Yi (Cyrillic)
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Yi or Ji (Ї ї; italics: Ї ї) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. Yi is derived from the Greek letter iota with two dots.
It was the initial variant of the Cyrillic letter І/і, which saw change from two dots to one in 18th century, possibly inspired by similar Latin letter i. Later two variants of the letter separated to become distinct letters in the Ukrainian alphabet.
It is used in the Ukrainian alphabet, the Pannonian Rusyn alphabet, and the Prešov Rusyn alphabet of Slovakia, where it represents the iotated vowel sound Template:IPA, like the pronunciation of Template:Angbr in "yeast". As the historical variant of the Cyrillic Іі, it represented either /i/ (as i in pizza) or /j/ (as y in yen).
In various romanization systems of Ukrainian, ї is represented by Latin letters i or yi (word-initially),<ref>Romanization System In Ukraine</ref><ref>Romanization Of Ukrainian. BGN/PCGN 2019 Agreement</ref> yi,<ref>BGN/PCGN 1965</ref> ji, or even simply ï.<ref>Ukrainian romanization table, The Library of Congress</ref>
It was formerly also used in the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet in the late 1700s and early 1800s, where it represented the sound Template:IPA; in this capacity, it was introduced by Dositej Obradović but was eventually replaced with the modern letter ј by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić.<ref name="Maretić">Maretić, Tomislav. Gramatika i stilistika hrvatskoga ili srpskoga književnog jezika. 1899.</ref><ref>Karadžić, Vuk Stefanović. Pismenica serbskoga iezika, po govoru prostoga narod’a, 1814.</ref>
In Ukrainian, the letter was introduced as part of the Zhelekhivka orthography, in Template:Ill's Ukrainian–German dictionary (2 volumes, 1885–86).
Related letters and other similar characters
- Ӥ ӥ : Cyrillic letter I with diaeresis
- Ï ï : Latin letter I with diaeresis
- Ι ι : Greek letter Ι
- Ј ј : Cyrillic letter J