Faux Cyrillic, pseudo-Cyrillic, pseudo-Russian or faux Russiantypography is the use of Cyrillic letters in Latin text, usually to evoke the Soviet Union or Russia, though it may be used in other contexts as well. It is a common Westerntrope used in book covers, film titles, comic book lettering, artwork for computer games, or product packaging which are set in or wish to evoke Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, or the Russian Federation. A typeface designed to emulate Cyrillic is classed as an ethnic typeface. The use of faux Cyrillic is considered offensive for Russian speakers. Letters are substituted regardless of phonetic matching. For example, R and N in RUSSIAN may be replaced by Cyrillic Я and И, to create "ЯUSSIAИ". Other examples include Ш for portraited E, Ц for U, Я/Г for R/backwards and upside-down L, Ф for O, Д for A, Б, Ь, or Ъ for B/b, З, Э, or Ё for E, Ч or У for Y. Outside the Russian alphabet, Џ can act as a substitute for U, Ғ for F, Ә or Є for E, Ө for O, Һ for H, and Ћ for Th. A reversed ☭ is also sometimes used for G. Further variants include an inverted K, which does not occur in any language. This effect is usually restricted to text set in all caps, because Cyrillic letter-forms do not match well with lower caseLatin letters. In Cyrillic typography, most upright lower case letters resemble smaller upper case letters, unlike the more distinctive forms of Latin-alphabet type. Cursive Cyrillic upper and lower case letters are more differentiated. Cyrillic letter-forms were derived from 10th-century Greek, but the modern forms have more closely resembled those in the Latin alphabet since Peter the Great's civil script reform of 1708.
Characters
The letters А, В, Е, Ѕ*, І*, Ј*, К, М, Н, О, Р, С, Т, Ү*, Ғ*, Ѵ*, and Х are strongly homoglyphic or related to Latin letters, depending on intended sound values to the point that their substitution may not be noticed, unlike those listed above. If compatibility issues arise that limit mixing of scripts, these can be used with faux Cyrillic letters in lieu of their Latin counterparts.
