Ukrainian Ye

Cyrillic letter Ukrainian Ye
Numeric value:	5
The Cyrillic script
Slavic letters
А Б В Г Ґ Д Ђ Ѓ Е Ѐ Ё Є Ж З З́ Ѕ И Ѝ І Ї Й Ј К Л Љ М Н Њ О П Р С С́ Т Ћ Ќ У Ў Ф Х Ц Ч Џ Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э Ю Я
Non-Slavic letters
Ӑ А̄ А̊ А̃ Ӓ Ӓ̄ Ә Ә́ Ә̃ Ӛ Ӕ Ғ Г̧ Г̑ Г̄ Ҕ Ӻ Ӷ Ԁ Ԃ Ꚃ Ꚁ Ꚉ Ԫ Ԭ Ӗ Е̄ Е̃ Ё̄ Є̈ Ӂ Җ Ꚅ Ӝ Ԅ Ҙ Ӟ Ԑ Ԑ̈ Ӡ Ԇ Ӣ И̃ Ҋ Ӥ Қ Ӄ Ҡ Ҟ Ҝ Ԟ Ԛ Ӆ Ԯ Ԓ Ԡ Ԉ Ԕ Ӎ Ӊ Ң Ԩ Ӈ Ҥ Ԣ Ԋ О̆ О̃ О̄ Ӧ Ө Ө̄ Ӫ Ҩ Ԥ Ҧ Р̌ Ҏ Ԗ Ҫ Ԍ Ꚑ Ҭ Ꚋ Ꚍ Ԏ У̃ Ӯ Ӱ Ӱ́ Ӳ Ү Ү́ Ұ Х̑ Ҳ Ӽ Ӿ Һ Һ̈ Ԧ Ꚕ Ҵ Ꚏ Ҷ Ӵ Ӌ Ҹ Ꚓ Ꚗ Ꚇ Ҽ Ҿ Ы̆ Ы̄ Ӹ Ҍ Э̆ Э̄ Э̇ Ӭ Ӭ́ Ӭ̄ Ю̆ Ю̈ Ю̈́ Ю̄ Я̆ Я̄ Я̈ Ԙ Ԝ Ӏ
Archaic letters
Ꙁ Ꙃ Ꙅ Ꙇ Ꙉ Ҁ Ѻ ОУ Ꙋ Ѡ Ѽ Ꙍ Ѿ Ꙏ Ѣ Ꙑ Ꙓ Ꙕ Ꙗ Ѥ Ѧ Ꙙ Ѫ Ꙛ Ѩ Ꙝ Ѭ Ѯ Ѱ Ѳ Ѵ Ѷ Ꙟ Ꙡ Ꙣ Ꙥ Ꙧ Ꙩ Ꙫ Ꙭ ꙮ Ꚙ Ꚛ
List of Cyrillic letters Cyrillic digraphs

Ukrainian Ye (Є є; italics: Є є) is a character of the Cyrillic script. It is considered as an individual letter of the modern Ukrainian alphabet (in 8th position row since 1992, and 7th position before that) and as a variant form of Ye (Е е) in modern Church Slavonic (where the selection of Є and Е is driven by orthography rules, see below). Until the mid-19th century, Є/є was also used in Serbian (the letter was eliminated in Vuk Karadžić's alphabet, and replaced by digraph је). Other modern Slavonic languages may use Є/є shapes instead of Е/е for decorative purposes. In these circumstances, the letter is usually referred to by the older name Yest, and the descriptive names long E, or anchor E.

In Ukrainian, Є/є commonly represents the sound /je/ or /jɛ/, like the pronunciation of ⟨ye⟩ in "yes". (See Usage for more detail.)

Ukrainian Ye is romanized as ⟨je⟩ or ⟨e⟩. See Scientific transliteration of Cyrillic.

History

Letter Є/є was derived from one of variant forms of Cyrillic Ye (Е е), known as "long E" or "anchor E". Є-shaped letter can be found in late uncial (ustav) and semi-uncial (poluustav) Cyrillic manuscripts, especially ones of Ukrainian origin. Typically it corresponds to the letter Iotated E (Ѥ ѥ) of older monuments. Certain old primers and grammar books of Church Slavonic language had listed Є/є as a letter distinct from Е/е and placed it near the end of the alphabet (the exact alphabet position varies). Among modern-style Cyrillic scripts (known as "civil script" or "Petrine script"), Є/є was first used in Serbian books (end of the 18th century and first half of the 19th century); sometimes, Serbian printers might be using Э/э instead of Є/є due to font availability. For the modern Ukrainian language, Є/є is used since 1837 (orthography of almanach "Русалка Днѣстровая"). In Cyrillic numerals, Є is always preferred to E to represent 5.

Usage

Ukrainian

In Ukrainian and Rusyn (as well as in old Serbian orthography), Є/є represents /je/, or the iotated vowel sound /e/ after a palatalized consonant.

Old Slavonic, Old East Slavic

In oldest Slavonic manuscripts, Є is just a graphical variant of Е and thus represents /e/ without palatalization. Later Є replaces Ѥ (i.e. denotes /ʲe/ after consonants and /je/ after vowels and in an initial position). Yet later, it also accepts both decorative role (as an initial letter of a word, even if there were no iotation) and an orthographical one, to make distinction between certain homonymical forms (mostly between plural and singular).

New Church Slavonic

Since the mid-17th century, the Church Slavonic orthography has the following main rules related to the usage of shapes Є and Е:

• in an initial position, always use Є;
• otherwise, use Е with the following exceptions:
  • in noun's endings, use -євъ and -ємъ for plural and -евъ, -емъ for singular;
  • in other endings, suffixes and roots of nouns, adjectives, participles, numerals and pronouns, use Є for plural/dual, if there exists a homonymous form in the singular (either of the same word or a different one; the actual rule is much more complicated and not well-defined, as there are multiple other ways to eliminate such homonymy);
  • publishers from Kyiv also use Є in the genitive case of three pronouns (менє, тебє, себє), and Е in the accusative case (мене, тебе, себе);
• as a numerical sign (with value 5) use Є, not Е (the rule has often been ignored outside of the Russian Empire).

In the modern Church Slavonic alphabet, the 6th letter is typically shown as Єєе (one uppercase accompanied with two variants of lowercase).

The different shapes Є and Е exist only in lowercase; thus in all caps and small caps styles, the distinction between Є and Е disappears.

Old Believers print their books using an older variant of New Church Slavonic language. Its orthography combines the fully formal system described above with the older tradition to use Є phonetically (after vowels, to represent iotated /je/).

Similar characters

The United States Federal Geographic Data Committee uses Ꞓ, a character similar to capital Є, to represent the Cambrian Period in geologic history.^[1]

Є is similar to the symbol for the euro currency ⟨€⟩. In a memorandum from the European Commission on the design of the euro sign, Ukrainian Ye was accidentally used to represent the Greek letter Epsilon.^[2]

Related letters and other similar characters

• Ε ε : Greek letter Epsilon
• Ɛ ɛ : Latin letter Epsilon
• Е е : Cyrillic letter Ye
• Ё ё : Cyrillic letter Yo
• Э э : Cyrillic letter E
• Ԑ ԑ : Cyrillic letter Reversed Ze
• E e : Latin letter E
• Ꞓ ꞓ : Latin letter Ꞓ

Computing codes

References

Further reading

Півторак Г. П. Український алфавіт // Українська мова: Енциклопедія. — К.: Українська енциклопедія, 2000. ISBN 966-7492-07-9 — С. 679—680. (H. Pivtorak, "Ukrainian Alphabet")

External links

• The dictionary definition of Є at Wiktionary
• The dictionary definition of є at Wiktionary