Ya (Cyrillic)

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Cyrillic letter Ya
Cyrillic alphabet
А	Б	В	Г	Ґ	Ѓ	Д
Ђ	Е	Ё	Є	Ж	З	Ѕ
И	І	Ї	Й	Ј	К	Ќ
Л	Љ	М	Н	Њ	О	П
Р	С	Т	Ћ	У	Ў	Ф
Х	Ц	Ч	Џ	Ш	Щ	Ъ
Ы	Ь	Э	Ю	Я
Non-Slavic Letters
Ӑ	Ә	Ӕ	Ҕ	Ӗ	Ғ	Ӏ
Ӂ	Җ	Ӝ	Ҙ	Ӟ	Ӡ	Ӣ
Ӥ	Ҡ	Қ	Ҟ	Ҝ	Ң	Ҥ
Ө	Ӧ	Ҧ	Ҫ	Ҷ	Ҹ	Ӵ
Ҽ	Ҿ	Ҩ	Ҳ	Һ	Ҭ	Ҵ
Ӳ	Ӯ	Ү	Ұ	Ӱ
Archaic letters
Ҁ	Ѹ	Ѡ	Ѿ	Ѻ	Ѣ	ІА
Ѥ	Ѧ	Ѫ	Ѩ	Ѭ	Ѯ	Ѱ
Ѳ	Ѵ	Ѷ

Ya (Я, я) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the iotated vowel /ja/ (IPA).

[edit] History

A iotified

Little Yus

Я is actually a hybrid of two historic letters. One is a iotified (IA), a ligature of decimal I and A, similar to letters like Yu (Ю) or Iotified E (Ѥ). The other is Little Yus (Ѧ). In East Slavic (including Russian), the phonetic distinction between IA ([ja]) and Ѧ (a front nasal vowel /ɛ̃/ in Old Church Slavonic) was lost, so that in many East Slavic texts written in the Cyrillic cursive script (Skoropis), a variant of the letter Ѧ (a rounder form without the 'middle leg') was used to indicate [ja].

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

When Peter I introduced his "civil script" in 1708, he had this round form of Ѧ adapted to the roman style of the Western European Latin alphabet, which resulted in the form of a backwards Latin R.

Consequently, this new "Я" has no counterpart in the Glagolitic, Greek or Latin alphabets, no numerical value, and no name other than "Ya".

[edit] Code positions

In Unicode, Я shares codepoints with IA (A iotified). The actual glyph depends on the font.

Its HTML entity is Я or Я for capital and я or я for small letter.

[edit] Puns based on this letter

Я is the thirty-third and last letter of the Russian alphabet. In Russian, the word ya (я) is the personal pronoun 'I'. A popular saying based on this fact, "Ya (= I) is the last letter in the alphabet", is used to teach children modesty and humility. In Early Cyrillic alphabet the name az (аз) of the first letter а stood for 'I'. In the Bulgarian language az means 'I', and ya is used in sentences to express surprise. In some Bulgarian dialects я is used instead of az (аз) but this is considered provincial or rural.

The Cyrillic letters Я and И are used in faux Cyrillic typography.

[edit] See also

• Iotation