Ukrainian Ye

Cyrillic letter
Ukrainian Ye
Numeric value: 5
The Cyrillic script
Slavic letters
АБВГҐДЂ
ЃЕЀЁЄЖЗ
З́ЅИЍІЇЙ
ЈКЛЉМНЊ
ОПРСС́ТЋ
ЌУЎФХЦЧ
ЏШЩЪЫЬЭ
ЮЯ
Non-Slavic letters
ӐА̄А̊А̃ӒӒ̄Ә
Ә́Ә̃ӚӔҒГ̧Г̑
Г̄ҔӺӶԀԂ
ԪԬӖЕ̄Е̃
Ё̄Є̈ӁҖӜԄ
ҘӞԐԐ̈ӠԆӢ
И̃ҊӤҚӃҠҞ
ҜԞԚӅԮԒԠ
ԈԔӍӉҢԨӇ
ҤԢԊО̆О̃О̄Ӧ
ӨӨ̄ӪҨԤҦР̌
ҎԖҪԌҬ
ԎУ̃ӮӰӰ́Ӳ
ҮҮ́ҰХ̑ҲӼӾ
ҺҺ̈ԦҴҶ
ӴӋҸҼ
ҾЫ̆Ы̄ӸҌЭ̆Э̄
Э̇ӬӬ́Ӭ̄Ю̆Ю̈Ю̈́
Ю̄Я̆Я̄Я̈ԘԜӀ
Archaic letters
ҀѺ
ОУѠѼѾ
ѢѤѦ
ѪѨѬѮ
ѰѲѴѶ

Ukrainian Ye є; italics: Є є) is a character of the Cyrillic script. It is considered as an individual letter of the modern Ukrainian alphabet (8th position since 1992, 7th position before then) and as a variant form of Ye е) in modern Church Slavonic (there, the selection of Є and Е is driven by orthography rules). 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. Then, 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), 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 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]

Computing codes

Character Є є
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER
UKRAINIAN IE
CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER
UKRAINIAN IE
Encodings decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 1028 U+0404 1108 U+0454
UTF-8 208 132 D0 84 209 148 D1 94
Numeric character reference Є Є є є
KOI8-U 180 B4 164 A4
Code page 855 135 87 134 86
Code page 866 242 F2 243 F3
Windows-1251 170 AA 186 BA
ISO-8859-5 164 A4 244 F4
Macintosh Cyrillic 184 B8 185 B9

References

  1. Federal Geographic Data Committee, ed. (August 2006). FGDC Digital Cartographic Standard for Geologic Map Symbolization FGDC-STD-013-2006 (PDF). U.S. Geological Survey for the Federal Geographic Data Committee. p. A–32–1. Retrieved August 23, 2010.
  2. "How to use the euro name and symbol". European Commission – Economic and Financial Affairs. Ec.europa.eu. Retrieved 2010-04-07.

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")

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