From time to time I have encountered letters that aren't in the modern Church Slavonic alphabet. For the most part, these seem to be variants of other letters or letters from older recensions of the language, but some of them appear in modern editions of liturgical books or in dictionaries. Any information you can give me about these letters would be appreciated.
| Letter | Name | Usage |
|
??? | This seems to be an older form of the letter <zemlja>. It often appears in D'jachenko's dictionary. |
|
??? | This letter appears in modern editions of the gospels and liturgical texts. It appears to be used in exclamations, particularly with the vocative case (e.g. "O Theophilus", Acts 1:1). |
|
??? | This is a variant (older form?) of the letter <uk"> It is used as a numeral to represent the number 400. |
|
??? | This is a pre-iotated version of the letter <est'> |
|
<jus> | This seems to be a letter from an older form of Church Slavonic. |
|
??? | This is a pre-iotated version of <jus malyj> |
|
??? | This is a pre-iotated version of the archaic letter <jus> |
|
<Vzhica> | This is a variant of the letter <Vzhica> that has a special accent mark. It appears to be used only when <Vzhica> is acting as a vowel. |
What are the names of these letters? What is their history? How are/were they used? Anything you can tell me about them would be appreciated.
What is the pronunciation of these letters?
Is the version of <Vzhica> with the special accent used only as a vowel? Is it supposed to be used every time is <Vzhica> is used as a vowel or are there rules governing its use?
What is the relationship between <uk"> and <Vzhica>? It appears that both of them derive from the Greek letter upsilon. How did they become separate letters?