EZH Meaning and
Definition
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Ezh is a letter in the Cyrillic script, primarily used in the Russian language and other languages that are written in Cyrillic. It is a phonetic and alphabetic character that represents the sound [ʒ], which is similar to the "zh" sound in the English word "treasure".
The letter ezh resembles a Latin lowercase "3" with a horizontal line in the middle. It is derived from the Greek letter Zeta, and it has no equivalent in the Latin alphabet. Ezh is classified as a voiced postalveolar fricative, which means it is produced by vibrating the vocal cords and constricting the airflow between the tongue and the ridge behind the teeth.
In Russian, ezh often occurs in loanwords from other languages, especially French words such as mirazh (mirage), ženevskij (Genevan), and limuzin (limousine). It may also be used to represent the /ʒ/ sound in some Russian surnames, like Ezhov or Ezhikov.
The letter ezh is crucial for accurately representing the vowel harmony in Turkic languages like Tatar and Bashkir, where it distinguishes between the sounds [ʒ] and [ʑ] within the same phonetic environment. Moreover, ezh is employed in linguistic transcription systems, including the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), to denote the voiced postalveolar fricative sound.
