Es (С с; italics: ''С с'') is a letter of the

Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...

. It commonly represents the

voiceless alveolar fricative The voiceless alveolar fricatives are a type of fricative consonant pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are at lea ...

, like the pronunciation of in "sand".

History

The Cyrillic letter Es is derived from a variant of the Greek letter Sigma known as ''

lunate sigma Sigma (; uppercase Σ, lowercase σ, lowercase in word-final position ς; grc-gre, σίγμα) is the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 200. In general mathematics, uppercase Σ is used as ...

'' (Ϲ ϲ), in use in the Greek-speaking world in early medieval times. It has no connection to the Latin letter C (C c), which is a descendant of the Greek letter Gamma (Γ γ); however, many languages (for different reasons) apply the value of to the Latin letter C, especially before

front vowels Front may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''The Front'' (1943 film), a 1943 Soviet drama film * ''The Front'', 1976 film Music * The Front (band), an American rock band signed to Columbia Records and active in the 1980s and e ...

''e'' and ''i'' (examples being English, French,

Mexican Spanish Mexican Spanish ( es, español mexicano) is the variety of dialects and sociolects of the Spanish language spoken in Mexican territory. Mexico has the largest number of Spanish speakers, with more than twice as many as in any other country in ...

); see hard and soft C. As its name suggests, Es is related to the Latin S. The name of Es in the

Early Cyrillic alphabet The Early Cyrillic alphabet, also called classical Cyrillic or paleo-Cyrillic, is a writing system that was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the late 9th century on the basis of the Greek alphabet for the Slavic people living ...

was (''slovo''), meaning "word" or "speech". In the

Cyrillic numeral system Cyrillic numerals are a numeral system derived from the Cyrillic script, developed in the First Bulgarian Empire in the late 10th century. It was used in the First Bulgarian Empire and by South and East Slavic peoples. The system was used ...

, Es had a value of 200.

Form

In the modern Latinized Cyrillic fonts in use today, the Cyrillic letter Es looks exactly like the Latin letter C, being one of six letters in the Cyrillic alphabet that share appearances with Latin alphabet letters but are pronounced differently (or at least differently from the most common pronunciation). This fact has been frequently abused by plagiarism detector circumventors.

Usage

As used in the alphabets of various languages, Es represents the following sounds: *

, like the pronunciation of in "sand" * palatalized voiceless alveolar fricative The pronunciations shown in the table are the primary ones for each language; for details consult the articles on the languages.

Related letters and other similar characters

*Σ σ/ς : Greek letter Sigma *S s : Latin letter S *Ѕ ѕ : Cyrillic letter Ѕ *C c : Latin letter C

History

Form

Usage

Related letters and other similar characters

Computing codes

External links

References