Yu (Cyrillic)

Not to be confused with Korean 어 (eo) or the Cyrillic letter yus.
Cyrillic letter Yu
The Cyrillic script
Slavic letters
АБВГҐДЂ
ЃЕЀЁЄЖЗ
З́ЅИЍІЇЙ
ЈКЛЉМНЊ
ОПРСС́ТЋ
ЌУЎФХЦЧ
ЏШЩЪЫЬЭ
ЮЯ
Non-Slavic letters
ӐА̄А̊А̃ӒӒ̄Ә
Ә́Ә̃ӚӔҒГ̧Г̑
Г̄ҔӺӶԀԂ
ԪԬӖЕ̄Е̃
Ё̄Є̈ӁҖӜԄ
ҘӞԐԐ̈ӠԆӢ
И̃ҊӤҚӃҠҞ
ҜԞԚӅԮԒԠ
ԈԔӍӉҢԨӇ
ҤԢԊО̆О̃О̄Ӧ
ӨӨ̄ӪҨԤҦР̌
ҎԖҪԌҬ
ԎУ̃ӮӰӰ́Ӳ
ҮҮ́ҰХ̑ҲӼӾ
ҺҺ̈ԦҴҶ
ӴӋҸҼ
ҾЫ̆Ы̄ӸҌЭ̆Э̄
Э̇ӬӬ́Ӭ̄Ю̆Ю̈Ю̈́
Ю̄Я̆Я̄Я̈ԘԜӀ
Archaic letters
ҀѺ
ОУѠѼѾ
ѢѤѦ
ѪѨѬѮ
ѰѲѴѶ

Yu 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 yu. In turn, ю is used, where is available, in transcriptions of English letter u (in open syllables), and also of the ew digraph. The sound [y], like u in French and ü in German, may also be approximated by the letter ю.

Pronunciation

It is a so-called iotated vowel, pronounced in isolation as /ju/, like the pronunciation of you in "youth". After a consonant, no distinct [j] sound is pronounced, but the consonant is softened. The exact pronunciation of the vowel sound of ю, in Russian depends also on the succeeding sound because of allophony. Before a soft consonant, it is [ʉ], the close central rounded vowel, as in 'rude'. If a hard consonant ю or nothing or at the end of a word, the result is a back vowel [u], as in 'Lewis'.

History

Apart from the form I-O, in early Slavonic manuscripts the letter appears also in a mirrored form O-I (Ꙕ, ꙕ).[1] It is thie latter form that is probably the original, 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 /y/ in educated Greek speech. This digraphic representation of /y/ was so basic for speakers of Greek that the simple letter upsilon (υ) representing the same sound came to be called υ ψιλόν (y psilon) "simple" υ in contrast to "complex" οι. 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, ІА, Ѩ and Ѭ, the ancient ligature (or letter) Uk оѵ/оу possibly had its iotated form іоѵ/іоу.

Also, the iotified big Yus Ѭ merged itself to ю in East Slavic languages.

Computing codes

Character Ю ю
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER YU CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER YU
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 1070 U+042E 1102 U+044E
UTF-8 208 174 D0 AE 209 142 D1 8E
Numeric character reference Ю Ю ю ю
KOI8-R and KOI8-U 224 E0 192 C0
Code page 855 157 9D 156 9C
Windows-1251 222 DE 254 FE
ISO-8859-5 206 CE 238 EE
Macintosh Cyrillic 158 9E 254 FE

References

  1. Yefim Karskiy (1979) [First published 1928]. Славянская кирилловская палеография [The Slavic Cyrillic paleography] (in Russian) (2nd, facsimile ed.). Nauka. pp. 205–206.
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