Izhitsa

Cyrillic letter Izhitsa

Cyrillic numerals: 400
Unicode (hex)
majuscule: U+0474 0476
minuscule: U+0475 0477
Cyrillic script
Slavic letters
А Б В Г Ґ Д Ђ
Ѓ 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 Ҕ
Ӻ Ӷ Ԁ Ԃ Ꚉ Ӗ Ӂ
Җ Ӝ Ԅ Ҙ Ӟ Ԑ Ӡ
Ԇ Ӣ Ҋ Ӥ Қ Ӄ Ҡ
Ҟ Ҝ Ԟ Ԛ Ӆ Ԓ Ԡ
Ԉ Ԕ Ӎ Ӊ Ң Ӈ Ҥ
Ԣ Ԋ Ӧ Ө Ӫ Ҩ Ԥ
Ҧ Ҏ Ԗ Ҫ Ԍ Ҭ Ԏ
Ӯ Ӱ Ӳ Ү Ұ Ҳ Ӽ
Ӿ Һ Ԧ Ҵ Ҷ Ӵ Ӌ
Ҹ Ꚇ Ҽ Ҿ Ӹ Ҍ Ӭ
Ԙ Ԝ Ӏ
Archaic letters
Ҁ Ѻ Ѹ Ѡ Ѿ Ѣ Ꙓ
Ꙗ Ѥ Ѧ Ѫ Ѩ Ѭ Ѯ
Ѱ Ѳ Ѵ Ѷ Ꙟ    
List of Cyrillic letters
Cyrillic digraphs

Izhitsa (Ѵ, ѵ; Russian: И́жица) is a letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet and several later alphabets, usually the last in the row. It originates from the Greek letter ypsilon (Υ, υ) and was used in words and names derived from or via Greek, such as кѵрилъ (kürilǔ, 'Cyril') or флаѵии (flavii, 'Flavius'). It represented sounds /i/ or /v/ as normal letters и and в respectively. Glagolitic alphabet has a corresponding letter with the same name izhitsa (Ⱛ, ⱛ). Also, izhitsa in its standard form or (mostly) in a tailed variant (similar to lowercase y) was a part of a digraph оѵ/оу representing sound /u/ (the digraph is known as Cyrillic letter Uk, and today's Cyrillic letter U originates from its simplified form).

Letter's traditional name izhitsa (ижица) is explained as a deminutive either of the word иго (igo, 'yoke'), due to the letter's shape, or of иже (izhe, 'which'), the name of "main" Cyrillic and Glagolitic letters for the same sound /i/.

The numeral value of Cyrillic izhitsa is 400 (Glagolitic izhitsa has no numeral value). Church Slavonic editions printed in Russia use a tailed variant of the letter for the numeral purpose, whereas editions from Serbia or Romania (including books in Romanian Cyrillic alphabet), as well as early printed books from Ukraine prefer a basic form without the tail.

Contents

Russian

In the Russian language, the use of izhitsa became progressively rarer during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was only one word with relatively stable spelling with izhitsa: мѵро (müro, 'myrrh') and its derivatives. The orthographic reforms of 1917-1918 do not mention the letter at all, so it “died” with no formal act.

Serbian

The traditional spelling of Serbian was more conservative. It preserved all etymologically motivated izhitsas in words of Greek origin. Vuk Stefanović Karadžić had reformed the Serbian alphabet in the beginning of the nineteenth century and eliminated the letter, but the old spelling was used in some places as late as the 1880s.

(New) Church Slavonic

Izhitsa is still in use in the Church Slavonic language. Like Greek ypsilon, it can be pronounced /i/ as и, or /v/ as в. The basic distinction rule is simple: izhitsa with stress and/or aspiration marks is a vowel and therefore pronounced /i/; izhitsa without diacritical marks is a consonant and pronounced /v/. Unstressed /i/-sounding izhitsas are marked with a special diacritical mark, the so-called kendema or kendima (from the Greek word κέντημα ['kjεndima]). The shape of kendema over izhitsa may vary: in books of Russian origin, it typically looks like double grave or sometimes like double acute. In older Serbian books, kendema most often looked like two dots (trema) or might even be replaced by a surrogate combination of aspiration and acute. These shape distinctions (with the exception of aspiration+acute) have no orthographical meaning and must be considered just as font style variations, so the Unicode name “izhitsa with double grave” is slightly misleading. Izhitsa with kendema (majuscule: Ѷ, minuscule: ѷ) is not a separate letter of the alphabet, but it may have personal position in computer encodings (e.g., Unicode). Historically, izhitsa with kendema corresponds to the Greek ypsilon with trema (or διαλυτικά: Ϋ, ϋ). While in modern editions of ancient and modern Greek the trema is used only to prevent a digraph (as <ευ> [εv/εf] versus <εϋ> [εi]), Slavonic kendema-usage still continues that of many mediaeval Greek manuscripts, where the "diaeresis" sign was often used simply to mark an ypsilon or iota as such, irrespective of any other vowels (e.g. δϊαλϋτϊκά, which would not be correct by today's conventions).

Romanian

Traditional orthography of the Romanian language (see Romanian Cyrillic alphabet) used izhitsa in the same Church Slavonic manner, with all the above-mentioned pecularities. This writing system was used until about 1860 in Romania and until 1910s in church books in Moldova.

Aleut

The Cyrillic letter izhitsa also used historically in the Cyrillic script version of Aleut, which this letter used in certain loanwords.

Izhitsa as a replacement of a different character

In Russian typography, the capital form of izhitsa has traditionally been used instead of the Roman numeral V, the tradition survived several decades longer than izhitsa as a letter of the alphabet.

The izhitsa is sometimes used in place of the new IPA symbol for the labiodental flap because the signs are similar.

Computing codes

character Ѵ ѵ Ѷ ѷ
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL
LETTER IZHITSA		 CYRILLIC SMALL
LETTER IZHITSA		 CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER IZHITSA
WITH DOUBLE GRAVE ACCENT		 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER IZHITSA
WITH DOUBLE GRAVE ACCENT
character encoding decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 1140 0474 1141 0475 1142 0476 1143 0477
UTF-8 209 180 D1 B4 209 181 D1 B5 209 182 D1 B6 209 183 D1 B7
Numeric character reference &#1140; &#x0474; &#1141; &#x0475; &#1142; &#x0476; &#1143; &#x0477;

Tailed izhitsa has no individual position in Unicode, CYRILLIC CAPITAL/SMALL LETTER U (U+0423, U+0443) is supposed to represent it.

References