Shcha (Щ щ; italics: Щ щ), Shta or Sha with descender is a letter of the Cyrillic script. In Russian, it represents the voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative , similar to the pronunciation of in sheep (but longer). In Ukrainian and Rusyn, it represents the consonant cluster , something like cash-chest. In Bulgarian, it represents the consonant cluster . Other non-Slavic languages written in Cyrillic use this letter to spell the few loanwords that use it or foreign names; it is usually pronounced and is often omitted when teaching those languages. In English, Shcha is romanized as or (with háčeks) or occasionally as , all reflecting the historical Russian pronunciation of the letter (as a combined Ш and Ч). English-speaking learners of Russian are often instructed to pronounce it in this way although it is no longer the standard pronunciation in Russian (it still is in Ukrainian and Rusyn, as above). The letter Щ in Russian and Ukrainian corresponds to ШЧ in related words in Belarusian. History The Cyrillic letter Shcha was derived from the Glagolitic letter Shta (). The name in the Early Cyrillic alphabet was (šta) and is preserved in modern Bulgarian; it is pronounced "штъ". This letter was also used in Komi (harder than ч), which is now represented by the digraph тш. Form The form of the letter Shcha is the letter Cyrillic Sha (Ш ш) with a descender (cf. the Cyrillic letters De (Д д), Tse (Ц ц), Ka with descender (Қ қ), and En with descender (Ң ң). Related letters and other similar characters Ш ш : Cyrillic letter Sha С́ с́ : Montenegrin Cyrillic letter Sje Ŝ ŝ : Latin letter Ŝ Ś ś : Latin letter Ś Computing codes See also Mama ŠČ! Transliteration table for romanization of Russian, provides versions (note circumflex vs. caron/háček in ), References External links