Russian letter names was Re: Words about Conscripts

On Thursday 02 January 2003 02:59 pm, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> Well, French, Dutch and German have the same boring names for letters, as
> well as Italian and Portuguese (and I think Russian is the same :)) ). You
> have to go for Greek and Semitic languages to get interesting things ;)) .
        Russian *used* to have interesting letter names, prior to the Revolution. The
only one I know, however, is "az" for |a|. It's still not uncommon to refer
to the alphabet as "azbuki." Also prior to the Revolution, the last letter of
the old Russian alphabet (and, iirc, represented |i|) that was named izhika
(I think) and was written like a "v". I'm kicking myself for not remembering
what the old expression was for "from A to Z"--currently, it's "ot A do JA."
Then there were three other letters that were also dropped from the alphabet,
but I don't know their names; one looks like a theta and represented |f|, one
was a barred soft sign for |je|, and one was like a "i" for |i|.
        If any one happens to know the old names for the Russian alphabet, I'd be
interested. I found the old names for the Glagolithic alphabet, but I don't
know how similar they would be.
        :Peter

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