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Cyrillic reads to most eyes as a cousin of Greek, and for nearly all of its letters that is exactly right. One letter broke the pattern, and its trail runs all the way back to Hebrew.

Twenty-Two From Greek, Two From Hebrew

Cyrillic did not invent its own shapes from nothing. It grew out of Glagolitic, an earlier alphabet built for translating scripture into Old Church Slavonic, and Glagolitic itself borrowed its letters from older scripts. Twenty-two of them came from Greek. Exactly two came from Hebrew instead, letters for sounds Greek had no equivalent for.

The One That Is Still Written

Only one of those two Hebrew borrowings kept going. Glagolitic Sha was carried into Cyrillic as its own letter Sha, and Cyrillic Sha in turn gave rise to Shta, the letter written today in Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian, and Bulgarian for the sh sound. The chain runs unbroken back to Hebrew Shin. The second Hebrew borrowing, a letter called Tsi, did not survive into Cyrillic at all and dropped out of use with Glagolitic itself. Sha is left as the one letter of a living European alphabet that came from Hebrew rather than Greek.

Where To Read More

• Shin שHebrew LettersThe Hebrew letter the whole chain traces back to
• Sha ⰞGlagolitic LettersThe Glagolitic letter that carried Shin forward, one of only two borrowed from Hebrew
• Sha ШCyrillic LettersCyrillic's own Sha, descended directly from the Glagolitic letter
• Shta ЩCyrillic LettersShta, still written today, the end of the chain that began with Hebrew Shin