Thread: What is "u" in russian?

Watching an English movie with russian subs. Keeps using "U" as a russian letter. Never seen this before. What is it?


Also what is the backwards "s"?

Here's a picture:
http://i.imgur.com/CWyXbcf.jpg

It is "и". Used in handwriting.

Originally Posted by alexsms

It is "и". Used in handwriting.

And the backwards S?

that's the equivalent table Russian Alphabet with Sound and Handwriting

it's "г" as in "голова"

Don't understand why и is written as U. Makes no sense -.-

Originally Posted by Venom

Don't understand why и is written as U. Makes no sense -.-

It is written so as not to confuse it with the handwritten "п" or "н" (for me it makes perfect sence - you only have to practise writing in Russian to understand it).

Originally Posted by Venom

Don't understand why и is written as U. Makes no sense -.-

Compare with Latin letters. They also change their shape in italic fonts:

Originally Posted by Soft sign

Compare with Latin letters. They also change their shape in italic fonts:

Amazing! Never noticed it!

Russian handwriting differs from type letters. Probably the system developed so that to make it write faster.

These are standard italic letter shapes:

i was going to say that it is the font, but it could be italic. but ye it is not easy to read even for me. i’ve no idea, but todays you can get subtitled movies and all sort of fonts. it’s not all that unusual. i mean it is only the font, the letters are still the same.

A bit off-topic, but still...

Originally Posted by Eric C.

A bit off-topic, but still...

Originally Posted by Eric C.

A bit off-topic, but still...

A bit more off-topic and a bit less seen example: мщу и лицу look the same too.

Originally Posted by Qwerty

A bit more off-topic and a bit less seen example: мщу и лицу look the same too.

By the way, the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet has different italic shapes of some letters:

regular:
Russian italic:
Serbian italic:

E. g.: