н

En (Н н; italics: Н н) is a letter of the Cyrillic script.

It commonly represents the alveolar nasal consonant /n/, like the pronunciation of ⟨n⟩ in "neat".

History

The Cyrillic letter En was derived from the Greek letter Nu (Ν ν).

The name of En in the Early Cyrillic alphabet was нашь (našĭ), meaning "ours".

In the Cyrillic numeral system, En had a value of 50.

Form

The capital Cyrillic letter En looks very similar to the capital Latin letter H but, as with most Cyrillic letters, the lowercase form is simply a smaller version of the uppercase.

By exception, the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet used N and ɴ,[citation needed] instead of Н and н.

Coincidentally, the Cyrillic letter I ⟨И⟩, which looks like a reversed Latin ⟨N⟩, was derived from the Greek letter Eta ⟨Η⟩ while the Cyrillic letter En ⟨Н⟩ was derived from the Greek letter Nu ⟨Ν⟩ which looks like a reversed Cyrillic ⟨И⟩.

Usage

As used in the alphabets of various languages, En represents the following sounds:

• alveolar nasal consonant /n/, like the pronunciation of ⟨n⟩ in "nice"
• dental nasal consonant /n̪/, as above but with the tip of the tongue on the teeth
• palatalized alveolar nasal consonant /nʲ/, like the pronunciation of ⟨n⟩ in "onion"
• palatalized dental nasal consonant /n̪ʲ/, as above but with the tip of the tongue on the teeth
• palatal nasal consonant /ɲ/

The pronunciations shown in the table are the primary ones for each language; for details consult the articles on the languages.

Related letters and other similar characters

• Ν ν : Greek letter Nu
• N n : Latin letter N
• Њ њ : Cyrillic letter Nje
• Η η : Greek letter Eta
• H h : Latin letter H
• ʜ : Latin letter small capital H

Computing codes

External links

• The dictionary definition of Н at Wiktionary
• The dictionary definition of н at Wiktionary