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In English (at least in North America, don't know about other English area) you see things like 10k as an abbreviation of 10000. I'm wondering if Russian does something similar, particularly regarding this ҂ symbol I came across in Unicode's Cyrillic block, or is that and its related symbols like ҈ firmly a historic relic?

L.Z.
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2 Answers2

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҂ is indeed a historic relic. It was only used in the letter-based numerals (a system where A = 1, B = 2, etc; ҂A = 1000). It is not in active use for at least three centuries.

One can see 10k (or 10K) for 10000 in a modern text, but only informally1 (just like in English). This is an unrelated thing; after all, it's only an abbreviation for convenience, whereas ҂ was the standard way to express a thousand.

1 Outside of certain technical context. For example, k may officially stand for kΩ (kOhm) (electrical resistance): 10k = 10 kΩ; 4k7 = 4.7 kΩ. This is standard (more or less) worldwide.

Zeus
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    Re "Outside of certain technical context", Specifically: Except when attached to an SI unit. (kΩ, km, kg, etc) – ikegami Apr 13 '22 at 15:15
  • @ikegami, not quite. Units are obvious; but here, k alone is used (attached to the number, not the unit) in electrical engineering. Ohm is implicit, and this doesn't apply to other units. "Take a 10K resistor and a 22 nF capacitor." – Zeus Apr 14 '22 at 00:24
  • oh, I see what you were saying. – ikegami Apr 14 '22 at 01:29
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    I'd note that it's also customary to use Cyrillic letter 'к' when speaking informally—like "на счёте осталось 25к". In a very informal context it's also possible to use the "word" "тыр" which is an abbreviation of тысяч рублей. – kostix Apr 14 '22 at 09:17
  • Specific for monetary values nominated in rubles one can often see "т.р." used for thousands rubles, e.g. "1300 т.р." for 1,300,000 rubles. – Dima Chubarov Apr 14 '22 at 13:34
  • I will also add that in informal usage, the K's stack (2кк = 2 000 000). – htmlcoderexe Apr 14 '22 at 21:27
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No special signs regarding number or quantity are used in modern Russian, only abbreviations like:

5 тыс = 5 тысяч = 5 thousands
1 млн = 1 миллион = 1 million
2 млрд = 2 миллиарда = 2 billions
6 трлн = 6 триллионов = 6 trillions
Nikolai Shevchenko
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