Omega (Cyrillic)

In the alphabet of the glagolitic omega (called only “from” in it) takes the 25th position (after the letter X ). In the Old Slavonic Cyrillic alphabet, the account is 24th (also stands after X). In the Church Slavonic alphabet, it is difficult to talk about the specific position of this letter: it has several forms that in different publications can fit in the alphabet in different ways (or even be absent) and relate to each other and other letters in different ways. Most often, after X they put a ligature Ѿ and call it “from”, and actually omega (calling it “o”, which does not cause confusion, since the “real” letter O is called “he”) or they declare a variant of the letter O and put it with the last in the same place, or they make a separate letter of the alphabet between O and P. According to another (more ancient) system, the omega is placed not near O, but at the end of the alphabet, in front of other Greek letters, or a little earlier, between Ꙗ and Ѧ . There are other options.

The use of the Greek name “omega” for the letter of Slavic alphabets is a relatively late phenomenon and is used mainly in the paleographic and typographic context.

In Old Slavonic, omega in sound does not differ from the usual letter O; the use of one or another of these letters was determined by aesthetic considerations and free space in the line (of course, with the exception of the numerical use of letters). A fairly early tradition developed to write through omega a combination of at the beginning of a word, while putting letters on top of each other; thus came the sign возник , which is often considered a letter.

In birch bark letters and a number of other monuments of everyday writing, omega is used in the XI-XIV centuries mainly as part of the preposition "ot" (sometimes also the union "ot") and an abbreviated record under the title of John . Starting from the XIV century , the use of omega at the beginning of a word and after a vowel (in a similar function speaks broad ) is common in birch bark letters, while a horizontal line and / or dots can be placed above the omega.

Gradually developed and received special functions and other variations of the style, which at the moment in the Church Slavonic writing can be counted up to five:

• plain omega   ;
• Wide omega   ;
• ligature "from"   ;
• omega with a title   ;
• ("Wide") omega with a great apostrophe   .

The use of these signs usually follows these basic rules:

• the letter-ligature "from" is always used for the preposition from and the prefix from - , and nowhere else;
• “Wide” omega is used for exclamation words “Oh!” And “Ole!”, And nowhere else (about one possible ^{[ what? ]} exception, see the next paragraph); at the same time, it stands above it only in this case, the used superscript - the great apostrophe :   ;
• through omega (usually an ordinary, but there is also a rarely used Western system to use "wide") those borrowed words are written where omega is in Greek (and due to the fact that among the Greeks omega and omicron can alternate during word formation and even with declension, sometimes there is an ambiguity in the choice of the Slavic writing option; in some cases, the practice of Kiev and Moscow publishers here traditionally does not coincide);
• through omega prepositions o and o and corresponding prefixes are written (but if the prefix is ​​not obvious, as in the word necklace , or it interacted with the root, as in the word region (about + power), then O often remains);
• omega at the end are adverbs ( red verbs ), and adjectives of the secondary genus are O ( red sun );
• the endings of the pronouns and adjectives -ago, -ago, -go, -go are written with omega in the genitive and with O in the accusative;
• the plural endings -ov and -om are written with omega: without kedrѡv , ked kedrѡ (to cedars), but in the singular the homonymous forms have O : stol cedar (cedar), eat cedar ;
• if the noun or adjective has the plural form, which sounds the same as some form of the singular, then in the plural O is replaced by omega ( unified horn - without horn dwang ).

As a numerical sign, the ligature letter “from” is usually used, but omega can also be used. At the same time, the superscript T of the “from” mark sometimes makes it difficult to put a title sign above it, and because of this, the same number can be printed in different ways:

• with regular omega instead of "from";
• with a title sign not above “from”, but above another letter of the number (usually to the right);
• no title sign at all;
• “By the rules” - with a title above “from”.

Omega was not included in the civilian font , although the corresponding test letters were ordered by order of Peter I. Accordingly, in no language that uses the civilian Cyrillic alphabet is not included in the alphabet (although it was used, like other elements of Church Slavonic spelling, to print books in Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, and other languages).

Using the name “omega” or “round omega” for a wide inscription of the letter “he” (Ѻ, ѻ) is incorrect - this is another letter with a different numerical value (70 in Cyrillic, 80 in Glagolitic).

Unicode characters with the names “ cyrillic capital letter omega with titlo ” and “ cyrillic small letter omega with titlo ” actually represent an omega with a great apostrophe   (February 14, 2007, the sign design was accordingly changed, see the list of amendments to the standard ). For a real omega with a title   uses a standard combination of omega and diacritic “titlo” ( combining cyrillic titlo , U + 0483).

• List of Cyrillic letters
• Glossary of Church Slavonic writing .