Sha (Cyrillic)

Sha has its earliest origins in Phoenician Shin and is linked closely to Shin's Greek equivalent: Sigma (Σ, σ, ς). (The similar form of the modern Hebrew Shin (ש), which is probably where the Cyrillic letter was actually derived from, derives from the same Proto-Canaanite source). Sha already possessed its current form in Saints Cyril and Methodius's Glagolitic alphabet. Most Cyrillic letter-forms were derived from the Greek, but as there was no Greek sign for the Sha sound (modern Greek uses simply "Σ/σ/ς" to spell the sh-sound in foreign words and names), Glagolitic Sha was adopted unchanged. There is also a possibility that Sha was taken from the Coptic alphabet, which is the same as the Greek alphabet but with a few letters added at the end, including one called "shai" (Ϣϣ) which somewhat resembles both sha and shcha (Щ, щ) in appearance.

The Cyrillic letter Ш is internationally used in mathematics for several concepts:

In algebraic geometry, the Tate–Shafarevich group of an Abelian variety A over a field K is denoted Ш(A/K), a notation first suggested by J. W. S. Cassels. (Previously it had been denoted TS.) Presumably the choice comes from the first letter of Шафаре́вич = Shafarevich.

In a different mathematical context, some authors allude to the shape of the letter Sha when they use the term Shah function for what is otherwise called a Dirac comb.

The shuffle product is often denoted by ш.[1]

• Ⱎ : Glagolitic letter Sha/ša
• Ⱋ : Glagolitic letter Shta/šta or Shcha/šča
• ש : Hebrew letter Shin/Sin
• Ɯ ɯ : Latin letter inverted M
• Ʃ ʃ : Latin letter Esh
• S s : Latin letter S, a Hungarian alphabet letter
• Š š : Latin letter S with caron
• Ŝ ŝ : Latin letter S with circumflex
• Ş ş : Latin letter S with cedilla
• Ș ș : Latin letter S with comma below
• Щ щ : Cyrillic letter Shcha
• ⧢ : Shuffle product

• The dictionary definition of Ш at Wiktionary
• The dictionary definition of ш at Wiktionary