Yery

Yery, Yeru, Ery or Eru ы; italics: Ы ы), usually called Ы [ɨ] in modern Russian or еры yerý 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.

Cyrillic letter Yery
Phonetic usage:[ɨ]
The Cyrillic script
Slavic letters
АБВГҐДЂ
ЃЕЀЁЄЖЗ
З́ЅИЍЙІЇ
ЈКЛЉМНЊ
ОŌПРСС́Т
ЋЌУӮЎФХ
ЦЧЏШЩЪЫ
ЬЭЮЯ
Non-Slavic letters
А́А̀ӐА̄А̊А̃Ӓ
Ӓ̄ӔӘӘ́Ә̃ӚВ̌
ҒГ̧Г̑Г̄Г̣Г̌Ҕ
ӺҒ̌ӶԀԂ
Д̆Д̣ԪԬД̆Ӗ
Е̄Е̃Ё̄Є̈ӁҖӜ
ԄҘӞЗ̌З̱З̣Ԑ
Ԑ̈ӠԆӢИ̃ҊӤ
И́ҚӃҠҞҜК̣
ԚӅԮԒԈӍӉ
ҢԨӇҤԊО́О̀
О̆О̂О̃ӦӦ̄ӨӨ̄
Ө́Ө̆ӪҨԤҦР̌
ҎԖҪС̣С̱Т̌Т̣
ҬԎУ̃Ӱ
Ӱ́ӲҮҮ́ҰХ̣Х̱
Х̮Х̑ҲӼӾҺҺ̈
ԦҴҶӴӋҸҼ
ҾЫ̆Ы̄ӸҌЭ̆Э̄
Э̇ӬӬ́Ӭ̄Ю̆Ю̈Ю̈́
Ю̄Я̆Я̄Я̈ԜӀ
Archaic letters
ҀѺ
ОУѠѼѾ
ѢѤѦ
ѪѨѬѮ
ѰѲԌ
ѴѶԘ
ԢԔԠԞ

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).

Origin

The letter Yery in several fonts

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 і (formerly written either dotless or with two dots) or Izhe (и which formerly resembled н). In mediaeval manuscripts, it is almost always found as ъі or ъи. Once the letters ъ and ь later lost their values as vowels in the Slavic languages, the current simplified form ы evolved.

Usage

The soft sign (Ь) has the same trill. Because of phonological processes, the actual realisation of /i/ after alveolar consonants (д, з, л, н, р, с, т, or ц) is retracted to a close central unrounded vowel [ɨ], or [ʷɨ] after the labials: б, в, м, п.

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

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.

Native Russian words do not 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) beginning 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 the Ukrainian alphabet, yery is not used as the language lacks the sound /ɨ/.[1] In the Ukrainian alphabet, yery was mixed with [i] and was phased out in the second half of the 19th century.[2] According to Ukrainian academician Hryhoriy Pivtorak, the letter was replaced with so called "Cyrillic i" и which in Ukrainian language pronounced as [ɪ] and appeared due to the merger of letters ы and i ("Cyrillic dotted i").[1] The yery letter could be found in several earlier versions of Ukrainian writing system that were introduced in the 19th century among which are "Pavlovsky writing system", "Slobda Ukraine (New) writing system", "Yaryzhka", and others.[3]

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), I with bowl, and the soft sign (Ь ь)

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

Computing codes

Character information
PreviewЫы
Unicode nameCYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER YERUCYRILLIC SMALL LETTER YERUCYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER YERU
WITH BACK YER
CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER YERU
WITH BACK YER
Encodingsdecimalhexdecimalhexdecimalhexdecimalhex
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. 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. 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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