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Русский язык Russian
Family	Sub-family	Language of	Script
Indo-European	East Slavic	Russia, Ukraine, Belarus Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova United Nations	Cyrillic

This page is about the Russian alphabet.

Letters

The Russian alphabet has 33 letters. There are 10 vowel letters, 21 consonant letters and 2 signs whose purpose is to mark either palatised or unpalatised preceding consonants.

Letter	Pronunciation	Comments
А а	/a/
Б б	/b/, /bʲ/
В в	/v/, /vʲ/
Г г	/ɡ/, /gʲ/
Д д	/d/, /dʲ/
Е е	/jɛ/, / ʲɛ/
Ё ё	/jɔ/, / ʲɔ/
Ж ж	/ʐ/	Ж can never get palatised.
З з	/z/, /zʲ/
И и	/i/, / ʲi/
Й й	/j/	Й is always palatised.
К к	/k/, /kʲ/
Л л	/l/, /lʲ/
М м	/m/, /mʲ/
Н н	/n/, /nʲ/
О о	/ɔ/
П п	/p/, /pʲ/
Р р	/r/, /rʲ/
С с	/s/, /sʲ/
Т т	/t/, /tʲ/
У у	/u/
Ф ф	/f/, /fʲ/	Ф is usually not found in native Russian words and is normally at the beginning of a word only.
Х х	/x/, /ɕ/	/ɕ/ appears only after И.
Ц ц	/t͡s/	Ц can never get palatised.
Ч ч	/t͡ɕ/	Ч is always palatised.
Ш ш	/ʂ/	Ш can never get palatised.
Щ щ	/ɕː/, [ɕt͡ɕa]	Щ is always palatised. [ɕt͡ɕa] is an older pronunciation but now considered belonging to an extremely high register. It is hardly used anymore.
Ъ ъ	none	This sign makes sure a precending consonant does not get palatised. It can never be at the beginning of a word.
Ы ы	/ɨ/	Ы is never be at the beginning of a word.
Ь ь	/ʲ/	Ь is named "soft sign". Its whole purpose is to mark a preceding palatised consonant. It can never be at the beginning of a word.
Э э	/ɛ/	Э is usually not found in native Russian words and is normally at the beginning of a word only.
Ю ю	/ju/, / ʲu/
Я я	/ja/, / ʲa/

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Russian pages
Introduction · Adpositions · Gender · Lexicon · Pronouns · Sounds and Writing · Verbs

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