Palochka () (Russian: па́лочка, a stick) is a letter added to the Cyrillic alphabet when used in writing several Caucasian languages, such as Abaza, Adyghe, Avar, Chechen, Dargwa , Ingush, Kabardian, Lak , Lezgian and Tabassaran .
Palochka usually has no independent phonetic value, but is used to modify the reading of a preceding letter. It signals that a preceding consonant is an ejective. Example from the Avar language: кIалъазе (IPA: ) to speak.
In some of the languages that use the palochka (Adyghe, Kabardian, Chechen, Ingush), it also functions as the glottal stop. Example from the Kabardian language: елъэӀуащ (IPA: /jaɬa'ʔʷaːɕ/)., he asked her for something.
It looks exactly like uppercase Latin letter I and has no lowercase form. As of 2004, palochka is not present in standard keyboard layouts or common fonts, and so cannot be easily entered or reliably displayed on many computer systems. It is usually replaced with Latin letter I, or sometimes even with the digit 1, although technically this is incorrect.
Code positions
Its HTML entities are: Ӏ or Ӏ.
