Short U (Ў ў; italics: ''Ў ў'') or U with breve is a letter of the

Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, Mongolic, Uralic languages, Uralic, C ...

. The only

Slavic language The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the Ear ...

using the letter in its orthography is Belarusian, but it is also used as a phonetic symbol in some Russian and Ukrainian dictionaries. Among the non-Slavic languages using Cyrillic alphabets, ў is used in Dungan, Karakalpak,

Karachay-Balkar Karachay–Balkar (, ), often referred to as the "mountaineer language" (, ) by its speakers, is a Turkic language spoken by the Karachays and Balkars in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay–Cherkessia, European Russia, as well as by an immigra ...

Mansi Mansi may refer to: * Mansi people, an Indigenous people of Russia ** Mansi language *Mansi (name), given name and surname *Mansi Junction railway station * Mansi Township, Myanmar ** Mansi, Myanmar, a town in the Kachin State of Myanmar (Burma) * ...

, Sakhalin Nivkh, Ossetian and

Siberian Yupik Siberian Yupiks, or Yuits (), are a Yupik peoples, Yupik people who reside along the coast of the Chukchi Peninsula in the far Russian Far East, northeast of the Russia, Russian Federation and on St. Lawrence Island in Alaska. They speak Si ...

. It is also used in Uzbek – this letter corresponds to Oʻ in the Uzbek Latin alphabet.

History

The letter originates from the letter

izhitsa Izhitsa (Ѵ, ѵ; italics: ; OCS: ѷжица, Russian: ижица, Ukrainian: іжиця) is a letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet and several later alphabets, usually the last in the row. It originates from the Greek letter upsilon (Y, υ) ...

with a

breve A breve ( , less often , grammatical gender, neuter form of the Latin "short, brief") is the diacritic mark , shaped like the bottom half of a circle. As used in Ancient Greek, it is also called , . It resembles the caron (, the wedge or in ...

(, etc.) used in certain Ukrainian books at the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries. Later, this character was probably in use in the Romanian Cyrillic script, from where it was borrowed in 1836 by the compilers of Ukrainian poetry book ''Rusalka Dnistrovaja'' (). The book's

foreword A foreword is a (usually short) piece of writing, sometimes placed at the beginning of a book or other piece of literature. Typically written by someone other than the primary author of the work, it often tells of some interaction between th ...

reads “we have accepted Serbian џ … and Wallachian omanian''ў'' …”. In this book, is used mostly for etymological transformed to Modern Ukrainian spelling uses (''v'') in that position. For Belarusian, the combination of the Cyrillic letter U with a breve was proposed by P.A. Bessonov in 1870. Before that, various ad hoc adaptations of the Latin U were used, for example, italicized in some publications of

Vintsent Dunin-Martsinkyevich Vintsent Dunin-Marcinkievič (; ; February 8, 1808 – December 21, 1884) was a Polish- Belarusian writer, poet, dramatist and social activist and is considered one of the founders of the modern Belarusian literary tradition and national scho ...

, with acute accent in Jan Czeczot's ''Da milykh mužyczkoú'' (''To dear peasants'', 1846 edition), W with breve in Epimakh-Shypila, 1889, or just the letter itself (like in publications of

Konstanty Kalinowski Konstanty Kalinowski, or Wincenty Konstanty Kalinowski ( – ), was a Polish-Belarusian writer, journalist, lawyer and revolutionary. He was one of the leaders of the 1863 January Uprising on the lands of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwea ...

, 1862–1863). A U with

haček A caron or háček ( ), is a diacritic mark () placed over certain letters in the orthography of some languages, to indicate a change of the related letter's pronunciation. Typographers tend to use the term ''caron'', while linguists prefer ...

was also used.Per (Bulyka). After 1870, both the distinction for the phoneme and the new shape of the letter still were not consistently used until the mid-1900s for technical problems, per Bulyka. Among the first publications using it were folklore collections published by Michał Federowski and the first edition of

Francišak Bahuševič Francišak Bahuševič (; ; – ) was a Belarusian poet, writer and lawyer, considered to be one of the initiators of modern Belarusian literature. Origins Francišak Bahuševič was born in the folwark of Świrany, near Vilnius (now ...

's ''Dudka Biełaruskaja'' (''Belarusian flute'', published in

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

, 1891). For quite a while other kinds of renderings (plain , or with added accent, haček, or caret) were still being used, sometimes within a single publication (Bahushevich, 1891, Pachobka, 1915), also supposedly because of technical problems.

Usage

Belarusian

The letter is called ''non-syllabic u'' or ''short u'' (*Bušlakoŭ, Juraś, Vincuk Viačorka, Źmicier Sańko, Źmicier Saŭka. 2005
''Klasyčny pravapis. Zbor praviłaŭ: Sučasnaja narmalizacyja''
lassical orthography. Set of rules: Contemporary normalization
PDF
) Vilnia—Miensk: Audra. or у кароткае, ''u karotkaye'') in Belarusian because although it resembles the vowel у (''u''), it does not form

syllable A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

s. Its equivalent in the

Belarusian Latin alphabet The Belarusian Latin alphabet or Łacinka (from , BGN/PCGN romanization of Belarusian, BGN/PCGN: , ) for the Latin script in general is the Latin script as used to write Belarusian. It is similar to the Sorbian alphabet and incorporates feat ...

is , although it is also sometimes transcribed as . In native Belarusian words, is used after vowels and represents a , as in хлеў, pronounced (''chleŭ'', ‘shed’) or воўк (''voŭk'', ‘wolf’). This is similar to the in English ''cow'' . The letter cannot occur before a non-iotated vowel in native words (except compound words such as паўакна, ‘half a window’); when that would be required by grammar, is replaced by . Compare хлеў ( ''chleŭ'', ‘shed’) with за хлявом ( ''za chlavóm'', ‘behind the shed’). Also, when a word starts with an unstressed and follows a word that ends in a vowel, it forms a diphthong through

liaison Liaison or Liaisons may refer to: General usage * Affair, an unfaithful sexual relationship * Collaboration * Co-operation * Liaison, an egg-based thickening used in cooking Arts and entertainment * Liaisons (''Desperate Housewives''), a 2007 ...

and it is written with instead. For example, у хляве ( ''u chlavié'', ‘in the shed’) but увайшлі яны ў хлеў ( ''uvajšlí janý ŭ chleŭ'', ‘they went into the shed’). According to the current official orthographic rules of 2008, proper names conserve the initial in writing, so the capital letter can occur only in all-capitals writing. Previous official orthographic rules (1959) also made exception for loanwords (каля універсітэта, ‘near the university’, now spelled каля ўніверсітэта).Правілы беларускай арфаграфіі і пунктуацыі. Выдавецтва Акадэміі Наук БССР, Мінск, 1959. The unofficial 2005 standardization of

Taraškievica Taraškievica (, ) or Belarusian Classical Orthography () is a variant of orthography of the Belarusian language, based on the literary norm of the modern Belarusian language, the first normalization of which was made by Branislaŭ Taraškiev ...

allows the capital in proper names. In acronyms/initialisms, the word-initial becomes : ВНУ for вышэйшая навучальная ўстанова ‘higher education institution (university, college, institute)’. Also, becomes in name initials in Taraškievica. The letter is also sometimes used to represent the labial-velar approximant in foreign

loanwords A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...

: this usage is allowed by the 2005 standardization of

. When it is used thus it can appear before non-iotated vowels, does not require a preceding vowel, and may be capital. In poetry, word-initial and are sometimes used according to the rhythm of a poem. In this case, the capital may also occur.

Uzbek

This letter is the 32nd letter of the Uzbek Cyrillic alphabet as it is a letter of its own and not a variant of ⟨у⟩. It corresponds to Oʻ in the current

Uzbek alphabet The Uzbek language has been written in various scripts: Latin, Cyrillic and Arabic. The language traditionally used Arabic script, but the official Uzbek government under the Soviet Union started to use Cyrillic in 1940, which is when widespread ...

. It is different from the regular O, which is represented by the

Cyrillic letter The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Easter ...

О. Furthermore, it represents , which is pronounced as either or , in contrast to the letter O, which represents .

Karakalpak

The letter is the 26th letter in the

Karakalpak alphabet Karakalpak () is a Turkic language spoken by Karakalpaks in Karakalpakstan. It is divided into two dialects, Northeastern Karakalpak and Southwestern Karakalpak. It developed alongside Nogai and neighbouring Kazakh languages, being markedly influ ...

. It corresponds to the sound /w/ and the Latin letter W.

In culture

In September 2003, during the tenth Days of Belarusian Literacy celebrations, the authorities in

Polatsk Polotsk () or Polatsk () is a town in Vitebsk Region, Belarus. It is situated on the Western Dvina, Dvina River and serves as the administrative center of Polotsk District. Polotsk is served by Polotsk Airport and Borovitsy air base. As of 2025, it ...

, the oldest Belarusian city, made a monument to honor the unique Cyrillic Belarusian letter . The original idea for the monument came from professor Paval Siemčanka, a scholar of Cyrillic calligraphy and

type Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * ...

. The letter is also the namesake of Ў gallery, an art gallery in

Minsk Minsk (, ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the administra ...

History

Usage

Belarusian

Uzbek

Karakalpak

In culture

Computing codes

See also

Notes

External links