U (Cyrillic)
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U (У у; italics: У у or У у; italics: У у) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. It commonly represents the close back rounded vowel {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, somewhat like the pronunciation of Template:Angle bracket in "boot" or "rule". The forms of the Cyrillic letter U are similar to the lowercase of the Latin letter Y (Y y; Y y), with the lowercase Cyrillic letter U's form being identical to that of small Latin letter Y.
History
Historically, Cyrillic U evolved as a specifically East Slavic short form of the digraph Template:Angle bracket used in ancient Slavic texts to represent {{#invoke:IPA|main}}. The digraph was itself a direct loan from the Greek alphabet, where the combination Template:Angle bracket (omicron-upsilon) was also used to represent {{#invoke:IPA|main}}. Later, the o was removed, leaving the modern upsilon-only form.
Consequently, the form of the letter is derived from Greek upsilon Template:Angle bracket, which was parallelly also taken over into the Cyrillic alphabet in another form, as Izhitsa Template:Angle bracket. (The letter Izhitsa was removed from the Russian alphabet in the orthography reform of 1917/19.)
It is normally romanised as "u", but in Kazakh, it is romanised as "w".
In the Cyrillic numeral system, the Cyrillic letter U had a value of 400.
In other languages
In Tuvan the Cyrillic letter can be written as a double vowel.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
In certain languages, U is used to mark labialization.
Related letters and other similar characters
- Υ υ : Greek letter Upsilon
- U u : Latin letter U
- Ú ú : Latin letter Ú
- Y y : Latin letter Y
- Ў ў : Cyrillic letter Short U, used in Belarusian, Dungan,<ref>However, many Dungan books are set using Ӯ, with macron, instead of Ў, with breve, like the Dungan-Russian dictionary (1968). There is no ambiguity since it is the only У-with-a-diacritic in Dungan. It is used in Dungan syllables for which pinyin would use -u except in those with labial consonants (in du, ' nu, lu, gu, hu, zu, ru, etc. but not bu or mu)</ref> Siberian Eskimo (Yuit), Uzbek
- Ӯ ӯ : Cyrillic letter U with macron, used in Tajik and Carpatho-Rusyn
- Ӱ ӱ : Cyrillic letter U with diaeresis, used in Altai (Oyrot), Khakas, Gagauz, Khanty, Mari
- Ӳ ӳ : Cyrillic letter U with double acute, used in Chuvash
- Ү ү : Cyrillic letter straight U, used in Mongolian, Kazakh, Tatar, Bashkir, Dungan and other languages
- Ұ ұ : Cyrillic letter Straight U with stroke, used in Kazakh
- Ꭹ Ꮍ : The syllables gi and mu of the Cherokee syllabary; Ꭹ (gi) notably appearing in the Cherokee self-designation ᏣᎳᎩ (Tsalagi)
- ע: The Hebrew letter Ayin
- У̊: Cyrillic letter U with ring, used in Shugnhi orthography.