Psi (Ѱ, ѱ; italics: Ѱ ѱ) is a letter in the early Cyrillic alphabet, derived from the Greek letter of the same name (Ψ, ψ). It represents the sound /ps/, as in English naps. According to the school rules developed in the 16th and the 17th centuries, such as Meletius Smotrytsky's grammar book, it was intended for use in words of Greek origin, but it was occasionally used for writing native words as well like Ukrainian ѱы (psy, "dogs").[1] It was used especially in words relating to the Eastern Orthodox Church, as can be seen in its continuing use in Church Slavonic.
| Psi | |
|---|---|
| Ѱ ѱ | |
 | |
| Usage | |
| Writing system | Cyrillic |
| Type | Alphabetic |
| Sound values | /ps/ |
| History | |
| Development | Ψ ψ
|
| Other | |
| Associated numbers | 700 (Cyrillic numerals) |
Psi was eliminated from the Russian orthography, along with ksi, omega, and the yuses, in the Civil Script of 1708 (Peter the Great's Grazhdansky Shrift), and it has also been dropped from other secular languages. It continues to be used in Church Slavonic.
Computing codes
edit| Preview | Ѱ | ѱ | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER PSI | CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER PSI | ||
| Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex |
| Unicode | 1136 | U+0470 | 1137 | U+0471 |
| UTF-8 | 209 176 | D1 B0 | 209 177 | D1 B1 |
| Numeric character reference | Ѱ |
Ѱ |
ѱ |
ѱ |
See also
edit- Psi (disambiguation), for other meanings.
Notes
edit- ^ Simovyč 1963, p 515a.
References
edit- Cyrillic alphabet (Кириллица) at Omniglot
- Simovyč, V. and J.B. Rudnycky, "The History of Ukrainian Orthography", in Kubijovyč, Volodymyr ed. (1963), Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopædia, v 1. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-3105-6.