Ukrainian Ye

(Redirected from Є)

Ukrainian Ye or Round Ye (Є є; italics: Є є) is a character of the Cyrillic script. It is a separate letter in the Ukrainian alphabet (8th position since 1992, 7th position before then), the Pannonian Rusyn alphabet, and both the Carpathian Rusyn alphabets; in all of these, it comes directly after Е. In modern Church Slavonic, it is considered a variant form of Ye (Е е) (there, the selection of Є and Е is driven by orthography rules). Until the mid-19th century, Є/є was also used in Romanian and 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 (which also refers to the conventional Ye). If the two need to be distinguished, the descriptive name Broad E is sometimes used (in contrast with "Narrow E"). It can also be found in the writing of the Khanty language.

Cyrillic letter
Ukrainian Ye
Phonetic usage:[je], [jɛ]
Numeric value:5
The Cyrillic script
Slavic letters
АА̀А̂А̄ӒБВГ
ҐДЂЃЕЀЕ̄Е̂
ЁЄЖЗЗ́ЅИІ
ЇЍИ̂ӢЙЈК
ЛЉМНЊОО̀О̂
ŌӦПРСС́ТЋ
ЌУУ̀У̂ӮЎӰФ
ХЦЧЏШЩЪ
Ъ̀ЫЬѢЭЮЮ̀Я
Я̀
Non-Slavic letters
ӐА̊А̃Ӓ̄ӔӘӘ́Ә̃
ӚВ̌ԜГ̑Г̇Г̣Г̌Г̂
Г̆Г̈ҔҒӺҒ̌Ӷ
Д́Д̌Д̈Д̣Д̆ӖЕ̃
Ё̄Є̈ԐԐ̈ҖӜӁЖ̣
ҘӞЗ̌З̣З̆ӠИ̃Ӥ
ҊҚӃҠҞҜК̣Ԛ
Л́ӅԮԒЛ̈Ӎ
Н́ӉҢԨӇҤО̆О̃
Ӧ̄ӨӨ̄Ө́Ө̆ӪԤП̈
Р̌ҎС̌ҪС̣С̱Т́Т̈
Т̌Т̇Т̣ҬУ̃ӲУ̊
Ӱ̄ҰҮҮ́Х̣Х̱Х̮Х̑
Х̌ҲӼӾҺҺ̈ԦЦ̌
Ц̈ҴҶҶ̣ӴӋҸ
Ч̇Ч̣ҼҾШ̈Ш̣Ы̆
Ы̄ӸҌҨЭ̆Э̄Э̇
ӬӬ́Ӭ̄Ю̆Ю̈Ю̄Я̆Я̄
Я̈Ӏʼˮ
Archaic or unused letters
А̨Б̀Б̣Б̱В̀Г̀Г̧
Г̄Г̓Г̆Ҕ̀Ҕ̆ԀД̓
Д̀Д̨ԂЕ̇Е̨
Ж̀Ж̑Џ̆
Ꚅ̆З̀З̑ԄԆ
ԪІ̂І̣І̨
Ј̵Ј̃К̓К̀К̆Ӄ̆
К̑К̇К̈К̄ԞК̂
Л̀ԠԈЛ̑Л̇Ԕ
М̀М̃Н̀Н̄Н̧
Н̃ԊԢН̡Ѻ
П̓П̀
П́ҦП̧П̑ҀԚ̆Р́
Р̀Р̃ԖС̀С̈ԌҪ̓
Т̓Т̀ԎТ̑Т̧
Ꚍ̆ОУУ̇
У̨ꙋ́Ф̑Ф̓Х́Х̀Х̆Х̇
Х̧Х̾Х̓һ̱ѠѼ
ѾЦ̀Ц́Ц̓Ꚏ̆
Ч́Ч̀Ч̆Ч̑Ч̓
ԬꚆ̆Ҽ̆Ш̀
Ш̆Ш̑Щ̆Ꚗ̆Ы̂
Ы̃Ѣ́Ѣ̈Ѣ̆Э̨Э̂
Ю̂Я̈Я̂Я̨
ԘѤѦѪѨ
ѬѮѰѲѴѶ

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⟩, ⟨ê⟩, or even ⟨e⟩. See scientific transliteration of Cyrillic.

Ukrainian Ye also looks like a backwards version of Э judging by their appearance. (Є/Э)

History edit

Letter Є/є was derived from one of the variant forms of Cyrillic Ye (Е е), known as "broad E" or "anchor E". Є-shaped letters 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 has been used since 1837 (orthography of almanach "Русалка Днѣстровая" (Rusalka Dnistrovaya)). In Cyrillic numerals, Є is always preferred to E to represent 5.

Usage edit

 
Serbian postage stamp from 1869, cancelled in Kragujevac, with є used to spell "је".

Ukrainian and Rusyn edit

In Ukrainian and Rusyn (as well as in old Serbian orthography), Є/є represents the sound combination /je/ or the vowel sound /e/ after a palatalized consonant.

Khanty edit

In Khanty, the letter represents the sound /je/.

Old Slavonic, Old East Slavic edit

In the oldest Slavonic manuscripts, Є was just a graphical variant of Е and thus represents /e/ without palatalization. Later Є replaced Ѥ (i.e. denotes /ʲe/ after consonants and /je/ after vowels and in an initial position). Later on, it also accepted both a decorative role (as an initial letter of a word, even if there was no iotation) and an orthographical role, to make the distinction between certain homonymical forms (mostly between plural and singular).

New Church Slavonic edit

Since the mid-17th century, the Church Slavonic orthography has the following main rules related to the usage of shapes Є and Е:

  • in an initial position, always use Є;
  • otherwise, use Е with the following exceptions:
    • in noun's endings, use -євъ and -ємъ for plural and -евъ, -емъ for singular;
    • in other endings, suffixes and roots of nouns, adjectives, participles, numerals and pronouns, use Є for plural/dual, if there exists a homonymous form in the singular (either of the same word or a different one; the actual rule is much more complicated and not well-defined, as there are multiple other ways to eliminate such homonymy);
    • publishers from Kyiv also use Є in the genitive case of three pronouns (менє, тебє, себє), and Е in the accusative case (мене, тебе, себе);
  • as a numerical sign (with value 5) use Є, not Е (the rule has often been ignored outside of the Russian Empire).

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 edit

The United States Federal Geographic Data Committee uses , 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 ⟨€⟩.

Related letters and other similar characters edit

Computing codes edit

Character information
Preview Є є
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER
UKRAINIAN IE
CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER
UKRAINIAN IE
Encodings decimal hex dec 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
Named character reference 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 edit

  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.

Further reading edit

  • Півторак Г. П. Український алфавіт // Українська мова: Енциклопедія. — К.: Українська енциклопедія, 2000. ISBN 966-7492-07-9 — С. 679–680. (H. Pivtorak, "Ukrainian Alphabet")

External links edit

  •   The dictionary definition of Є at Wiktionary
  •   The dictionary definition of є at Wiktionary