Cyrillic letter Yery
Phonetic usage:[ɨ]
[ɯ]
[ə]
[ɤ]
The Cyrillic script
Slavic letters
АА̀А̂А̄ӒБВГ
ҐДЂЃЕЀЕ̄Е̂
ЁЄЖЗЗ́ЅИІ
ЇЍИ̂ӢЙЈК
ЛЉМНЊОО̀О̂
ŌӦПРСС́ТЋ
ЌУУ̀У̂ӮЎӰФ
ХЦЧЏШЩЪ
Ъ̀ЫЬѢЭЮЮ̀Я
Я̀
Non-Slavic letters
ӐА̊А̃Ӓ̄ӔӘӘ́Ә̃
ӚВ̌ԜГ̑Г̇Г̣Г̌Г̂
Г̆Г̈ҔҒӺҒ̌Ӷ
Д́Д̌Д̈Д̣Д̆ӖЕ̃
Ё̄Є̈ҖӜӁЖ̣ҘӞ
З̌З̣З̆ԐԐ̈ӠИ̃Ӥ
ҊҚӃҠҞҜК̣Ԛ
Л́ӅԮԒЛ̈Ӎ
Н́ӉҢԨӇҤО̆О̃
Ӧ̄ӨӨ̄Ө́Ө̆ӪԤП̈
Р̌ҎС̌ҪС̣С̱Т́Т̈
Т̌Т̇Т̣ҬУ̃ӲУ̊
Ӱ̄ҰҮҮ́Х̣Х̱Х̮Х̑
Х̌ҲӼӾҺҺ̈ԦЦ̌
Ц̈ҴҶҶ̣ӴӋҸ
Ч̇Ч̣ҼҾШ̈Ш̣Ы̆
Ы̄ӸҌҨЭ̆Э̄Э̇
ӬӬ́Ӭ̄Ю̆Ю̈Ю̄Я̆Я̄
Я̈Ӏ
Archaic or unused letters
А̨Б̀Б̣Б̱В̀Г̀Г̧
Г̄Г̓Г̆Ҕ̀Ҕ̆ԀД̓
Д̀Д̨ԂЕ̇Е̨
Ж̀Ж̑Џ̆
Ꚅ̆З̀З̑ԄԆ
ԪІ̂І̣І̨
Ј̵Ј̃К̓К̀К̆Ӄ̆
К̑К̇К̈К̄ԞК̂
Л̀ԠԈЛ̑Л̇Ԕ
М̀М̃Н̀Н̄Н̧Н̃
ԊԢН̡Ѻ
П̓П̀П́Ҧ
П̧П̑ҀԚ̆Р́Р̀Р̃
ԖС̀С̈ԌҪ̓Т̓Т̀
ԎТ̑Т̧Ꚍ̆
ѸУ̇У̨ꙋ́Ф̑
Ф̓Х́Х̀Х̆Х̇Х̧Х̓
һ̱ѠѼѾЦ̀Ц́
Ц̓Ꚏ̆Ч́
Ч̀Ч̆Ч̑Ч̓Ԭ
Ꚇ̆Ҽ̆Ш̀Ш̆Ш̑Щ̆
Ꚗ̆Ы̂Ы̃Ѣ́Ѣ̈Ѣ̆
Э̨Э̂Ю̂
Я̈Я̂Я̨ԘѤѦѪ
ѨѬѮѰѲѴ
Ѷ
Yery, from Karion Istomin's 1694 alphabet book

Yeru or Eru ы; italics: Ы ы), usually called Y [ɨ] in modern Russian or Yery or Ery historically and in modern Church Slavonic, is a letter in the Cyrillic script. It represents the close central unrounded vowel /ɨ/ (more rear or upper than i) after non-palatalised (hard) consonants in the Belarusian and Russian alphabets, and after any consonant in most of Rusyn standards, where it represents the unrounded close-mid back unrounded vowel sound.

The letter is usually romanised into English and most other West European languages as y: Krylov (family name, Крылов). That spelling matches Polish, which uses y to represent a very similar sound. Russian ы is used to transliterate Polish y into Cyrillic: Maryla (Марыля). However, Latin y may be used for other purposes as well (such as for й, or as part of digraphs, e.g. я).

In most Turkic languages that use Cyrillic, ы represents the close back unrounded vowel /ɯ/, like in Kazakh, Kyrgyz, etc.

Origin

The letter Yery in several fonts
Cursive Yery

Like many other Cyrillic letters, it was originally from a ligature (which is represented in Unicode as Yeru with Back Yer), formed from Yer ъ and Dotted I і (formerly written either dotless or with two dots) or Izhe (и which formerly resembled н). In Medieval manuscripts, it is almost always found as ъі or ъи. The modern form ы first occurred in South Slavic manuscripts following the loss of palatalization of word-final and preconsonantal consonants, so the letters ъ and ь became confused; since the end of the 14th century, ы came to be used in East Slavic manuscripts.

Usage

While vowel letters in the Cyrillic alphabet may be divided into iotated and non-iotated pairs (for example, а and я both represent /a/, the latter denoting a preceding palatalised consonant), ы is more complicated. It appears only after hard consonants, its phonetic value differs from и, and there is some scholarly disagreement as to whether or not ы and и denote different phonemes.

In Russian

There are no native Russian words that begin with ы (except for the specific verb ыкать: "to say the ы-sound"), but there are many proper and common nouns of non-Russian origin (including some geographical names in Russia) that begin with it: Kim Jong-un (Ким Чен Ын) and Eulji Mundeok (Ыльчи Мундок), a Korean military leader; and Ytyk-Kyuyol (Ытык-Кюёль), Ygyatta (Ыгыатта), a village and a river in Sakha (Yakutia) Republic respectively.

In Ukrainian

In the Ukrainian alphabet, yery is not used since the language lacks the sound /ɨ/.[1] In the Ukrainian alphabet, yery merged with [i] and was phased out in the second half of the 19th century.[2] According to the Ukrainian academician Hryhoriy Pivtorak, the letter was replaced with so called "Cyrillic i" и, which in Ukrainian represents the sound [ɪ], which appeared by the merger of the earlier sounds [ɨ] and [i]. Ukrainian also had newly developed the sound [i] from various origins, which is represented by i ("Cyrillic dotted i").[1] Yery could be found in several earlier versions of the Ukrainian writing system that were introduced in the 19th century among which were "Pavlovsky writing system", "Slobda Ukraine (New) writing system", and "Yaryzhka".[3]

In Rusyn

In Rusyn, it denotes a sound that is a bit harder than [ɨ] and similar to the Romanian sound î, which is also written â. In some cases, the letter may occur after palatalised consonants (синьый "blue", which never happens in Russian), and it often follows к, г, ґ and х.

In Turkic languages

The letter ы is also used in Cyrillic-based alphabets of several Turkic and Mongolic languages (see the list) for a darker vowel [ɯ]. The corresponding letter in Latin-based scripts are ı (dotless I), and I with bowl (Ь ь).

In Tuvan, the Cyrillic letter can be written as a double vowel.[4][5]

Computing codes

Character information
PreviewЫы
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER YERU CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER YERU CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER YERU
WITH BACK YER
CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER YERU
WITH BACK YER
Encodingsdecimalhexdechexdechexdechex
Unicode1067U+042B1099U+044B42576U+A65042577U+A651
UTF-8208 171D0 AB209 139D1 8B234 153 144EA 99 90234 153 145EA 99 91
Numeric character referenceЫЫыыꙐꙐꙑꙑ
Named character referenceЫы
KOI8-R and KOI8-U249F9217D9
Code page 855242F2241F1
Code page 8661559B235EB
Windows-1251219DB251FB
ISO-8859-5203CB235EB
Macintosh Cyrillic1559B251FB

References

  1. 1 2 Larysa Pavlenko Historical grammar of the Ukrainian language (Історична граматика української мови). The editorial and publishing department of the Volyn National University of Lesia Ukrainka. Lutsk, 2010. pages 47-48
  2. Hlushchenko, V. Yer, yery (ЄР, ЄРИ). Ukrainian Language. Encyclopedia (Izbornik).
  3. Hryhoriy Pivtorak. Orthography (ПРАВОПИС). Izbornik.
  4. "Tuvan language, alphabet and pronunciation". omniglot.com. Retrieved 14 June 2016.
  5. Campbell, George L.; King, Gareth (24 July 2013). Compendium of the World's Languages. Routledge. ISBN 9781136258459. Retrieved 14 June 2016 via Google Books.
  • The dictionary definition of Ы at Wiktionary
  • The dictionary definition of ы at Wiktionary
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