Ya (Cyrillic)
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Cyrillic letter Ya | ||||||
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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 |
Ya (Я, я) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet, representing either the combination /ja/ (a so-called iotated vowel) or /a/ after a palatalized consonant.
Contents |
[edit] History
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].
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.
Character encoding | Case | Binary | Hexadecimal | Octal | Decimal |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unicode | Capital | 0000010000101111 | 042F | 2057 | 1071 |
Small | 0000010001001111 | 044F | 2117 | 1103 | |
KOI | Capital | 11110001 | F1 | 361 | 241 |
Small | 11010001 | D1 | 321 | 209 | |
Windows 1251 | Capital | 11011111 | DF | 337 | 223 |
Small | 11111111 | FF | 377 |
255 | |
ISO 8859-5 | Capital | 11001111 | CF | 317 | 207 |
Small | 11101111 | EF | 357 | 239 |
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 (азъ) of the first letter а stood for 'I'. In the Bulgarian language az (аз) 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.