Cyrillic letter Ya
Phonetic usage:[ja] [jɐ] [jɤ]
The Cyrillic script
Slavic letters
АА̀А̂А̄ӒБВГ
ҐДЂЃЕЀЕ̄Е̂
ЁЄЖЗЗ́ЅИІ
ЇЍИ̂ӢЙЈК
ЛЉМНЊОО̀О̂
ŌӦПРСС́ТЋ
ЌУУ̀У̂ӮЎӰФ
ХЦЧЏШЩЪ
Ъ̀ЫЬѢЭЮЮ̀Я
Я̀
Non-Slavic letters
ӐА̊А̃Ӓ̄ӔӘӘ́Ә̃
ӚВ̌ԜГ̑Г̇Г̣Г̌Г̂
Г̆Г̈ҔҒӺҒ̌Ӷ
Д́Д̌Д̈Д̣Д̆ӖЕ̃
Ё̄Є̈ҖӜӁЖ̣ҘӞ
З̌З̣З̆ԐԐ̈ӠИ̃Ӥ
ҊҚӃҠҞҜК̣Ԛ
Л́ӅԮԒЛ̈Ӎ
Н́ӉҢԨӇҤО̆О̃
Ӧ̄ӨӨ̄Ө́Ө̆ӪԤП̈
Р̌ҎС̌ҪС̣С̱Т́Т̈
Т̌Т̇Т̣ҬУ̃ӲУ̊
Ӱ̄ҰҮҮ́Х̣Х̱Х̮Х̑
Х̌ҲӼӾҺҺ̈ԦЦ̌
Ц̈ҴҶҶ̣ӴӋҸ
Ч̇Ч̣ҼҾШ̈Ш̣Ы̆
Ы̄ӸҌҨЭ̆Э̄Э̇
ӬӬ́Ӭ̄Ю̆Ю̈Ю̄Я̆Я̄
Я̈Ӏ
Archaic or unused letters
А̨Б̀Б̣Б̱В̀Г̀Г̧
Г̄Г̓Г̆Ҕ̀Ҕ̆ԀД̓
Д̀Д̨ԂЕ̇Е̨
Ж̀Ж̑Џ̆
Ꚅ̆З̀З̑ԄԆ
ԪІ̂І̣І̨
Ј̵Ј̃К̓К̀К̆Ӄ̆
К̑К̇К̈К̄ԞК̂
Л̀ԠԈЛ̑Л̇Ԕ
М̀М̃Н̀Н̄Н̧Н̃
ԊԢН̡Ѻ
П̓П̀П́Ҧ
П̧П̑ҀԚ̆Р́Р̀Р̃
ԖС̀С̈ԌҪ̓Т̓Т̀
ԎТ̑Т̧Ꚍ̆
ѸУ̇У̨ꙋ́Ф̑
Ф̓Х́Х̀Х̆Х̇Х̧Х̓
һ̱ѠѼѾЦ̀Ц́
Ц̓Ꚏ̆Ч́
Ч̀Ч̆Ч̑Ч̓Ԭ
Ꚇ̆Ҽ̆Ш̀Ш̆Ш̑Щ̆
Ꚗ̆Ы̂Ы̃Ѣ́Ѣ̈Ѣ̆
Э̨Э̂Ю̂
Я̈Я̂Я̨ԘѤѦѪ
ѨѬѮѰѲѴ
Ѷ

Ya or Ja 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 ( ). 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

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

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

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"

Computing codes

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
PreviewЯя
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER YA CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER YA
Encodingsdecimalhexdechex
Unicode1071U+042F1103U+044F
UTF-8208 175D0 AF209 143D1 8F
Numeric character referenceЯЯяя
Named character referenceЯя
KOI8-R and KOI8-U241F1209D1
Code page 855224E0222DE
Code page 8661599F239EF
Windows-1251223DF255FF
ISO-8859-5207CF239EF
Macintosh Cyrillic1599F223DF

See also

References

  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"
  • The dictionary definition of Я at Wiktionary
  • The dictionary definition of я at Wiktionary
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