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'Tse' (Ц, ц) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet. It looks somewhat like U with square corners and a "pig tail" on the bottom right. It represents a voiceless alveolar affricate , like the ''ts'' in "cats."
It is the 23rd letter of the Russian alphabet, and is thought to have come from the Hebrew letter Tsadi (צ), via the Glagolitic letter Tsi:

Contents

Usage in Russian

Transliteration

Usage in Russian

It is used both in native Slavic words and borrowed words: as a match for the Latin 'C' in words of Latin origin, for example цирк (circus), центр (center); and for the German 'Z' in words borrowed from German, for example плац (Platz), цинк (Zink).
Russian words starting with ц, such as tsar, are rare, and almost none of them are of Slavic origin.
A notable rule of Russian orthography is that ц is seldom followed by 'ы', with the exception of the ending -ы of the plural number (танец–танцы) and some declensions (девица–девицы). The very few words with цы inside or at the beginning are learned by school children by heart: цыган, цыкать, цыпленок, цыпочки, цып-цып, цыц. Also, there are some obsolete usages, seen in old texts, such as цынга (цинга), цыновка (циновка), панцырь (панцирь) etc.

Transliteration

A regular transliteration of ц into English is ''ts''. However, in proper names (personal names, toponyms, etc.) and titles it may also be rendered as ''c'', ''z'', ''cz'' or ''tz''.