Little yus (Ѧ, ѧ; italics: Ѧ, ѧ) and big yus (Ѫ, ѫ; italics: Ѫ, ѫ), or jus, are letters of the Cyrillic script[1] representing two Common Slavonic nasal vowels in the early Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets. Each can occur in iotated form (Ѩ ѩ, Ѭ ѭ), formed as ligatures with the decimal i (І). Other yus letters are blended yus (Ꙛ ꙛ), closed little yus (Ꙙ ꙙ) and iotated closed little yus (Ꙝ ꙝ).

Cyrillic letter Yus






Phonetic usage:Little: [ɛ̃], Big: [ɔ̃] Little: [jɛ̃] Big: [jɔ̃]
Numeric value:Little: 900
The Cyrillic script
Slavic letters
АА̀А̂А̄ӒБВГ
ҐДЂЃЕЀЕ̄Е̂
ЁЄЖЗЗ́ЅИІ
ЇЍИ̂ӢЙЈК
ЛЉМНЊОО̀О̂
ŌӦПРСС́ТЋ
ЌУУ̀У̂ӮЎӰФ
ХЦЧЏШЩЪ
Ъ̀ЫЬѢЭЮЮ̀Я
Я̀
Non-Slavic letters
ӐА̊А̃Ӓ̄ӔӘӘ́Ә̃
ӚВ̌ԜГ̑Г̇Г̣Г̌Г̂
Г̆Г̈ҔҒӺҒ̌Ӷ
Д́Д̌Д̈Д̣Д̆ӖЕ̃
Ё̄Є̈ԐԐ̈ҖӜӁЖ̣
ҘӞЗ̌З̣З̆ӠИ̃Ӥ
ҊҚӃҠҞҜК̣Ԛ
Л́ӅԮԒЛ̈Ӎ
Н́ӉҢԨӇҤО̆О̃
Ӧ̄ӨӨ̄Ө́Ө̆ӪԤП̈
Р̌ҎС̌ҪС̣С̱Т́Т̈
Т̌Т̇Т̣ҬУ̃ӲУ̊
Ӱ̄ҰҮҮ́Х̣Х̱Х̮Х̑
Х̌ҲӼӾҺҺ̈ԦЦ̌
Ц̈ҴҶҶ̣ӴӋҸ
Ч̇Ч̣ҼҾШ̈Ш̣Ы̆
Ы̄ӸҌҨЭ̆Э̄Э̇
ӬӬ́Ӭ̄Ю̆Ю̈Ю̄Я̆Я̄
Я̈Ӏʼˮ
Archaic or unused letters
А̨Б̀Б̣Б̱В̀Г̀Г̧
Г̄Г̓Г̆Ҕ̀Ҕ̆ԀД̓
Д̀Д̨ԂЕ̇Е̨
Ж̀Ж̑Џ̆
Ꚅ̆З̀З̑ԄԆ
ԪІ̂І̣І̨
Ј̵Ј̃К̓К̀К̆Ӄ̆
К̑К̇К̈К̄ԞК̂
Л̀ԠԈЛ̑Л̇Ԕ
М̀М̃Н̀Н̄Н̧
Н̃ԊԢН̡Ѻ
П̓П̀
П́ҦП̧П̑ҀԚ̆Р́
Р̀Р̃ԖС̀С̈ԌҪ̓
Т̓Т̀ԎТ̑Т̧
Ꚍ̆ОУУ̇
У̨ꙋ́Ф̑Ф̓Х́Х̀Х̆Х̇
Х̧Х̾Х̓һ̱ѠѼ
ѾЦ̀Ц́Ц̓Ꚏ̆
Ч́Ч̀Ч̆Ч̑Ч̓
ԬꚆ̆Ҽ̆Ш̀
Ш̆Ш̑Щ̆Ꚗ̆Ы̂
Ы̃Ѣ́Ѣ̈Ѣ̆Э̨Э̂
Ю̂Я̈Я̂Я̨
ԘѤѦѪѨ
ѬѮѰѲѴѶ

Phonetically, little yus represents a nasalized front vowel, possibly [ɛ̃], while big yus represents a nasalized back vowel, such as IPA [ɔ̃]. This is also suggested by the appearance of each as a 'stacked' digraph of 'Am' and 'om' respectively.

The names of the letters do not imply capitalization, as both little and big yus exist in majuscule and minuscule variants.

Disappearance edit

 
Cyrillic little yus (left) and big yus (right); normal forms (above) and iotated (below)
 
Evolution of cursive little yus into Я
 
Handwritten little yus
 
A beard tax token from 1705 containing Ѧ

All modern Slavic languages that use the Cyrillic alphabet have lost the nasal vowels (at least in their standard varieties), making Yus unnecessary.

In Bulgarian and Macedonian edit

Big Yus was a part of the Bulgarian alphabet until 1945. However, by then, in the eastern dialects, the back nasal was pronounced the same way as ъ [ɤ]. Because the language is based mainly on them, the western pronunciations were deemed unliterary, and the letter was gone.

There were some Bulgarian and Macedonian dialects spoken around Thessaloniki and Kastoria in northern Greece (Kostur dialect, Solun dialect) that still preserve a nasal pronunciation e.g. [ˈkɤ̃de ˈɡrẽdeʃ ˈmilo ˈt͡ʃẽdo] (Къде гредеш, мило чедо?; "Where are you going, dear child?"), which could be spelled pre-reform as "Кѫдѣ грѧдешъ, мило чѧдо?" with big and little yus.

On a visit to Razlog, in Bulgaria's Pirin Macedonia, in 1955, the Russian dialectologist Samuil Bernstein noticed that the nasal pronunciation of words like [ˈrɤ̃ka] (hand), [ˈt͡ʃẽdo] (child) could still be heard from some of the older women of the village. To the younger people, the pronunciation was completely alien; they would think that the old ladies were speaking Modern Greek.[2]

In Russian edit

In Russia, the little Yus came to be pronounced as an iotated /ja/ (я) in the middle or at the end of a word and therefore came to represent that sound also elsewhere;[citation needed] the modern letter я is an adaptation of its cursive form of the 17th century, enshrined by the typographical reform of 1708. (That is also why я in Russian often corresponds to nasalized ę in Polish; cf. Russian пять; Polish pięć.)

In Polish edit

In Polish, which is a Slavic language written in the Latin alphabet, the letter Ę ę has the phonetic value of little Yus, and Ą ą has that of big Yus. The iotated forms are written ię/ję and ią/ją, respectively. However, the phonemes written ę and ą are not directly descended from those represented by little and big yus but developed after the original nasals merged in Polish and then diverged again. (Kashubian, the closest language to Polish, uses the letter ã instead of ę.)

In Romanian edit

Little and big yuses can also be found in the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet, used until 1862. Little Yus was used for /ja/ and big Yus for unknown vowels, transcribed in later Romanian as /ɨ/ and /ə/. Now Romanian uses the Latin alphabet and /ɨ/ is written Îî or Ââ. /ə/ is written as Ăă.

One of the first transcriptions of the big yus as î in Romanian is found in Samuel Klain, Acathist, Sibii, 1801.

In Slovak edit

Little yus in the Slovak alphabet has been substituted by a (desať, načať), e (plesať), iotated ia (žiadať, kliatba, mesiac), ie (bdieť) and ä in several cases (pamäť, päť, svätý). Big yus is transliterated and pronounced as u, or accented ú (budeš, muž, mučeník, ruka, navyknúť, pristúpiť, púť, usnúť). Iotated, and closed iotated form of little yus occur as ja (e.g. jazyk, svoja, javiť, jasle).

In Ruthenian edit

In Ruthenian language, little yus was used to transcribe the sound ja (as in руска(ѧ) мова ("Ruthenian language") or ѧзыкъ ("language")). This evolved into and corresponded with the letter я in the descendant languages of Belarusian, Ukrainian, and Rusyn.

In Interslavic edit

The Interslavic language, a zonal, constructed, semi-artificial language based on Proto-Slavic and Old Church Slavonic modified based on the commonalities between living Slavic languages, allows (though does not encourage it for intelligibility purposes) to use both the little and big yus when writing in the scientific variety of its Cyrillic script. The letters correspond directly to their etymological values from Proto-Slavic, but do not retain the nasal pronunciation, instead going for one aiming to convey the "middle-ground" sounds found in etymologically corresponding letters in living Slavic languages. The little yus corresponds to the Latin letter "ę", while the big yus to "ų" in the etymological Latin script.

The iotated versions are not part of the standard scientific vocabulary, where the yuses are instead accompanied by the Cyrillic letter "ј", also used in the modern Serbian and Macedonian alphabets, though their use is optionally permissible for aesthetic reasons if one opts for using the more standard iotated vowels in their writing, so that consistency is preserved.

As of May 2019, no official "scientific Cyrillic" is endorsed by the Interslavic Commission for the reason that while Latin is easier to modify by simply adding diacritics, Cyrillic requires completely distinct graphemes. That is very likely to significantly hamper intelligibility for first-time readers, so yuses should not be used in writing when aiming to convey an easily understandable message.

Related letters and other similar characters edit

Computing codes edit

Character information
Preview Ѧ ѧ Ѩ ѩ
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER
LITTLE YUS
CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER
LITTLE YUS
CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER
IOTIFIED LITTLE YUS
CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER
IOTIFIED LITTLE YUS
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 1126 U+0466 1127 U+0467 1128 U+0468 1129 U+0469
UTF-8 209 166 D1 A6 209 167 D1 A7 209 168 D1 A8 209 169 D1 A9
Numeric character reference Ѧ Ѧ ѧ ѧ Ѩ Ѩ ѩ ѩ


Character information
Preview Ѫ ѫ Ѭ ѭ
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER
BIG YUS
CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER
BIG YUS
CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER
IOTIFIED BIG YUS
CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER
IOTIFIED BIG YUS
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 1130 U+046A 1131 U+046B 1132 U+046C 1133 U+046D
UTF-8 209 170 D1 AA 209 171 D1 AB 209 172 D1 AC 209 173 D1 AD
Numeric character reference Ѫ Ѫ ѫ ѫ Ѭ Ѭ ѭ ѭ


Character information
Preview
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER
BLENDED YUS
CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER
BLENDED YUS
Encodings decimal hex dec hex
Unicode 42586 U+A65A 42587 U+A65B
UTF-8 234 153 154 EA 99 9A 234 153 155 EA 99 9B
Numeric character reference Ꙛ Ꙛ ꙛ ꙛ


Character information
Preview
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER
CLOSED LITTLE YUS
CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER
CLOSED LITTLE YUS
CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER
IOTIFIED CLOSED LITTLE YUS
CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER
IOTIFIED CLOSED LITTLE YUS
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 42584 U+A658 42585 U+A659 42588 U+A65C 42589 U+A65D
UTF-8 234 153 152 EA 99 98 234 153 153 EA 99 99 234 153 156 EA 99 9C 234 153 157 EA 99 9D
Numeric character reference Ꙙ Ꙙ ꙙ ꙙ Ꙝ Ꙝ ꙝ ꙝ


Character information
Preview ⷿ
Unicode name COMBINING CYRILLIC LETTER
LITTLE YUS
COMBINING CYRILLIC LETTER
BIG YUS
COMBINING CYRILLIC LETTER
IOTIFIED BIG YUS
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 11773 U+2DFD 11774 U+2DFE 11775 U+2DFF
UTF-8 226 183 189 E2 B7 BD 226 183 190 E2 B7 BE 226 183 191 E2 B7 BF
Numeric character reference ⷽ ⷽ ⷾ ⷾ ⷿ ⷿ

References edit

  1. ^ "Cyrillic: Range: 0400–04FF" (PDF). The Unicode Standard, Version 6.0. 2010. p. 41. Retrieved 2011-10-31.
  2. ^ October 27, 1955 entry in Bernstein's diary, Зигзаги памяти. Bernstein transcribed the words as рънка, чендо.