Yo (Cyrillic)

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Yo (Ё, ё) is the seventh letter of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, invented in 1783 by Yekaterina Dashkova, and first used, among others, in 1797 by the Russian historian and writer Nikolay Karamzin to replace the ‘іо’ combination in some cases (see below). [ru icon Cite web
url = http://www.gramota.ru/mag_new.html?id=127
title = Ё – седьмая, счастливая буква азбуки
author = В. Т. Чумаков
publisher = БСМП «ЭЛЕКС-Альфа»
work = Грамота.ру] It is used in the Russian, Belarusian and Rusyn languages, along with many of the Caucasian and Turkic languages which use or used the Cyrillic alphabet, but not in many of the other Slavic languages. (Interestingly, because Bulgarian does not use the letter, it uses "ьо" instead -- which is the only place where the soft sign is ever used in modern Bulgarian (but only after consonants - initially or after vowels йo is used instead).

The letter "Ё" in Russian

It is an iotated or palatalized O (IPA|/jo/ as in "yogurt", or IPA|/ʲo/), except when following a postalveolar fricative, like ж, ч, ш and щ, it represents a simple IPA|/o/. This letter's syllable is always under stress.

Yo is identical in form to ye, as well as Latin E, except for a symbol similar to an umlaut or diaeresis. This diacritic serves no regular function in Russian (as it does in German or French), and is solely used to differentiate this letter from ye. It was first used at the end of 18th century in literary works by various writers, but it has not gained standard usage until 1940s.Fact|date=February 2007

Wherever the sound occurs in Russian, it corresponds historically to yе, a fact which may be seen from comparison with other Slavic languages: моё (my—neuter nominative and accusative singular) is "moje" in Polish, Czech, and Slovak.

Though in common use after World War II, in printed Russian yo is sometimes still replaced by the letter ye due to their similar appearance and the ability for speakers to tell by context which sound is represented for the most of the cases. Its use is mandatory in dictionaries, children's books and textbooks for foreign learners. In general texts yo is mandatory when confusion may occur (such as всё/все) and for uncommon words (such as personal or family names).

Some Russian authors (e.g. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn) and periodicals (e.g. "Literaturnaya Gazeta") always publish their texts with yo.

The fact that yo is frequently replaced with ye in print often causes some confusion to both Russians and non-Russians, as it makes Russian words and names harder to transcribe accurately. One recurring problem is with Russian surnames, as both -ев (-ev) and -ёв (-yov) are common endings. Thus the English-speaking world knows two leaders of the former Soviet Union as Khrushchev and Gorbachev though their surnames end in Russian with -ёв, better transcribed "-yov". Some words and names have also changed in Russian because of the confusion — some have had their ‘ё’ replaced with ‘е’, and some ‘е’ replaced with ‘ё’.

"Ё" in transcription of foreign words

Ё can be used in Russian transcription of foreign words originating from languages that use the umlaut ö/ő/ø (German, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, Faroese, Finnish, Hungarian), such as Gerhard Schröder, whose last name is transliterated as Шpёдep (-ьo in Bulgarian). This letter is also often used for transcribing the vowel of English names such as Burns (as in Роберт Бёрнс for Robert Burns) or Hearst/Hurst/Hirst (Хёрст).

The letter Ё is normally used to transcribe the Japanese "よ" into Russian Cyrillic, appearing in the Russian transcription of the Japanese syllables that would appear as "yo" (よ), "kyo" (きょ), "sho" (しょ) etc. in Hepburn Romanization. There are a few exceptions: for example, Yokohama is spelled in Russian with "Йо", not "Ё". Similarly, "ё" is used to transcribe into Russian Cyrillic the Korean sounds romanized as "yo". However, the letter Ё is not used in the Russian transcription of the Chinese language, as the syllable that is spelled "you" in pinyin is represented by "ю" in the standard Russian transcription, and "yao" is "яо".

Otherwise, foreign names transcribed into Russian normally use "йо", e.g. Нью-Йорк "New York".

Ё in other East Slavic languages

In Belarusian and in Rusyn it is incorrect to replace "ё" with "е".

Ё in Dungan language

Unlike the Russian spelling system, "Ё" is not optional in the Cyrillic alphabet used by the Dungan language. In that Sinitic language, the "Ё"/"Е" distinction is crucial, as the former is used to e.g. write the syllable that would have the pinyin spelling of "yao" in the Standard Chinese, while the latter is used for the syllable that appears as "ye" in pinyin. "Ё" is very prominent in Dungan spelling, since the very common syllable that appears as "yang" in pinyin is spellt "ён" in Dungan.

See also

*Э, э - E (Cyrillic)
*Ë - Ë (Latin latter)
*О, о - O (Cyrillic)
*Ε, ε - Epsilon (Greek letter)
*E, e - (Latin letter)

*Reforms of Russian orthography

References

External links

* Cite web
url = http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=5774
title = Town To Honor Forgotten Letter
author = Kevin O'Flynn
publisher = The St. Petersburg Times