Ukrainian

Cyrillic orthography notes

Updated 22 April, 2024

This page brings together basic information about the Cyrillic script and its use for the Ukrainian language. It aims to provide a brief, descriptive summary of the modern, printed orthography and typographic features, and to advise how to write Ukrainian using Unicode.

Referencing this document

Richard Ishida, Ukrainian Orthography Notes, 22-Apr-2024, https://r12a.github.io/scripts/cyrl/uk

Sample

Select part of this sample text to show a list of characters, with links to more details.
Change size:   24px

Стаття 1. Всі люди народжуються вільними і рівними у своїй гідності та правах. Вони наділені розумом і совістю і повинні діяти у відношенні один до одного в дусі братерства.

Стаття 2. Кожна людина повинна мати всі права і всі свободи, проголошені цією Декларацією, незалежно від раси, кольору шкіри, статі, мови, релігії, політичних або інших переконань, національного чи соціального походження, майнового, станового або іншого становища. Крім того, не повинно проводитися ніякого розрізнення на основі політичного, правового або міжнародного статусу країни або території, до якої людина належить, незалежно від того, чи є ця територія незалежною, підопічною, несамоврядованою або як‐небудь інакше обмеженою у своєму суверенітеті.

Source: Unicode UDHR, articles 1 & 2

Usage & history

Origins of the Latin script, 7thC – today.

Phoenician

└ Greek

└ Old Italic

└ Cyrillic

+ Glagolitic

+ Latin

+ Armenian

+ Georgian

+ Coptic

+ Runes

Ukrainian is the native language of around 40 million people and is written using a version of the Cyrillic script. Although Ukraine has many Russian speakers, particularly in the east and south of the country, in 2001 around 88% of Ukrainians were able to communicate in the Ukrainian language, and its use in the population has been increasing for some years.wul

українська абетка ʊkrɐˈjinʲsʲkɐ ɐˈbɛtkɐ Ukrainian alphabet

The script is named in honor of the two Byzantine brothers, Saints Cyril and Methodius, who created the earlier Glagolitic alphabet. Modern scholars believe that Cyrillic was developed and formalized by early disciples of Cyril and Methodius.

Cyrillic is derived from the Greek uncial script, augmented by letters from the older Glagolitic alphabet, including some ligatures. These additional letters were used for Old Church Slavonic sounds not found in Greek, and the Cyrillic script was initially used for writing Old Church Slavonic (also called Old Bulgarian), The script has changed over the intervening centuries to the point that Old Church Slavonic is sometimes considered a separate script.

Several orthographic reforms were introduced over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. The latest version of the orthography was defined by the Ukrainian National Commission on Spelling and approved by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on May 22, 2019.

Sources: Scriptsource, Wikipedia.

Basic features

Cyrillic is an alphabet. Letters typically represent a consonant or vowel sound. See the table to the right for a brief overview of features for the modern Ukrainian language.

Of the 441 characters in the Unicode Cyrillic blocks, 177 are historic (33%) and 2 are for Lithuanian dialectology. The remaining 262 are just letters – no punctuation, digits, or combining characters. These are all bicameral, which brings the number of distinct modern letters to 131. Although modern Cyrillic text tends to use precomposed forms, rather than combining diacritics separately with base letters, many extended characters are formed by slightly tweaking a set of basic shapes.

Ukrainian text runs left-to-right in horizontal lines. Words are separated by spaces. The visual forms of letters don't usually interact.

The script is bicameral. The shapes of the upper and lowercase forms are typically the same. There can be a significant difference, however, between regular and cursive/italic shapes for the same character.

❯ consonantSummary

Modern Ukrainian has 32 basic consonant letters (64 if you include both upper- and lowercase), plus the hard sign and soft sign.

❯ basicV

Ukrainian is an alphabet where vowels are written using 10 vowel letters, 4 of which usually indicate palatalisation of the previous consonant. Palatalisation can otherwise be applied or removed using the hard and soft signs.

There are no special mechanisms to represent standalone vowels. Combining marks are normally not used, and only occur in decomposed text.

Numbers use ASCII digits.

The visual forms of letters don't usually interact.

Character index

Letters

Show

Consonants

б␣в␣г␣д␣ж␣з␣й␣к␣л␣м␣н␣п␣р␣с␣т␣ф␣х␣ц␣ч␣ш␣щ␣ґ
Б␣В␣Г␣Д␣Ж␣З␣Й␣К␣Л␣М␣Н␣П␣Р␣С␣Т␣Ф␣Х␣Ц␣Ч␣Ш␣Щ␣Ґ

Vowels

а␣е␣и␣о␣у␣ю␣я␣є␣і␣ї
А␣Е␣И␣О␣У␣Ю␣Я␣Є␣І␣Ї

Other

ʼ␣ь
Ь

Combining marks

Show
̆␣̈␣́

Punctuation

Show
«␣»␣„␣“␣—␣‐␣–␣…

ASCII

(␣)␣,␣.␣:␣;␣?␣!

Other

Show

To be investigated

%␣-␣[␣]␣§␣‑␣‘␣‚␣†␣‡␣‰␣′␣″␣‹␣›␣₽␣№
Items to show in lists

Phonology

These are sounds for the Ukrainian language. For a useful summary of allophonic variants see Wikipedia.

Click on the sounds to reveal locations in this document where they are mentioned.

Phones in a lighter colour are non-native or allophones. Source Wikipedia.

Vowel sounds

i u ɪ ʊ e o ɛ ɔ ɐ ɐ a

and appear after the syllable nucleus where the orthography has в or й, respectively.

The other lighter coloured phones are allophones that appear in unstressed vowels, according to the following transformations:wup

Consonant sounds

labial alveolar post-
alveolar
palatal velar glottal
stops p b t d     k ɡ  
palatalised        
affricates   t͡s d͡z t͡ʃ d͡ʒ      
palatalised   t͡sʲ d͡zʲ t͡ʃʲ d͡ʒʲ      
fricatives f s z ʃ ʒ   x ɣ ɦ
palatalised          
nasals m n        
palatalised        
approximants w~ʋ l   j    
palatalised          
trills/flaps   r  
palatalised    
      

Tone

Ukrainian is not a tonal language.

Structure

tbd

Alphabet

Click on the characters to find where they are mentioned in this page.

The Ukrainian alphabet has 33 letters.wua Each has upper and lowercase forms, shown above and below, respectively.

а␣б␣в␣г␣ґ␣д␣е␣є␣ж␣з␣и␣і␣ї␣й␣к␣л␣м␣н␣о␣п␣р␣с␣т␣у␣ф␣х␣ц␣ч␣ш␣щ␣ь␣ю␣я
А␣Б␣В␣Г␣Ґ␣Д␣Е␣Є␣Ж␣З␣И␣І␣Ї␣Й␣К␣Л␣М␣Н␣О␣П␣Р␣С␣Т␣У␣Ф␣Х␣Ц␣Ч␣Ш␣Щ␣Ь␣Ю␣Я

Vowels

Vowel summary table

The following table summarises the main vowel to character assigments.

Vowels preceded by ʲ cause the preceding consonant to be palatalised. Where 2 transcriptions are given for a symbol they show stressed and unstressed pronunciations. Diphones typically occur for standalone vowel sounds. The bottom row shows the glides/semivowels used to make diphthongs.

Simple
і␣и␣у␣ ␣і␣ю
І␣И␣У␣ ␣І␣Ю
е␣о␣ ␣є
Е␣О␣ ␣Є
а␣ ␣я
А␣ ␣Я
Diphones
ї␣ ␣ю
Ї␣ ␣Ю
є␣ ␣я
Є␣ ␣Я
Diphthongs
й␣ ␣в
Й␣ ␣В

For additional details see vowel_mappings.

Here is the set of characters described in this section, grouped by general category.

Є␣І␣Ї␣А␣В␣Е␣И␣Й␣О␣У␣Ю␣Я␣а␣б␣в␣д␣е␣и␣й␣к␣н␣о␣р␣т␣у␣ю␣я␣є␣і␣ї␣ʼ
̆␣̈␣́

Post-consonant vowels

Vowels following consonants are written using 10 vowel letters, 4 of which usually indicate palatalisation of the previous consonant. Palatalisation can otherwise be applied or removed using the hard and soft signs.

Vowel letters

Standard Ukrainian uses 10 vowel letters (20 characters).

The following 6 vowels are normally used after a 'hard' consonant (ie. one that isn't palatalised).

ї␣и␣у␣е␣о␣а
Ї␣И␣У␣Е␣О␣А

The other letters usually occur after a 'soft' (palatalized) consonant or as standalone vowels.

і␣ю␣є␣я
І␣Ю␣Є␣Я

When used after a palatalised consonant these vowels don't begin with j-, eg. the following shows letter to sound associations for the word будяк

бb
уʊ
дˈdʲ
яa
кk

On the other hand, these letters may also be used after a hard consonant followed by ʼ (the hard sign), in which case the vowel sound is preceded by j-, eg. інтервʼю

The vowels generally have different pronunciations in stressed vs. unstressed syllables, however such allophonic variations are not captured in the orthography. Click on the letters in the tables above for more information on that.

Vowel diacritics

Vowel diacritics only appear in decomposed text. In normal Ukrainian texts there are no combining marks.

The marks that appear after decomposition are:

̆␣̈␣́

Diphthongs

Two consonant characters are used to form diphthongs.

Й␣й␣в␣В

й is occasionally used as a consonant, but is mainly used after a vowel to create diphthongs, eg. буйний

в is generally used as a consonant, but when it appears as the coda of a syllable it is pronounced , eg. кров

Standalone vowels

і␣ї␣ю␣є␣я
І␣Ї␣Ю␣Є␣Я

At the start of a word, or after another vowel, Ukrainian uses the 'ioticised' letters. Used in these locations, the sound of all the above vowels except і is preceded by j-, eg. юний союз компʼютер імла

Vowel sounds to characters

This section maps vowel sounds to common graphemes in the Cyrillic orthography.

The right-hand column shows uppercase forms.

Click on a grapheme to find other mentions on this page (links appear at the bottom of the page). Click on the character name to see examples and for detailed descriptions of the character(s) shown.

i
 

і
діло

І

 

й when it occurs after a vowel, or (in some words) before an initial consonant.
герой

Й

ji
 

ї
їжак

Ї

u
 

у in stressed syllables.
усунути

ю after palatalised consonant.
люди

У

Ю

 

в allophone occurring as a syllable coda.
кров

В

ju
 

ю as a standalone vowel or after a hard sign.
юний

Ю

ɪ
 

и
бити

И

ʊ
 

у in unstressed syllables.
укус

ю after a palatalised consonant in unstressed syllables.
людина

У

Ю

 

ю as a standalone vowel or after a hard sign in unstressed syllables.
юрба

Ю

e
 

е in unstressed syllables.
епітет

є after a palatalised consonant in unstressed syllables.
майбутнє

и in unstressed syllables.
бажати

Е

Є

И

je
 

є in unstressed syllables.
епітет

Є

ɛ
 

е
еліпс

є after a palatalised consonant.
суттєвий

Е

Є

 

є as a standalone vowel or after a hard sign.
єдваб

Є

ɔ
 

о
ожина

О

a
 

а in stressed syllables.
аматор

я after a palatalised consonant in stressed syllables.
будяк

А

Я

ɐ
 

а in unstressed syllables.
багатий

я after a palatalised consonant in unstressed syllables.
боятися

А

Я

ja
 

я as a standalone vowel or after a hard sign.
якір

Я

 

я as a standalone vowel or after a hard sign in unstressed syllables.
якби

Я

Consonants

Consonant summary table

The following table summarises the main consonant to character assigments.

The left column is lowercase, and the right uppercase.

Standard
п␣б␣т␣д␣к␣ґ
П␣Б␣Т␣Д␣К␣Ґ
ц␣ч␣щ
Ц␣Ч␣Щ
ф␣в␣с␣з␣ш␣ж␣х␣г
Ф␣В␣С␣З␣Ш␣Ж␣Х␣Г
м␣н
М␣Н
в␣р␣л␣й
В␣Р␣Л␣Й
Palatalisation
ь␣ʼ

For additional details see consonant_mappings.

Consonant letters

Ukrainian uses 20 consonants (40 characters, if you include uppercase and lowercase), plus a hard and soft sign. Click on the lowercase letters for detail information about usage.

п␣б␣т␣д␣к␣ґ␣ц␣ч␣щ␣ф␣в␣с␣з␣ш␣ж␣х␣г␣м␣н␣р␣л␣й
П␣Б␣Т␣Д␣К␣Ґ␣Ц␣Ч␣Щ␣Ф␣В␣С␣З␣Ш␣Ж␣Х␣Г␣М␣Н␣Р␣Л␣Й

Palatalisation

ї␣ю␣є␣я␣ь␣ʼ

Most of the consonants can be pronounced with or without palatisation, ie. 'hard' or 'soft', respectively. During palatalisation the tongue is raised towards the palate while the consonant is pronounced, eg. compare банан баня

Palatalisation is indicated by the letter that follows the consonant. When the vowel letters ї ю є я follow a consonant, the initial j- sound which is associated with those characters in standalone positions is dropped, and the preceding consonant is palatalised.

Consonants can be palatalised when no vowel follows using the soft sign, ь, eg. більшість

The soft sign may also be used when you want the consonant to be palatalised but retain the initial j- of the following vowel, eg. досьє

To write a hard consonant followed by a vowel that retains the initial j-, follow the consonant with the hard sign, ʼ, eg. пʼять

Note that this shows that there is a difference between пʼят and пять.

A few consonant sounds are generally always hard.

Finals

Unlike Russian, voiced consonants at the end of a syllable or word remain voiced, eg. шоколад трубкозуб

Consonant sounds to characters

This section maps consonant sounds to common graphemes in the Cyrillic orthography. Sounds listed as 'infrequent' are allophones, or sounds used for foreign words, etc.

The right-hand column shows uppercase forms.

Click on a grapheme to find other mentions on this page (links appear at the bottom of the page). Click on the character name to see examples and for detailed descriptions of the character(s) shown.

p
 

п
покупка

П

b
 

б
багаж

Б

t
 

т
теплота

тʼ

Т

Тʼ

 

т when followed by a softening vowel.
батяр

ть

Т

ТЬ

d
 

д
дослід

дʼ

Д

Дʼ

 

д when followed by a softening vowel.
дід

дь

Д

ДЬ

k
 

к
канчук

К

 

к when followed by 0456.
кіно

К

ɡ
 

ґ
ґирлиґа

Ґ

t͡s
 

ц
цацка

цʼ

Ц

Цʼ

d͡z
 

дз
дзиґа

ДЗ

t͡sʲ
 

ц when followed by a softening vowel.
кориця

ць
міць

Ц

ЦЬ

t͡ʃ
 

ч
чоловічий

Ч

d͡ʒ
 

дж
джинси

ДЖ

t͡ʃʲ
 

ч when followed by a softening vowel.
обличчя

Ч

ʃt͡ʃ
 

щ
щур

Щ

ʃt͡ʃʲ
 

щ when followed by a softening vowel.
щітка

Щ

β
 

в allophone sometimes found before back vowels.

В

f
 

ф
фосфор

Ф

 

ф usually only when followed by і.
суфікс

Ф

ʋ
 

в allophone occuring before front vowels.
вежа

В

s
 

с
селянство

сʼ

С

Сʼ

 

с when followed by a softening vowel.
свідомість

сь
вісь

С

СЬ

z
 

з
загроза

зʼ
зʼїсти

З

Зʼ

 

з when followed by a softening vowel.
зяблик

зь

З

ЗЬ

ʃ
 

ш
шия

Ш

ʃʲ
 

ш when followed by a softening vowel.
шість

шь

Ш

ШЬ

ʒ
 

ж
жарт

Ж

x
 

х
хата

Х

 

х when followed by і.
підхід

Х

ɦ
 

г
гегемонія

Г

m
 

м
мамут

М

 

м when followed by і.
комір

М

n
 

н
насінина

нʼ

Н

Нʼ

 

н when followed by a softening vowel.
здання

нь

Н

НЬ

w
 

в generally found before back vowels.
вогонь

В

r
 

р
резервіст

рʼ
карʼєра

Р

Рʼ

 

р when followed by a softening vowel.
грязь

рь
вірьовка

Р

РЬ

l
 

л
лелека

лʼ

Л

Лʼ

 

л when followed by a softening vowel.
пляма

ль
король

Л

ЛЬ

j
 

й
йога

Й

Other features

Diacritics

́␣̈␣̆

0301 is used to indicate where the stress falls in a word for educational materials, dictionaries, and such. The position of the stress is distinctive, and not always predictable, eg. compare за́мок замо́к

The other diacritics shown above are produced only by Unicode decomposition: 0306 from й, and 0308 from ї. Normally precomposed characters are used.

Text direction

Cyrillic runs left to right in horizontal lines.

Show default bidi_class properties for characters in the Ukrainian orthography described here.

Numbers

Cyrillic uses ASCII digits.

Glyph shaping & positioning

You can experiment with examples using the All Cyrillic character app and the Ukrainian character app.

Letterform slopes, weights, & italics

Cyrillic doesn't normally have any of the changeability of complex scripts. Characters are typically separate and self-contained. However, there can be a significant difference in shape between regular and italic/cursive font shapes for the same character.

вшим

вшим

Conservative transformations between regular and italic.

гдт

гдт

More radical transformations between regular and italic.

Note in particular the italic form of т in the figure just above, which looks similar to the italic form of м shown in the previous figure.

The shapes of the italic forms can also vary by language.w

The shape of the breve sign in Cyrillic is different from that used for Latin text.s A font such as Brill can detect the appropriate shape from the adjacent characters.

й   ̆ й i   ̆ i

0306 between cyrillic and latin characters changes shape in the Brill font.

Case & transforms

Ukrainian is bicameral, and applications may need to enable transforms to allow the user to switch between cases.

Typographic units

Word boundaries

Words are separated by spaces.

Graphemes

Ukrainian graphemes are straightforward, and can be mapped to Unicode grapheme clusters.

Grapheme clusters

Base (Combining_mark)*

The 2 combining marks that occur in Ukrainian appear only on the rare occasions when the text is decomposed, and only one combining mark at a time appears after any base. All such decompositions conform to Unicode grapheme clusters.

Click on the text version of this word to see more detail about the composition.

гіркий
(decomposed)

Punctuation & inline features

Phrase & section boundaries

,␣;␣:␣.␣?␣!

Cyrillic uses ASCII punctuation.

phrase

,

;

:

sentence

.

?

!

Bracketed text

(␣)

Ukrainian commonly uses ASCII parentheses to insert parenthetical information into text.

  start end
standard

(

)

Quotations

«␣»␣„␣“

Ukrainian uses angle quotation marks without space, like Russian, or the low and high marks used for Polish and German.wua,#Letterforms_and_typography

  start end
initial

«

»

nested

Line & paragraph layout

Line breaking & hyphenation

Spaces between words provide the primary line break opportunities.u

Line-edge rules

As in almost all writing systems, certain punctuation characters should not appear at the end or the start of a line. The Unicode line-break properties help applications decide whether a character should appear at the start or end of a line.

Show (default) line-breaking properties for characters in the modern Ukrainian orthography.

The following list gives examples of typical behaviours for some of the characters used in Ukrainian. Context may affect the behaviour of some of these and other characters.

Click/tap on the characters to show what they are.

  • « „ (   should not be the last character on a line.
  • » “ ) . , ; ! ? %   should not begin a new line.

Text alignment & justification

Justification is done, principally, by adjusting the space between words.

Baselines, line height, etc.

Cyrillic uses the so-called 'alphabetic' baseline, which is the same as for Latin and many other scripts.

Cyrillic has little in the way of ascenders and descenders, and mostly the font metrics are the same as for ASCII text. One difference is the use of a couple of diacritics, which rise above the ASCII ascender height in capital letters..

To give an approximate idea, fig_baselines compares Latin and Cyrillic glyphs from Noto fonts.

HhqxюбдфйЮБДФЙ HhqxюбдфйЮБДФЙ
Font metrics for Latin text compared with Cyrillic glyphs in the Noto Serif (top) and Noto Sans (bottom) fonts.

fig_baselines_other shows similar comparisons for the Doulos SIL and Helvetica fonts.

HhqxюбдфйЮБДФЙ HhqxюбдфйЮБДФЙ
Latin font metrics compared with Cyrillic glyphs in the Doulos SIL (top) and Helvetica (bottom) fonts.

Counters, lists, etc.

You can experiment with counter styles using the Counter styles converter. Patterns for using these styles in CSS can be found in Ready-made Counter Styles, and we use the names of those patterns here to refer to the various styles.

The modern Ukrainian orthography uses 4 alphabetic styles, besides the ASCII decimal numeric style.

Alphabetic

The lower-Ukrainian alphabetic style uses these letters.

а␣б␣в␣г␣д␣е␣є␣ж␣з␣и␣і␣к␣л␣м␣н␣о␣п␣р␣с␣т␣у␣ф␣х␣ц␣ч␣ш␣ю␣я

Examples:

а␣б␣в␣г␣і␣ф␣ад␣ао␣вю␣єш␣іч␣нц

The lower-Ukrainian-full alphabetic style uses these letters.

а␣б␣в␣г␣ґ␣д␣е␣є␣ж␣з␣и␣і␣ї␣й␣к␣л␣м␣н␣о␣п␣р␣с␣т␣у␣ф␣х␣ц␣ч␣ш␣щ␣ь␣ю␣я

Examples:

а␣б␣в␣г␣и␣с␣я␣аи␣ві␣ду␣зв␣їк

The upper-Ukrainian alphabetic style uses these letters.

А␣Б␣В␣Г␣Д␣Е␣Є␣Ж␣З␣И␣І␣К␣Л␣М␣Н␣О␣П␣Р␣С␣Т␣У␣Ф␣Х␣Ц␣Ч␣Ш␣Ю␣Я

Examples:

А␣Б␣В␣Г␣І␣Ф␣АД␣АО␣ВЮ␣ЄШ␣ІЧ␣НЦ

The upper-Ukrainian-full alphabetic style uses these letters.

А␣Б␣В␣Г␣Ґ␣Д␣Е␣Є␣Ж␣З␣И␣І␣Ї␣Й␣К␣Л␣М␣Н␣О␣П␣Р␣С␣Т␣У␣Ф␣Х␣Ц␣Ч␣Ш␣Щ␣Ь␣Ю␣Я

Examples:

А␣Б␣В␣Г␣И␣С␣Я␣АИ␣ВІ␣ДУ␣ЗВ␣ЇК

Prefixes and suffixes

The default list style uses a full stop + space as a suffix.

Examples:

а. б. в. г. ґ.
Separator for Ukrainian list counters.

Page & book layout

References