterated as the digraph ⟨zh⟩ for English-language readers (as in Doctor Zhivago, Доктор Живаго, or Georgy Zhukov, Георгий Жуков). In linguistics and for Central European readers, it is most often transliterated as ⟨ž⟩, with a háček. The scientific transliteration convention comes from Czech spelling and is also used in the Latin alphabets of several other Slavic languages (Slovak, Sorbian, Serbo-Croatian and Slovene). Thus, Leonid Brezhnev's surname (Леонид Брежнев) could be transliterated as "Brežnev", as it is spelled in a number of Slavic languages. Polish uses its own convention for transliteration of Cyrillic according to which ж is transliterated with the Polish letter ż (which is pronounced /ʐ/ in Polish). Ж is often transliterated ⟨j⟩ in Mongolian because of its pronunciation as IPA: [t͡ʃ].

Computing codes
Character information
PreviewЖж
Unicode nameCYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER ZHECYRILLIC SMALL LETTER ZHE
Encodingsdecimalhexdecimalhex
Unicode1046U+04161078U+0436
UTF-8208 150D0 96208 182D0 B6
Numeric character referenceЖЖжж
Named character referenceЖж
KOI8-R and KOI8-U246F6214D6
Code page 855234EA233E9
Code page 86613486166A6
Windows-1251198C6230E6
ISO-8859-5182B6214D6
Macintosh Cyrillic13486230E6
  • The dictionary definition of Ж at Wiktionary
  • The dictionary definition of ж at Wiktionary
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