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Š

The grapheme Š, š (Latin S with háček) is used in various contexts, usually denoting the voiceless postalveolar fricative [ʃ].

Primary usage

The symbol originates with the 15th century Czech alphabet as introduced by the reforms of Jan Hus. From there, it was adopted into the Croatian alphabet by Ljudevit Gaj in 1830, and it also figures in the Slovenian and Bosnian alphabets. In Slovak, it represents /ʂ/.

It is also used in Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian and Northern Sotho, also denoting /ʃ/. It is also used in Finnish in loan words.

Transliteration

It is the romanisation of Cyrillic ш in ISO 9 and scientific transliteration as well as in Macedonian, Bulgarian and Serbian. It may also be used in transliteration of Ukranian.

The grapheme also transliterates cuneiform orthography of Sumerian and Akkadian /ʃ/ or /ʧ/, and (based on Akkadian orthography) the Hittite /s/ phoneme, as well as the /ʃ/ phoneme of Semitic languages, transliterating shin (Phoenician and its descendants), the direct predecessor of Cyrillic ш.

See also

• Esh (letter)
• Caron
• ш
• Shin (letter)