Dzhe

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Heading=Cyrillic letter Dzhe


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Dzhe (Џ, џ) is a letter of Vuk Karadžić's Cyrillic alphabet reform, used in Serbo-Croatian and Macedonian to represent a Voiced postalveolar affricate IPA|/ʤ/ (like the "J" in English "jump", albeit harder). It corresponds to the digraphs дж or чж or the letters җ, Unicode|ҷ, or Unicode|ӂ from some other Cyrillic alphabets and writing systems.

The name Dzhe is actually a provisional designation, as Serbian letters are not named. When spelling is required, it is pronounced as IPA|/ʤə/. Sometimes, the name Dzherv is used, following the pattern of traditional names such as Cherv for Ч and Djerv or Gjerv for Ћ. In the Latin version of Serbo-Croatian, it is transliterated with the diagraph /dž/ and, like the diagraphs of /lj/ and /nj/, they have their separate entries and are always placed as a single letter in crosswords and other puzzles.

The origin of the letter Dzhe is the 15th century Romanian Cyrillic alphabet. Serbian scribes began using it in the 17th century. [Петар Ђорђић, "Историја српске ћирилице", Београд, 1970, p. 203]

See also

* Dž

References