Tse (Ц ц; italics: ''Ц ц''), also known as Ce, 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 affricate A voiceless alveolar affricate is a type of affricate 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 several ty ...

, similar but not identical to the pronunciation of zz in "pizza" or ts in cats. In the standard Iron dialect of

Ossetic Ossetian (, , ), commonly referred to as Ossetic and rarely as Ossete (), is an Eastern Iranian language that is spoken predominantly in Ossetia, a region situated on both sides of the Greater Caucasus. It is the native language of the Ossetia ...

, it represents the voiceless alveolar sibilant fricative /s/. In other dialects, including Digoron, it has the same value as in Russian. Цц Bad Script

In English, Tse is commonly romanized as . However, in proper names (personal names,

toponyms Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...

, etc.) and titles it may also be rendered as c (which signifies the sound in

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia an ...

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * Czech, ...

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

, Hungarian etc.), z (which signifies the sound in

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

), cz or tz. Its equivalent in the modern Romanian Latin alphabet is ț.

History

Tse is thought to have come from the Hebrew letter Ṣade ⟨⟩, via the

Glagolitic The Glagolitic script (, , ''glagolitsa'') is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is generally agreed to have been created in the 9th century by Saint Cyril, a monk from Thessalonica. He and his brother Saint Methodius were sent by the Byzan ...

letter Tsi (Ⱌ). The name of Tse 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 ...

is (''tsi''). New Church Slavonic and Russian (archaic name) spelling of the name is цы. In modern Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian, the name of the letter is pronounced sɛand spelled це (sometimes цэ) in Russian, це in Ukrainian, and цэ in Belarusian. 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 ...

, 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 Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...

*k in certain positions) and in borrowed words: * as a match for the Latin in words of

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

origin, such as цирк (circus), центр (centre), * for the German and , in words borrowed from

, such as цинк (Zink), плац (Platz), * may correspond to Latin (before vowels), such as сцинтилляция (scintillation). Unlike most other consonants (but like and ), never represents a palatalised consonant in Russian (except occasionally in foreign proper names with or ). Since /i/ after unpalatalised consonants becomes � the combinations and are pronounced identically: sɨ A notable rule of Russian

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...

is that is seldom followed by , with the following exceptions: * the ending - of the

plural The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...

or the genitive case ( птица nominative singular → птицы nominative plural or genitive singular), * possessive suffix - is spelled - after and only then: троицын, курицын, ** the suffix is very popular in Russian last names, but spelling varies and both - and - are possible, Ельцин is an example, * the ending of adjectives - (that becomes -, -, -, - in

declension In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and ...

) such as куцый or бледнолицый, *

conjugation Conjugation or conjugate may refer to: Linguistics * Grammatical conjugation, the modification of a verb from its basic form * Emotive conjugation or Russell's conjugation, the use of loaded language Mathematics * Complex conjugation, the chang ...

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 Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally writte ...

's becomes , and becomes .

Related letters and other similar characters

*צ : Hebrew letter Tsadi *C c : Latin letter C *С с : Cyrillic letter С *Ț ț : Latin letter T with comma below, used in

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language *** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language ** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...

to represent the ssound *Ţ ţ : Latin letter T with cedilla, used in Gagauz to represent that very sound *Ŧ ŧ : Latin letter T with stroke

History

Usage

Russian

Related letters and other similar characters

Computing codes

External links

References