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Ya (Cyrillic)

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Cyrillic letter Ya
Phonetic usage:[ja], [jɐ], [jɤ]
The Cyrillic script
Slavic letters
АА́А̀А̂А̄ӐӒБ
ВГҐДЂЃЕЕ́
ЀЕ̂Е̄ЁЄЄ́ЖЗ
З́ЅИІІ́ЇИ́
ЍИ̂ӢЙӤЈКЛ
ЉМНЊОО́О̀О̂
ŌӦПРСС́ТЋ
ЌУУ́У̀У̂ӮЎӰ
ФХЦЧЏШЩ
ЪЪ̀ЫЫ́ЬѢЭЭ́
ЮЮ́Ю̀ЯЯ́Я̀
Non-Slavic letters
А̊А̃Ӓ̄ӔӘӘ́Ә̃Ӛ
В̌ԜГ̑Г̇Г̣Г̌Г̂Г̆
Г̈г̊ҔҒӺҒ̌ғ̊
ӶГ̡Д́Д̌Д̈Д̣Д̆Ӗ
Е̃Ё̄Є̈ԐԐ̈ҖӜӁ
Ж̣ҘӞЗ̌З̣З̆ӠИ̃
ҊҚӃҠҞҜК̣к̊
қ̊ԚЛ́ӅԮԒЛ̈
ӍН́ӉҢԨӇҤ
О̆О̃Ӧ̄ӨӨ̄Ө́Ө̆Ӫ
ԤП̈Р̌ҎС̌ҪС̣С̱
Т́Т̈Т̌Т̇Т̣ҬУ̃
ӲУ̊Ӱ̄ҰҮҮ́Х̣Х̱
Х̮Х̑Х̌ҲӼх̊Ӿӿ̊
ҺҺ̈ԦЦ̌Ц̈ҴҶҶ̣
ӴӋҸЧ̇Ч̣ҼҾ
Ш̣Ы̆Ы̄ӸҌҨ
Э̆Э̄Э̇ӬӬ́Ӭ̄Ю̆Ю̈
Ю̄Я̆Я̄Я̈Ӏʼˮ
Archaic or unused letters
А̨Б̀Б̣Б̱В̀Г̀Г̧
Г̄Г̓Г̆Ҕ̀Ҕ̆ԀД̓
Д̀Д̨ԂЕ̇Е̨
Ж̀Ж̑Џ̆
Ꚅ̆З̀З̑ԄԆ
ԪІ̂І̣І̨
Ј̵Ј̃К̓К̀К̆Ӄ̆
К̑К̇К̈К̄ԞК̂
Л̀ԠԈЛ̑Л̇Ԕ
М̀М̃Н̀Н̄Н̧
Н̃ԊԢН̡Ѻ
П̓П̀
П́ҦП̧П̑ҀԚ̆Р́
Р̀Р̃ԖС̀С̈ԌҪ̓
Т̓Т̀ԎТ̑Т̧
Ꚍ̆ѸУ̇
У̨ꙋ́Ф̑Ф̓Х́Х̀Х̆Х̇
Х̧Х̾Х̓һ̱ѠѼ
ѾЦ̀Ц́Ц̓Ꚏ̆
Ч́Ч̀Ч̆Ч̑Ч̓
ԬꚆ̆Ҽ̆Ш̀
Ш̆Ш̑Щ̆Ꚗ̆Ъ̄Ъ̈
Ъ̈̄Ы̂Ы̃Ѣ́Ѣ̈Ѣ̆
Э̨Э̂Ю̂
Я̂Я̨ԘѤѦѪ
ѨѬѮѰѲѴѶ

Ya, Ia or Ja (Я я; italics: Я я) is a letter of the Cyrillic script, the civil script variant of Old Cyrillic Little Yus (Ѧ ѧ), and possibly Iotated A (Ꙗ ꙗ). Among modern Slavic languages, it is used in the East Slavic languages and Bulgarian. It is also used in the Cyrillic alphabets used by Mongolian and many Uralic, Caucasian and Turkic languages of the former Soviet Union.

Pronunciation

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The iotated vowel is pronounced /ja/ in initial or post-vocalic positions, like the English pronunciation of ⟨ya⟩ in "yard".

When ⟨я⟩ follows a soft consonant, no /j/ sound occurs between the consonant and the vowel.

The exact pronunciation of the vowel sound of ⟨я⟩ depends also on the following sound by allophony in the Slavic languages. In Russian, before a soft consonant, it is [æ], like in the English "cat". If a hard consonant follows ⟨я⟩ or none, the result is an open vowel, usually [a]. This difference does not exist in the other Cyrillic languages.

In non-stressed positions, the vowel reduction depends on the language and the dialect. The standard Russian language reduces the vowel to [ɪ], but yakanye dialects ⟨я⟩ undergo no reduction unlike other instances of the /a/ phoneme (represented with the letter ⟨а⟩). In Bulgarian, the vowel sound is reduced to /ɐ/ in unstressed syllables and is pronounced /ɤ̞/ in both stressed verb and definite article endings.

History

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Little Yus

The letter ѧ, known as little jus (yus) (Bulgarian: малка носовка, Russian: юс малый) originally stood for a front nasal vowel, conventionally transcribed as ę. The history of the letter (in both Church Slavonic and vernacular texts) varies according to the development of this sound in the different areas where Cyrillic was used.

In Serbia, [ɛ̃] became [e] at a very early period and the letter ѧ ceased to be used, being replaced by e. In Bulgaria the situation is complicated by the fact that dialects differ and that there were different orthographic systems in use, but broadly speaking [ɛ̃] became [ɛ] in most positions, but in some circumstances it merged with [ǫ], particularly in inflexional endings, e.g. the third person plural ending of the present tense of certain verbs such as правѧтъ (Modern Bulgarian правят). The letter continued to be used, but its distribution, particularly in regard to the other yuses, was governed as much by orthographical convention as by phonetic value or etymology.

After the Bulgarian language adopted the civil script, the sound /ja/ would come to be represented by the letter я, despite etymological я being pronounced /ɛ/.

Among the Eastern Slavs, [ɛ̃] was denasalised, probably to [æ], which palatalised the preceding consonant; after palatalisation became phonemic, the /æ/ phoneme merged with /a/, and ѧ henceforth indicated /a/ after a palatalised consonant, or else, in initial or post-vocalic position, /ja/. However, Cyrillic already had a character with this function, namely , so that for the Eastern Slavs these two characters were henceforth equivalent. The alphabet in Meletij Smotrickij's grammar of 1619 accordingly lists "ꙗ и҆лѝ ѧ" ("ꙗ ili ѧ", "ꙗ or ѧ");[1] he explains that is used initially and ѧ elsewhere. (In fact he also distinguishes the feminine form of the accusative plural of the third person pronoun ѧ҆̀ from the masculine and neuter ꙗ҆̀.) This reflects the practice of earlier scribes and was further codified by the Muscovite printers of the seventeenth century (and is continued in modern Church Slavonic). However, in vernacular and informal writing of the period, the two letters may be used completely indiscriminately.

It was in Russian cursive (skoropis') writing of this time that the letter acquired its modern form: the left-hand leg of ѧ was progressively shortened, eventually disappearing altogether, while the foot of the middle leg shifted towards the left, producing the я shape.

A page with the letter forms for [ja] (first line) with Tsar Peter's choice of Я instead of Ѧ or

In the specimens of the civil script produced for Peter I, forms of ꙗ, ѧ and я were grouped together; Peter removed the first two, leaving only я in the modern alphabet, and its use in Russian remains the same to the present day. It was similarly adopted for the standardised orthographies of modern Ukrainian and Belarusian. In nineteenth-century Bulgaria, both Old Cyrillic and civil scripts were used for printing, with я in the latter corresponding to ѧ in the former, and there were various attempts to standardise the orthography, of which some, such as the Plovdiv school exemplified by Nayden Gerov, were more conservative, essentially preserving the Middle Bulgarian distribution of the letter, others attempted to rationalise spelling on more phonetic principles, and one project in 1893 proposed abolishing the letter я altogether.[2] By the early twentieth century, under Russian influence, я came to be used for /ja/ (which is not a reflex of ę in Bulgarian), retaining its use for /jɐ/ but was no longer used for other purposes; this is its function today.

Use in loanwords and transcriptions

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In Russian, the letter has little use in loanwords and orthographic transcriptions of foreign words. A notable exception is the use of ⟨ля⟩ Russian pronunciation: [lʲa] to transcribe /la/, mostly from Romance languages, Polish, German and Arabic. This makes л to match [l] better than its dark l pronunciation in ⟨ла⟩. ⟨Я⟩ is also used to transcribe Romanian ⟨ea⟩, pronounced as [e̯a].

Although [æ] is a distinctive pronunciation of ⟨я⟩ in Russian, the letter is almost never used to transcribe that sound, unlike the use of ⟨ю⟩ to approximate close front and central rounded vowels. Nonetheless, ⟨я⟩ is used for Estonian and Finnish ⟨ä⟩ – for instance, Pärnu is written ⟨Пярну⟩ in Russian, although the Russian pronunciation does not match the original.

Ya, from Alexandre Benois' 1904 alphabet book, showing Yablonya, "Apple tree"

In internet culture, ⟨Я⟩ is used in faux Cyrillic to substitute the Latin letter R, as in ⟨Яussia⟩ for "Russia."

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Computing codes

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Unicode provides separate code-points for the Old Cyrillic and civil script forms of this letter. A number of Old Cyrillic fonts developed before the publication of Unicode 5.1 placed iotated A (Ꙗ/ꙗ) at the code points for Ya (Я/я) instead of the Private Use Area,[3] but since Unicode 5.1, iotated A has been encoded separately from Ya.


Character information
Preview Я я
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER YA CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER YA
Encodings decimal hex dec hex
Unicode 1071 U+042F 1103 U+044F
UTF-8 208 175 D0 AF 209 143 D1 8F
Numeric character reference Я Я я я
Named character reference Я я
KOI8-R and KOI8-U 241 F1 209 D1
Code page 855 224 E0 222 DE
Code page 866 159 9F 239 EF
Windows-1251 223 DF 255 FF
ISO-8859-5 207 CF 239 EF
Macintosh Cyrillic 159 9F 223 DF

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Грамматіки Славе́нскиѧ пра́вилное Сѵ́нтаґма, Jevje, 1619, sign.Аг҃
  2. ^ Любомир Андрейчин, Из историята на нашето езиково строителство, София, 1977, pp.151–165
  3. ^ According to the Unicode FAQ "characters that are not yet in the standard need to be represented by codepoints in the Private Use Area"
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  • The dictionary definition of Я at Wiktionary
  • The dictionary definition of я at Wiktionary