How it works
The Ukrainian alphabet to copy and paste: the 33 Cyrillic letters as capitals, then as small letters, then the apostrophe and the pairs дж and дз.
Read the full guide
Г, Ґ and the two letters i
Г is /ɦ/ and is written h in Latin letters. The hard g of egg is the less common sound and has a letter of its own, Ґ, which was banned in Soviet Ukraine from 1933 to 1990. И is the i of mitt and becomes y in Latin letters; І is the ee of meet.
The soft sign and the apostrophe
Neither has a sound of its own. The soft sign Ь softens the consonant before it: кінь, horse. The apostrophe does the opposite and keeps the consonant hard: м'ясо, meat. Russian uses its hard sign there: Ukrainian об'єкт is объект in Russian.
- Щ is two sounds in one letter, /ʃt͡ʃ/: the shch of fresh cherries.
- Until 1990 the soft sign Ь stood at the end of the alphabet. It now comes before Ю.
- Дж and дз each write one sound with two letters, as in бджола, bee, and дзвоник, bell.
Questions and answers
How many letters are in the Ukrainian alphabet?
33: 21 consonants, 10 vowels, the semivowel Й and the soft sign. The apostrophe is required in spelling but is not counted as a letter.
Is the Ukrainian alphabet Cyrillic?
Yes. The Ukrainian Cyrillic alphabet is one of several national variations of the Cyrillic script. Latin alphabets for Ukrainian have been proposed more than once, and none has caught on.
Which Ukrainian letters are not in the Russian alphabet?
Four: Ґ, Є, І and Ї. Russian in turn has four that the Ukrainian alphabet does without: Ё, Ъ, Ы and Э.
How is the Ukrainian alphabet written by hand?
The tiles show the printed letters. Handwritten cursive forms vary somewhat from them, particularly г, д, и, й and т, and in italic type the small п changes shape as well.
How are Ukrainian letters written in Latin letters?
The tiles carry the Ukrainian National system, the official one, which needs no accents. Є, Ї, Й, Ю and Я are ye, yi, y, yu and ya at the start of a word and ie, i, i, iu and ia elsewhere.