What is Ʒ in Russian?

What Is Ʒ in Russian? A Look at the Cyrillic Letter Ж

If you've come across the symbol Ʒ and wondered what it means in Russian, you're not alone. While Ʒ itself isn't part of the Cyrillic alphabet, it closely resembles Ж, a well-known letter in the Russian script. This letter is called “Zhe” (pronounced roughly like “zheh”) and is the 9th letter of the Russian alphabet.

Ж ж (in uppercase and lowercase) represents a sound similar to the “s” in the English word measure or “vision—a voiced postalveolar fricative, phonetically written as /ʒ/. In some dialects or related Slavic languages, it may sound more retroflex, like /ʐ/, but to an English speaker, it still carries that soft, buzzing quality.

You'll see Ж frequently in Russian words like жизнь (life), жара (heat), and журнал (magazine). Though it’s sometimes transliterated as “Zh” in the Latin alphabet (making it easier for non-Cyrillic readers), older or alternative systems may use “Ž” or even “J” in some adaptations.

Despite its unusual look to Western eyes, Ж is a regular part of everyday Russian speech and writing. It’s not a special symbol or typo—it’s just one of the building blocks of the language. So the next time you see Ʒ, think of it as a visual cousin to Ж, a small reminder of how languages borrow, adapt, and sometimes mirror one another across alphabets.