Ot (Ѿ ѿ; italics:
''Ѿ ѿ'') is a letter of 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 ...
. Though it originated as a
ligature
Ligature may refer to:
* Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture used to shut off a blood vessel or other anatomical structure
** Ligature (orthodontic), used in dentistry
* Ligature (music), an element of musical notation used especially in the me ...
of the letters
Omega
Omega (; capital: Ω, lowercase: ω; Ancient Greek ὦ, later ὦ μέγα, Modern Greek ωμέγα) is the twenty-fourth and final letter in the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system/ isopsephy ( gematria), it has a value of 800. The ...
(Ѡ ѡ) and
Te (Т т), it functions as a discrete letter of the alphabet, placed between х and ц. This can be seen in the first printed Cyrillic abecedarium (illustrated), and continues in modern usage.
[Иеромонах Алипий, Грамматика церковно-славянского языка, Saint Petersburg, 1997, p. 17]
Ot is used in
Church Slavonic to represent the preposition отъ 'from' and prefix от-. It does not stand for this sequence of letters in any other context, nor can the sequence от be substituted for it where it does occur. It is used with a similar purpose in mediaeval manuscripts of other
Slavonic languages written with the Cyrillic alphabet. In printed books ѿ is often used in preference to (ѡ҃) for the numeral 800.
Computing codes
References
{{reflist
Cyrillic ligatures