Reference articles on history, science, culture and more
Surprise meSurprise meSubscribe
Encyclopedia

Semisoft sign

Cyrillic letter used in Kildin Sami

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
1 min read
Source updated March 15, 2026
Image credit is listed at the end of this article.

The semisoft sign (Ҍ ҍ; italics: Ҍ ҍ) is a letter of the Cyrillic script.

The semisoft sign is used in the alphabet of the Kildin Sami language, where it indicates palatalization (sometimes also called "half-palatalization") of the preceding stop, /nʲ/, /tʲ/, or /dʲ/.

It has a similar shape to the yat (ѣ) but the horizontal stroke across the upright is shorter.

01Computing codes

Character information
PreviewҌҍ
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER
SEMISOFT SIGN		 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER
SEMISOFT SIGN
Encodingsdecimalhexdechex
Unicode1164U+048C1165U+048D
UTF-8210 140D2 8C210 141D2 8D
Numeric character referenceҌҌҍҍ
Watch videos about Semisoft signExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Semisoft sign”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

Images, from Wikimedia Commons:

Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.

Continue exploring

Related topics

Yat

Yat or jat is the thirty-second letter of the old Cyrillic alphabet. There is also another version of yat, the iotated yat (majuscule: ⟨Ꙓ⟩, minuscule: ⟨ꙓ⟩), which is a Cyrillic character combining a decimal I and a yat.

Cyrillic script in Unicode

As of Unicode version 17.0, Cyrillic script is encoded across several blocks: Cyrillic: U+0400-U+04FF, 256 characters Cyrillic Supplement: U+0500-U+052F, 48 characters Cyrillic Extended-A: U+2DE0-U+2DFF, 32 characters Cyrillic Extended-B: U+A640-U+A69F, 96 characters Cyrillic Extended-C: U+1C80-U+1C8F, 11 characters Cyrillic Extended-D: U+1E030-U+1E08F, 63 characters Phonetic Extensions: U+1D2B, U+1D78, 2 Cyrillic characters Combining Half Marks: U+FE2E-U+FE2F, 2 Cyrillic characters The characters in the range U+0400-U+045F are arranged in the same positions as ISO 8859-5, but moved upwards by 864 positions. The next characters in the Cyrillic block, range U+0460-U+0489, are historical letters, some of which are still used for Church Slavonic.