Dze

Dze ѕ) is a letter of the Cyrillic script, used in the Macedonian alphabet to represent the voiced alveolar affricate /dz/, like the pronunciation of ⟨ds⟩ in "needs". It is derived from the letter dzelo or zelo of the Early Cyrillic alphabet, and it was used historically for Old Church Slavonic, Ukrainian, Russian, and Romanian.

Cyrillic letter Dze
Phonetic usage:[dz]
Numeric value:6
The Cyrillic script
Slavic letters
АБВГҐДЂ
ЃЕЀЁЄЖЗ
З́ЅИЍЙІЇ
ЈКЛЉМНЊ
ОŌПРСС́Т
ЋЌУӮЎФХ
ЦЧЏШЩЪЫ
ЬЭЮЯ
Non-Slavic letters
А́А̀ӐА̄А̊А̃Ӓ
Ӓ̄ӔӘӘ́Ә̃ӚВ̌
ҒГ̧Г̑Г̄Г̣Г̌Ҕ
ӺҒ̌ӶԀԂ
Д̆Д̣ԪԬД̆Ӗ
Е̄Е̃Ё̄Є̈ӁҖ
ӜԄҘӞЗ̌З̱З̣
ԐԐ̈ӠԆӢИ̃Ҋ
ӤИ́ҚӃҠҞҜ
ԞК̣ԚӅԮԒԠ
ԈԔӍӉҢԨӇ
ҤԢԊО́О̀О̆О̂
О̃ӦӦ̄ӨӨ̄Ө́Ө̆
ӪҨԤҦР̌ҎԖ
ҪС̣С̱ԌТ̌Т̣
ҬԎУ̃ӰӰ́
ӲҮҮ́ҰХ̣Х̱Х̮
Х̑ҲӼӾҺҺ̈Ԧ
ҴҶӴӋҸ
ҼҾЫ̆Ы̄
ӸҌЭ̆Э̄Э̇ӬӬ́
Ӭ̄Ю̆Ю̈Ю̈́Ю̄Я̆Я̄
Я̈ԘԜӀ
Archaic letters
ҀѺ
ОУѠѼѾ
ѢѤѦ
ѪѨѬѮ
ѰѲѴѶ

Although fully obsolete everywhere in the Cyrillic world by the 19th century, the letter zelo was revived in 1944 by the designers of the alphabet of the then-codified Macedonian dialect of Bulgarian. The phoneme is also present in Greek (ΤΖ τζ) and Albanian (X x), both non-Slavic neighbours to the Macedonian language, all are a part of the Balkan linguistic area.[1] In the early 21st century, the same letter also appeared in Vojislav Nikčević's proposal for the new alphabet for the modern Montenegrin language.

The most common early letterform (Ѕ ѕ) resembles the Latin letter S (S s), but it is also seen reversed ( ) like the Latin letter Reversed S ƨ), or with a tail and a tick ( ).

Abkhaz has Abkhazian Dze ӡ), with an identical function and name but a different shape.

Origin

The letter is descended from ѕѣло (pronounced dzělo; ) in the Early Cyrillic alphabet, where it had the numerical value 6. The letter Dzělo was itself based on the letter Dzelo in the Glagolitic alphabet. In the Glagolitic alphabet, it was written , and had the numerical value of 8. In Old Church Slavonic it was called ѕѣло (pronounced dzeló), and in Church Slavonic it is called ѕѣлѡ (pronounced zeló).

The origin of Glagolitic letter Dzelo is unclear, but the Cyrillic Ѕ may have been influenced by the Greek stigma Ϛ, the medieval form of the archaic letter digamma, which had the same form and numerical value (6). Thus the visual similarity of the Cyrillic Ѕ and Latin S is largely coincidental.

Development

The initial sound of Ѕ in Old Church Slavonic was a soft /dz/ or /z/, which often corresponds in cognates to a /ɡ/ sound in modern Russian, as in мъноѕи (Russian: много), по ноѕѣ (Russian: нога), and растрьѕати (Russian: расторгать). However, already in the Old Slavic period the difference between Ѕ and З began to be blurred, and in the written Church Slavonic language from the middle of the 17th century Ѕ was used only formally. The letter's distinguishing features from З are[2]

The seven root words commencing with the letter dze (aka, dzelo).
  • Ѕ is used in root derived from these seven words beginning with Ѕ: ѕвѣзда, ѕвѣрь, ѕеліе, ѕлакъ, ѕлый, ѕмій, ѕѣлѡ;
  • З is used in all remaining cases.
  • Ѕ has the numerical value of 6, whereas З has the numerical value of 7;

In Russian it was known as зѣло or zelo [zʲɪˈɫo] and had the phonetic value of /dz/, /z/ or /zʲ/.

In the initial version of Russian civil script of Tsar Peter I (1708), the Ѕ was assigned the sound /z/, and the letter З was abolished. However, in the second version of the civil script (1710), З was restored, and Ѕ was abolished. Both versions of the alphabet were used until 1735, which is considered the date of the final elimination of Ѕ in Russian.

See also Reforms of Russian orthography.

Ѕ was used in the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet (where it represented /dz/) until the alphabet was abolished in favor of a Latin-based alphabet in 1860-62. Ѕ was also used—albeit rarely—to the middle of the 19th century in the Serbian civil script, whose orthography was closer to Church Slavonic (compared to Russian). Vuk Karadžić's Serbian Cyrillic alphabet (1868) did not include Ѕ, instead favoring the digraph ДЗ to represent /dz/.

In Ukrainian, the sound /d͡z/ is integrated as part of the language's phonology, but it mainly occurs in loanwords rather than in words of native Ukrainian origin. As such, the digraph ДЗ is used to represent both the phoneme /d͡z/ and the separately occurring consonant cluster |d.z| which Ukrainian phonotactics assimilate as /d͡z.z/.

Usage

Ѕ is now only used in the Macedonian alphabet. A commission formed to standardize the Macedonian language and orthography decided to adopt the letter on December 4, 1944, after a vote of 10-1. The letter represents /dz/ (examples including: ѕид/dzid, 'wall' and ѕвезда/dzvezda, 'star'). The corresponding sound is used in all dialects of Macedonian.

Ѕ is also included in Microsoft's Serbian Cyrillic keyboard layout, although it is not used in the Serbian Cyrillic Alphabet. The Serbian keyboard in Ubuntu replaces Ѕ with a second Ж.

Computing codes

Character information
PreviewЅѕ
Unicode nameCYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER DZECYRILLIC SMALL LETTER DZECYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER REVERSED DZECYRILLIC SMALL LETTER REVERSED DZECYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER DZELOCYRILLIC SMALL LETTER DZELO
Encodingsdecimalhexdecimalhexdecimalhexdecimalhexdecimalhexdecimalhex
Unicode1029U+04051109U+045542564U+A64442565U+A64542562U+A64242563U+A643
UTF-8208 133D0 85209 149D1 95234 153 132EA 99 84234 153 133EA 99 85234 153 130EA 99 82234 153 131EA 99 83
Numeric character referenceЅЅѕѕꙄꙄꙅꙅꙂꙂꙃꙃ
Named character referenceЅѕ
Code page 8551378913688
Windows-1251189BD190BE
ISO-8859-5165A5245F5
Macintosh Cyrillic193C1207CF

See also

References

  1. Dontchev Daskalov, Roumen; Marinov, Tchavdar (2013), Entangled Histories of the Balkans: Volume One: National Ideologies and Language Policies, Balkan Studies Library, BRILL, p. 454, ISBN 900425076X
  2. Gamanovich, Alypy (1964), Грамматика Церковно-Славянскаго Языка (Grammar of the Church Slavonic Language), Jordanville, New York: Printing shop of St. Job of Pochaev, Holy Trinity Monastery (published 1984), ISBN 978-0-88465-064-5
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