Sha (Cyrillic)

Sha ш; italics: Ш ш) is a letter of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic script. It commonly represents the voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/, like the pronunciation of sh in sheep or the somewhat similar voiceless retroflex fricative /ʂ/ in Russian. More precisely, the sound in Russian denoted by ш is commonly transcribed as a palatoalveolar fricative but is actually a voiceless retroflex fricative. It is used in every variation of the Cyrillic alphabet for Slavic and non-Slavic languages.

Cyrillic letter Sha
Phonetic usage:[ʂ], [ʃ]
The Cyrillic script
Slavic letters
АБВГҐДЂ
ЃЕЀЁЄЖЗ
З́ЅИЍЙІЇ
ЈКЛЉМНЊ
ОŌПРСС́Т
ЋЌУӮЎФХ
ЦЧЏШЩЪЫ
ЬЭЮЯ
Non-Slavic letters
А́А̀ӐА̄А̊А̃Ӓ
Ӓ̄ӔӘӘ́Ә̃ӚВ̌
ҒГ̧Г̑Г̄Г̣Г̌Ҕ
ӺҒ̌ӶԀԂ
Д̆Д̣ԪԬД̆Ӗ
Е̄Е̃Ё̄Є̈ӁҖӜ
ԄҘӞЗ̌З̱З̣Ԑ
Ԑ̈ӠԆӢИ̃ҊӤ
И́ҚӃҠҞҜК̣
ԚӅԮԒԈӍӉ
ҢԨӇҤԊО́О̀
О̆О̂О̃ӦӦ̄ӨӨ̄
Ө́Ө̆ӪҨԤҦР̌
ҎԖҪС̣С̱Т̌Т̣
ҬԎУ̃Ӱ
Ӱ́ӲҮҮ́ҰХ̣Х̱
Х̮Х̑ҲӼӾҺҺ̈
ԦҴҶӴӋҸҼ
ҾЫ̆Ы̄ӸҌЭ̆Э̄
Э̇ӬӬ́Ӭ̄Ю̆Ю̈Ю̈́
Ю̄Я̆Я̄Я̈ԜӀ
Archaic letters
ҀѺ
ОУѠѼѾ
ѢѤѦ
ѪѨѬѮ
ѰѲԌ
ѴѶԘ
ԢԔԠԞ

In English, Sha is romanized as sh or as š, the latter being the equivalent letter in the Latin alphabets of Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Serbian, Macedonian, Croatian, Latvian and Lithuanian.

History

Sha has its earliest origins in Phoenician Shin and is linked closely to Shin's Greek equivalent: Sigma (Σ, σ, ς). (The similar form of the modern Hebrew Shin (ש), which is probably the origin of this letter, derives from the same Proto-Canaanite source). Sha already possessed its current form in Saints Cyril and Methodius's Glagolitic alphabet. Most Cyrillic letter-forms were derived from the Greek, but as there was no Greek sign for the Sha sound (modern Greek uses simply "Σ/σ/ς" to spell the sh-sound in foreign words and names), Glagolitic Sha was adopted unchanged. There is a possibility that Sha was taken from the Coptic alphabet, which is the same as the Greek alphabet but with a few letters added at the end, including one called "shai" (Ϣϣ) which somewhat resembles both sha and shcha (Щ, щ) in appearance.

Use in mathematics

The Cyrillic letter Ш is internationally used in mathematics for several concepts:

In algebraic geometry, the Tate–Shafarevich group of an Abelian variety A over a field K is denoted Ш(A/K), a notation first suggested by J. W. S. Cassels. (Previously it had been denoted TS.)

In a different mathematical context, some authors allude to the shape of the letter Sha when they use the term Shah function for what is otherwise called a Dirac comb.

The shuffle product is often denoted by ш.

Computing codes

Character information
PreviewШш
Unicode nameCYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER SHACYRILLIC SMALL LETTER SHA
Encodingsdecimalhexdecimalhex
Unicode1064U+04281096U+0448
UTF-8208 168D0 A8209 136D1 88
Numeric character referenceШШшш
Named character referenceШш
KOI8-R and KOI8-U251FB219DB
Code page 855246F6245F5
Code page 86615298232E8
Windows-1251216D8248F8
ISO-8859-5200C8232E8
Macintosh Cyrillic15298248F8
  • The dictionary definition of Ш at Wiktionary
  • The dictionary definition of ш at Wiktionary
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