U (У у; italics: ''У у'') 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 ...

. It commonly represents the

close back rounded vowel The close back rounded vowel, or high back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is u. I ...

, somewhat like the pronunciation of in "boot" or "rule". The forms of the Cyrillic letter U are similar to the lowercase of the Latin letter Y (Y y; ''Y y''), with the lowercase Cyrillic letter U's form being identical to that of small Latin letter Y.

History

Historically, Cyrillic U evolved as a specifically East Slavic short form of the digraph used in ancient

Slavic Slavic, Slav or Slavonic may refer to: Peoples * Slavic peoples, an ethno-linguistic group living in Europe and Asia ** East Slavic peoples, eastern group of Slavic peoples ** South Slavic peoples, southern group of Slavic peoples ** West Slav ...

texts to represent . The digraph was itself a direct loan from the

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BC. It was derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and is the earliest known alphabetic script to systematically write vowels as wel ...

, where the combination (

omicron Omicron (, ; uppercase Ο, lowercase ο, ) is the fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. This letter is derived from the Phoenician letter ayin: . In classical Greek, omicron represented the close-mid back rounded vowel in contrast to '' o ...

upsilon Upsilon (, ; uppercase Υ, lowercase υ; ''ýpsilon'' ) or ypsilon is the twentieth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, has a value of 400. It is derived from the phoenician alphabet, Phoenician Waw (letter), waw ...

) was also used to represent . Later, the o was removed, leaving the modern upsilon-only form. Consequently, the form of the letter is derived from Greek

, which was parallelly also taken over into the Cyrillic alphabet in another form, as

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) ...

. (The letter Izhitsa was removed from the

Russian alphabet The Russian alphabet (, or , more traditionally) is the script used to write the Russian language. The modern Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters: twenty consonants (, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ), ten vowels (, , , , , , , , , ) ...

in the orthography reform of 1917/19.) It is normally romanised as "u", but in Kazakh, it is romanised as "w". In the

Cyrillic numeral system Cyrillic numerals are a numeral system derived from the Cyrillic script, developed in the First Bulgarian Empire in the late 10th century. It was used in the First Bulgarian Empire and by South and East Slavic peoples. The system was used in R ...

, the Cyrillic letter U had a value of 400.

In other languages

In Tuvan the Cyrillic letter can be written as a

double vowel Double letter may refer to: *Digraph (orthography)#Homogeneous digraph - a type of digraph * Gemination#Double letters that are not long consonants {{disambiguation ...

. In certain languages, U is used to mark

labialization Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels invol ...

Related letters and other similar characters

*Υ υ : Greek letter Upsilon *U u : Latin letter U *Ú ú : Latin letter Ú *Y y : Latin letter Y *Ў ў : Cyrillic letter Short U, used in

Belarusian Belarusian may refer to: * Something of, or related to Belarus * Belarusians, people from Belarus, or of Belarusian descent * A citizen of Belarus, see Demographics of Belarus * Belarusian language * Belarusian culture * Belarusian cuisine * Byelor ...

Dungan Dungan may refer to: * Dungan people, a group of Muslim people of Hui origin ** Dungan language ** Dungan, sometimes used to refer to Hui Chinese people generally * Dungan Mountains in Sibi District, Pakistan * Donegan, an Irish surname, sometimes ...

,However, many Dungan books are set using Ӯ, with macron, instead of Ў, with breve, like the Dungan-Russian dictionary (1968). There is no ambiguity since it is the only У-with-a-diacritic in Dungan. It is used in Dungan syllables for which

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

would use ''-u'' except in those with labial consonants (in ''du'', ' ''nu'', ''lu'', ''gu'', ''hu'', ''zu'', ''ru'', etc. but not ''bu'' or ''mu'') Siberian Eskimo (Yuit), Uzbek *Ӯ ӯ : Cyrillic letter U with macron, used in Tajik and

Carpatho-Rusyn Rusyn ( ; ; )http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2781/1/2011BaptieMPhil-1.pdf , p. 8. is an East Slavic language spoken by Rusyns in parts of Central and Eastern Europe, and written in the Cyrillic script. The majority of speakers live in Carpathian Ruth ...

*Ӱ ӱ : Cyrillic letter U with diaeresis, used in Altai (Oyrot),

Khakas The Khakas are a Turkic indigenous people of Siberia, who live in the republic of Khakassia, Russia. They speak the Khakas language. The Khakhassian people are direct descendants of various ancient cultures that have inhabited southern Siberia ...

, Gagauz,

Khanty The Khanty (), also known in older literature as Ostyaks (), are a Ugric Indigenous people, living in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a region historically known as " Yugra" in Russia, together with the Mansi. In the autonomous okrug, the K ...

, Mari *Ӳ ӳ : Cyrillic letter U with double acute, used in Chuvash *Ү ү : Cyrillic letter straight U, used in

Mongolian Mongolian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Mongolia, a country in Asia * Mongolian people, or Mongols * Bogd Khanate of Mongolia, the government of Mongolia, 1911–1919 and 1921–1924 * Mongolian language * Mongolian alphabet * ...

, Kazakh,

Tatar Tatar may refer to: Peoples * Tatars, an umbrella term for different Turkic ethnic groups bearing the name "Tatar" * Volga Tatars, a people from the Volga-Ural region of western Russia * Crimean Tatars, a people from the Crimea peninsula by the B ...

, Bashkir,

and other languages *Ұ ұ : Cyrillic letter Straight U with stroke, used in Kazakh *Ꭹ Ꮍ : The syllables ''gi'' and ''mu'' of the

Cherokee syllabary The Cherokee syllabary is a syllabary invented by Sequoyah in the late 1810s and early 1820s to write the Cherokee language. His creation of the syllabary is particularly noteworthy as he was illiterate until its creation. He first experimen ...

; Ꭹ (''gi'') notably appearing in the Cherokee self-designation ᏣᎳᎩ (''Tsalagi'') *ע: The Hebrew letter Ayin *У̊: Cyrillic letter U with ring, used in shugnhi orthography.

Computing codes

References

External links

* * {{Cyrillic navbox Cyrillic letters Vowel letters