Psi (Cyrillic)

Psi (Ѱ, ѱ; italics: Ѱ ѱ) is a letter in the early Cyrillic alphabet, derived from the Greek letter of the same name (Ψ, ψ). It represents the sound /ps/, as in English naps. According to the school rules developed in the 16th and the 17th centuries, such as Meletius Smotrytsky's grammar book, it was intended for use in words of Greek origin, but it was occasionally used for writing native words as well like Ukrainian ѱы (psy, "dogs").^[1] It was used especially in words relating to the Eastern Orthodox Church, as can be seen in its continuing use in Church Slavonic.

Psi
Ѱ ѱ
Usage
Writing system	Cyrillic
Type	Alphabetic
Sound values	/ps/
History
Development	Ψ ψ Ѱ ѱ
Other
Associated numbers	700 (Cyrillic numerals)
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Psi was eliminated from the Russian orthography, along with ksi, omega, and the yuses, in the Civil Script of 1708 (Peter the Great's Grazhdansky Shrift), and it has also been dropped from other secular languages. It continues to be used in Church Slavonic.

Computing codes

Character information

Preview	Ѱ		ѱ
Unicode name	CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER PSI		CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER PSI
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	1136	U+0470	1137	U+0471
UTF-8	209 176	D1 B0	209 177	D1 B1
Numeric character reference	Ѱ	Ѱ	ѱ	ѱ

See also

• Psi (disambiguation), for other meanings.