Tse (Cyrillic)

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

Cyrillic letter Tse
Phonetic usage:[ts]
Numeric value:900
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

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

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

Russian

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.

Computing codes

Character information
PreviewЦц
Unicode nameCYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER TSECYRILLIC SMALL LETTER TSE
Encodingsdecimalhexdecimalhex
Unicode1062U+04261094U+0446
UTF-8208 166D0 A6209 134D1 86
Numeric character referenceЦЦцц
Named character referenceЦц
KOI8-R and KOI8-U227E3195C3
Code page 855165A5164A4
Code page 86615096230E6
Windows-1251214D6246F6
ISO-8859-5198C6230E6
Macintosh Cyrillic15096246F6
  • The dictionary definition of Ц at Wiktionary
  • The dictionary definition of ц at Wiktionary
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