Iotified Cyrillic Letters
In the Cyrillic script, some letter forms are iotified, that is, formed as a ligature of Early Cyrillic I (І) and a vowel.
| Normal | Iotified | Comment | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Shape | Sound | Name | Shape | Sound | |
| A | А | /a/ | Iotified A | Ꙗ | /ja/ | Now supplanted by Ya (Я). Often substituted and confused with Ѧ in East Slavic texts. |
| E | Е | /e/ | Iotified E | Ѥ | /je/ | Superseded by ⟨Є⟩ in Ukrainian, no longer used |
| Uk | Ѹ | /u/ | Iotified Uk, evolved to modern Yu | Ю | /ju/ | Uk is an archaic form of U (У) |
| Little Yus | Ѧ | /ẽ/ | Iotified Little Yus | Ѩ | /jẽ/ | No longer used |
| Big Yus | Ѫ | /õ/ | Iotified Big Yus | Ѭ | /jõ/ | No longer used |
In old inscriptions, other iotified letters, even consonants, could be found, but these are not parts of a regular alphabet:
| Normal | Iotified | Comment | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Shape | Sound | Name | Shape | Sound | |
| Yat | Ѣ | /æ/ | Iotified Yat | Ꙓ | /jæ/ | iotified form is very rare even in manuscripts |
There are more letters which serve the same function, but their glyphs are not made in the same way.
| Normal | Iotified | Comment | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Shape | Sound | Name | Shape | Sound | |
| A | А | /a/ | Ya | Я | /ja/ | Used in Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian |
| E | Э | /e/ | Ye | Е | /je/ | Used in Belarusian and Russian |
| E | Е | /e/ | Ye | Є | /je/ | Used in Ukrainian and Rusyn |
| I | І | /i/ | Yi | Ї | /ji/ | Used in Ukrainian and Rusyn |
| O | О | /o/ | Yo | Ё | /jo/ | Used in Belarusian, Russian and several others Cyrillic-based alphabets |
Read more about this topic: Iotation
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