Yu or Ju (Ю ю; italics: ''Ю ю'') 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 ...

used in East Slavic and Bulgarian alphabets. In English, Yu is commonly

romanized In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and transcription, ...

as or . In turn, is used, where available, in transcriptions of English letter (in

open syllable A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of Phone (phonetics), 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 (''ma ...

s), and also of the digraph. The sound , like in French and in German, may also be approximated by the letter .

Pronunciation

Sometimes, it is referred to as "Iotated U" because it is a so-called

iotated In Slavic languages, iotation (, ) is a form of palatalization that occurs when a consonant comes into contact with the palatal approximant from the succeeding phoneme. The is represented by iota (ι) in the early Cyrillic alphabet and the Gre ...

vowel, pronounced in isolation as , like the pronunciation of in "human". After a

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

, no distinct sound is pronounced, but the consonant is softened. The exact pronunciation of the vowel sound of in Slavic languages depends also on the succeeding sound. Before a soft consonant, it is , the

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

, as in 'rude'. Before a hard consonant or at the end of a word, the result is a back vowel , as in "pool".

History

Apart from the form ''I-O'', in early Slavonic manuscripts the letter appears also in a mirrored form ''O-I'' (). It is the latter form that is probably the original, precisely displaying the Greek 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 ...

iota Iota (; uppercase Ι, lowercase ι; ) is the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Yodh. Letters that arose from this letter include the Latin I and J, the Cyrillic І (І, і), Yi (Ї, ї), and J ...

(οι). At the time that 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 ...

was adapted to the Slavonic language giving rise to the Cyrillic alphabet, it denoted the

close front rounded vowel The close front rounded vowel, or high front rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is y. Ac ...

in educated Greek speech. The close ''front'' rounded vowel does not appear in East Slavic. See above. There was another way for it to lead to the modern form. By the analogy to several 'iotated' letters Ѥ, Ꙗ, Ѩ and Ѭ, the ancient ligature (or letter) Uk / possibly had its iotated form /. The iotated

big Yus Little yus (Ѧ, ѧ; italics: ) and big yus (Ѫ, ѫ; italics: ''Ѫ, ѫ''), or jus, are letters of the Cyrillic, Cyrillic script representing two Proto-Slavic, Common Slavonic nasal vowels in the early Cyrillic alphabet, early Cy ...

merged itself to in East Slavic languages. is the Voice Quality Symbol for tracheo-œsophageal speech (the symbol attempts to capture iconically the dual nature of the airstream).

Related letters and other similar characters

*У у : Cyrillic letter U *Ү ү : Cyrillic letter Ue *Û û : Latin letter U with circumflex *Ū ū : Latin letter U with macron *Ǔ ǔ : Latin letter U with caron

Computing codes

References

External links

* * {{Cyrillic navbox Vowel letters Cyrillic ligatures