A is for Watermelon

Presenting, for your entertainment, the Russian alphabet. Actually, it's called the Cyrillic alphabet. No worries about remembering that though. The main thing is that you know that a is for watermelon. And that's because around here arbus (арбус) means watermelon.


Allow me to introduce you to a very special letter.That would be the letter я. It's the very last letter of the alphabet and looks like a backwards capital R. In Russian, it's a vowel though and it's pronounced yah. A neat thing about this letter, it's also a word. It's the first person pronoun -- I, like in English, with the letter i. As I recall though, in Russian that pronoun is not capitalized - that would be considered egotistical. (Attention native speakers of Russian - input please.) And egocentrism must be avoided at all costs. ;)

I've heard that Russian mothers are known to put their kids in place by saying, Who do you think you are young man? Don't you know that я is the last letter of the alphabet? That's to say don't get too big for your britches when all you can think about I, I, I - remember that I is at the end of the alphabet. In Russian, anyway.

So while a is for apple in English, as you see from the poster, я is for яблоко, the Russian word for apple. This is making me hungry. Think I'll go grab myself an apple right this minute. Either that or a watermelon. ;)