Yo (Cyrillic)

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Cyrillic letter Yo
Unicode (hex)
majuscule: U+0401
minuscule: U+0451
Cyrillic alphabet
А	Б	В	Г	Ґ	Д	Ѓ
Ђ	Е	Ѐ	Ё	Є	Ж	З
Ѕ	И	Ѝ	І	Ї	Й	Ј
К	Л	Љ	М	Н	Њ	О
П	Р	С	Т	Ћ	Ќ	У
Ў	Ф	Х	Ц	Ч	Џ	Ш
Щ	Ъ	Ы	Ь	Э	Ю	Я
Non-Slavic letters
Ӑ	Ӓ	Ә	Ӛ	Ӕ	Ғ	Ӷ
Ҕ	Ӗ	Ҽ	Ҿ	Ӂ	Җ	Ӝ
Ҙ	Ӟ	Ӡ	Ӥ	Ӣ	Ӏ	Ҋ
Қ	Ҟ	Ҡ	Ӄ	Ҝ	Ӆ	Ӎ
Ҥ	Ң	Ӊ	Ӈ	Ӧ	Ө	Ӫ
Ҩ	Ҧ	Ҏ	Ҫ	Ҭ	Ӳ	Ӱ
Ӯ	Ү	Ұ	Ҳ	Һ	Ҵ	Ӵ
Ҷ	Ӌ	Ҹ	Ӹ	Ҍ	Ӭ
Archaic letters
Ҁ	Ѹ	Ѡ	Ѿ	Ѻ	Ѣ	ІА
Ѥ	Ѧ	Ѫ	Ѩ	Ѭ	Ѯ	Ѱ
Ѳ	Ѵ	Ѷ	Ꙟ
List of Cyrillic letters

Yo (Ё, ё) is the seventh letter of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, invented in 1783 by Yekaterina Dashkova, and first used, among others, in 1797 by the Russian historian and writer Nikolay Karamzin to replace the ‘іо’ combination in some cases (see below).^[1] It is used in the Russian, Belarusian and Rusyn languages, along with many of the Caucasian and Turkic languages which use or used the Cyrillic alphabet, but not in many of the other Slavic languages. (Interestingly, because Bulgarian does not use the letter, it uses "ьо" instead -- which is the only place where the soft sign is ever used in modern Bulgarian (but only after consonants - initially or after vowels йo is used instead).

It is an iotated or palatalized O (/jo/ as in yogurt, or /ʲo/), except when following a postalveolar fricative, like ж, ч, ш and щ, it represents a simple /o/. This letter's syllable is always under stress.

Yo is identical in form to ye, as well as Latin E, except for a symbol similar to an umlaut or dieresis. This diacritic serves no regular function in Russian (as it does in German or French), and is solely used to differentiate this letter from ye. It was first used at the end of 18th century in literary works by various writers, but it has not gained standard usage until 1940s.^{[citation needed]}

Wherever the sound occurs in Russian, it corresponds historically to yе, a fact which may be seen from comparison with other Slavic languages: моё (my—neuter nominative and accusative singular) is moje in Polish, Czech, and Slovak.

Though in common use after World War II, in printed Russian yo is still replaced by the letter ye due to their similar appearance and the ability for speakers to tell by context which sound is represented. Its use is mandatory in dictionaries, children's books and textbooks for foreign learners.

Some Russian authors (e.g. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn) and periodicals (e.g. Literaturnaya Gazeta) always publish their texts with yo.

The fact that yo is frequently replaced with ye in print often causes some confusion to both Russians and non-Russians, as it makes Russian words and names harder to transcribe accurately. One recurring problem is with Russian surnames, as both -ев (-ev) and -ёв (-yov) are common endings. Thus the English-speaking world knows two leaders of the former Soviet Union as Khrushchev and Gorbachev though their surnames end in Russian with -ёв, better transcribed -yov. Some words and names have also changed in Russian because of the confusion — some have had their ‘ё’ replaced with ‘е’, and some ‘е’ replaced with ‘ё’.The only time that a ё can be used in foreign words is in German as well as Hungarian words and names that use the umlaut ö/ő, such as Gerhard Schröder, whose last name is transliterated as Шpёдep (-ьo in Bulgarian). Otherwise foreign names use йо, e.g. Нью Йорк "New York."

In Belarusian and in Rusyn it is incorrect to replace "ё" with "е".

[edit] See also

• E (Cyrillic)
• O (Cyrillic)
• Epsilon (letter)
• E
• Ë
• Reforms of Russian orthography

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Kevin O'Flynn. Town To Honor Forgotten Letter. The St. Petersburg Times.