Iotated E or Iotated Ukrainian Ye ( ) is a letter of the

Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic 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 c ...

. It is only used in

Church Slavonic Church Slavonic (, , literally "Church-Slavonic language"), also known as Church Slavic, New Church Slavonic or New Church Slavic, is the conservative Slavic liturgical language used by the Eastern Orthodox Church in Belarus, Bosnia and Her ...

language.

History

Iotated E has no equivalent in the

Glagolitic alphabet The Glagolitic script (, , ''glagolitsa'') is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is generally agreed to have been created in the 9th century by Saint Cyril, a monk from Thessalonica. He and his brother Saint Methodius were sent by the Byzan ...

, and probably originated as a ligature of and to represent .

Usage

Iotated E is found in some of the very oldest examples of Cyrillic writing, such as the tenth-century Mostich inscription or the Codex Suprasliensis, whereas in others, such as the Enina Apostle or Undol'skij Fragments, it is not present at all. It is plentifully attested in medieval manuscripts of both South Slavonic and East Slavonic provenance, co-existing with , which fulfils the same function. Orthographic practice nevertheless varies: some manuscripts use all three characters, some and , some and , and some only . Among the Eastern Slavs fell into disuse after the end of the fourteenth century, and it is not therefore represented in printed books from this area, or in modern

. In the South, however, it survived, and was used in the first Serbian printed book, the Octoechos (''Oktoih prvoglasnik'') of 1474, and appears in the Serbian abecedarium printed in Venice in 1597; its position in the alphabet in this book is between and . It continued to be used in both manuscript and printed material throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but it no longer appears in the alphabet in M. Karaman's abecedarium of 1753. In certain orthographical variants of Bulgarian, it can be found at least up to the middle of the 19th century.Excerpts from a Bulgarian book of 1865: :ru:Файл:Примеры Е йотированного в гражданке.gif

Computing codes

References

Cyrillic ligatures {{Cyrillic-alphabet-stub