Yeru or Eru (Ы 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.

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
Г̆Г̈г̊ҔҒӺҒ̌
ғ̊ӶД́Д̌Д̈Д̣Д̆
ӖЕ̃Ё̄Є̈ԐԐ̈ҖӜ
ӁЖ̣ҘӞЗ̌З̣З̆Ӡ
И̃ӤҊҚӃҠҞҜ
К̣к̊қ̊ԚЛ́ӅԮ
ԒЛ̈ӍН́ӉҢԨ
ӇҤО̆О̃Ӧ̄ӨӨ̄Ө́
Ө̆ӪԤП̈ҎР̌С̌Ҫ
С̣С̱Т́Т̈Т̌Т̇Т̣Ҭ
У̃ӲУ̊Ӱ̄ҰҮҮ́
Х̣Х̱Х̮Х̑Х̌ҲӼх̊
Ӿӿ̊ҺҺ̈ԦЦ̌Ц̈Ҵ
ҶҶ̣ӴӋҸЧ̇Ч̣
ҼҾШ̣Ы̆Ы̄Ӹ
ҌҨЭ̆Э̄Э̇ӬӬ́Ӭ̄
Ю̆Ю̈Ю̄Я̆Я̄Я̈Ӏʼ
ˮ
Archaic or unused letters
А̨Б̀Б̣Б̱В̀Г̀Г̧
Г̄Г̓Г̆Ҕ̀Ҕ̆ԀД̓
Д̀Д̨ԂЕ̇Е̨
Ж̀Ж̑Џ̆
Ꚅ̆З̀З̑ԄԆ
ԪІ̂І̣І̨
Ј̵Ј̃К̓К̀К̆Ӄ̆
К̑К̇К̈К̄ԞК̂
Л̀ԠԈЛ̑Л̇Ԕ
М̀М̃Н̀Н̄Н̧
Н̃ԊԢН̡Ѻ
П̓П̀
П́ҦП̧П̑ҀԚ̆Р́
Р̀Р̃ԖС̀С̈ԌҪ̓
Т̓Т̀ԎТ̑Т̧
Ꚍ̆ѸУ̇
У̨ꙋ́Ф̑Ф̓Х́Х̀Х̆Х̇
Х̧Х̾Х̓һ̱ѠѼ
ѾЦ̀Ц́Ц̓Ꚏ̆
Ч́Ч̀Ч̆Ч̑Ч̓
ԬꚆ̆Ҽ̆Ш̀
Ш̆Ш̑Щ̆Ꚗ̆Ъ̄Ъ̈
Ъ̈̄Ы̂Ы̃Ѣ́Ѣ̈Ѣ̆
Э̨Э̂Ю̂
Я̈Я̂Я̨ԘѤѦѪ
ѨѬѮѰѲѴ
Ѷ
Yery, from Karion Istomin's 1694 alphabet book

The letter is usually romanised ⟨y⟩, such that the family name Крылов is usually written Krylov in English and most other West European languages. That spelling matches the Latin alphabet used for the Slavic language Polish, whose letter ⟨y⟩ represents the same sound. Similarly, ⟨ы⟩ is used for ⟨y⟩ in the cyrillisation of Polish, such that the name Maryla appears as Марыля in Russian. Note, however, that the letter ⟨y⟩ also appears in romanisation of other Russian letters both in isolation (such as й, y) and as part of digraphs (such as я, ya).

In Rusyn, ⟨ы⟩ represents the close-mid back unrounded vowel /ɤ/. In most Turkic languages that use Cyrillic, such as Kazakh and Kyrgyz, ⟨ы⟩ is used to represent the close back unrounded vowel /ɯ/ instead.

Origin

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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⟩.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed]

Usage

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While vowel letters in the Cyrillic alphabet may be divided into iotated and non-iotated pairs (for example, ⟨о⟩ and ⟨ё⟩ both represent /o/, 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.[citation needed]

In Russian

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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

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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

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In Rusyn, it denotes a sound that is a bit harder[clarification needed] 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

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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]

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Computing codes

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Character information
Preview Ы ы
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER YERU CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER YERU CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER YERU
WITH BACK YER
CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER YERU
WITH BACK YER
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 1067 U+042B 1099 U+044B 42576 U+A650 42577 U+A651
UTF-8 208 171 D0 AB 209 139 D1 8B 234 153 144 EA 99 90 234 153 145 EA 99 91
Numeric character reference Ы Ы ы ы Ꙑ Ꙑ ꙑ ꙑ
Named character reference Ы ы
KOI8-R and KOI8-U 249 F9 217 D9
Code page 855 242 F2 241 F1
Code page 866 155 9B 235 EB
Windows-1251 219 DB 251 FB
ISO-8859-5 203 CB 235 EB
Macintosh Cyrillic 155 9B 251 FB

References

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  1. ^ a b 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.
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  •   The dictionary definition of Ы at Wiktionary
  •   The dictionary definition of ы at Wiktionary