Yu (Cyrillic)

Yu (Ю ю; italics: Ю ю) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. After a palatalized consonant, it represents the close back rounded vowel /u/, somewhat like the pronunciation of ⟨oo⟩ in "boot"; elsewhere it is a so-called iotated vowel representing the combination /ju/, like the pronunciation of ⟨you⟩ in "youth". In English, Yu is commonly romanized as ⟨yu⟩.

History

Apart from the form I-O, in early Slavonic manuscripts the letter appears also in a mirrored form O-I (Ꙕ, ꙕ). It is this 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), this 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.

Probably in analogy to the 'iotated' letters Ѥ, ІА, Ѩ and Ѭ, which fulfilled similar functions in Slavonic, this OI ligature was soon mirrored to the modern form ю.

Related letters and other similar characters

• У у : Cyrillic letter U

Computing codes

External links

• The Wiktionary entry for Ю
• The Wiktionary entry for ю