Yery

Cyrillic letter Yery
Unicode (hex)
majuscule: U+042B
minuscule: U+044B
Cyrillic alphabet
А	Б	В	Г	Ґ	Д	Ѓ
Ђ	Е	Ѐ	Ё	Є	Ж	З
Ѕ	И	Ѝ	І	Ї	Й	Ј
К	Л	Љ	М	Н	Њ	О
П	Р	С	Т	Ћ	Ќ	У
Ў	Ф	Х	Ц	Ч	Џ	Ш
Щ	Ъ	Ы	Ь	Э	Ю	Я
Non-Slavic letters
Ӑ	Ӓ	Ә	Ӛ	Ӕ	Ғ	Ӷ
Ҕ	Ӗ	Ҽ	Ҿ	Ӂ	Җ	Ӝ
Ҙ	Ӟ	Ӡ	Ӥ	Ӣ	Ӏ	Ҋ
Қ	Ҟ	Ҡ	Ӄ	Ҝ	Ӆ	Ӎ
Ҥ	Ң	Ӊ	Ӈ	Ӧ	Ө	Ӫ
Ҩ	Ҧ	Ҏ	Ҫ	Ҭ	Ӳ	Ӱ
Ӯ	Ү	Ұ	Ҳ	Һ	Ҵ	Ӵ
Ҷ	Ӌ	Ҹ	Ӹ	Ҍ	Ӭ
Archaic letters
Ҁ	Ѹ	Ѡ	Ѿ	Ѻ	Ѣ	ІА
Ѥ	Ѧ	Ѫ	Ѩ	Ѭ	Ѯ	Ѱ
Ѳ	Ѵ	Ѷ
List of Cyrillic letters

Yery (Ы, ы) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet. It represents the phoneme /i/ after non-palatalized (hard) consonants in the Belarusian, Rusyn and Russian alphabets. Because of phonological processes, the actual realization of /i/ after hard consonants is retracted to a close central unrounded vowel (IPA [ɨ]).

Like many Cyrillic letters, originally the letter yery was formed from a ligature—between Yer ъ and I (then і, dotless or with two dots) or Izhe (then н, now и). In ancient manuscripts, it is almost without exception found as ъі or ън. Once the letters ъ and ь subsequently lost their values as vowels from the Slavonic language, the current form ы evolved.

The letter Yery in several fonts

The letter is usually romanized in English and most other West-European languages as y, e.g. Krylov (family name, Крылов).

There are several proper and common nouns of non-Russian origin (including some geographical names in Russia) with beginning with the letter: Ytyk-Kyuyol (Ытык-Кюёль), Ygyatta (Ыгыатта), a village and a river in Sakha (Yakutia) Republic respectively, and Eulji Mundeok (Ыльчи Мундок), a Korean military leader.

Yery is no longer found in the Ukrainian alphabet, however a similar sound exists, represented by the letter И.

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