Yu (Cyrillic)

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Yu, from the Alphabet Book оf the Red Army Soldier (1921)

Yu or Ju (Ю ю; italics: Ю ю) is a letter of the Cyrillic script used in East Slavic and Bulgarian alphabets.

In English, Yu is commonly romanized as Template:Angle bracket or Template:Angle bracket. In turn, Template:Angle bracket is used, where available, in transcriptions of English letter Template:Angle bracket (in open syllables), and also of the Template:Angle bracket digraph. The sound Template:IPAblink, like Template:Angle bracket in French and Template:Angle bracket in German, may also be approximated by the letter Template:Angle bracket.

PronunciationEdit

Sometimes, it is referred to as "Iotated U" because it is a so-called iotated vowel, pronounced in isolation as {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, like the pronunciation of Template:Angle bracket in "human". After a consonant, no distinct {{#invoke:IPA|main}} sound is pronounced, but the consonant is softened. The exact pronunciation of the vowel sound of Template:Angle bracket in Slavic languages depends also on the succeeding sound. Before a soft consonant, it is {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, the close central rounded vowel, as in 'rude'. Before a hard consonant or at the end of a word, the result is a back vowel Template:IPAblink, as in "pool".

HistoryEdit

Apart from the form I-O, in early Slavonic manuscripts the letter appears also in a mirrored form O-I (Template:Slavonic).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It is the latter form that is probably the original,Template:Citation needed precisely displaying the Greek combination omicron-iota (οι). At the time that the Greek alphabet was adapted to the Slavonic language giving rise to the Cyrillic alphabet, it denoted the close front rounded vowel {{#invoke:IPA|main}} in educated Greek speech. The close front rounded vowel does not appear in East Slavic. See above.

There was another way for it to lead to the modern form. By the analogy to several 'iotated' letters Ѥ, Ꙗ, Ѩ and Ѭ, the ancient ligature (or letter) Uk Template:Angle bracket/Template:Angle bracket possibly had its iotated form Template:Angle bracket/Template:Angle bracket.Template:Citation needed

The iotated big Yus Template:Angle bracket merged itself to Template:Angle bracket in East Slavic languages.Template:Citation needed

Template:Angbr is the Voice Quality Symbol for tracheo-œsophageal speech (the symbol attempts to capture iconically the dual nature of the airstream).

Related letters and other similar charactersEdit

Computing codesEdit

Template:Charmap

ReferencesEdit

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External linksEdit

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