Discover

(Redirected from Ю)

'Yu' (Ю, ю) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing either the combination (a so-called iotated vowel) or after a palatalized consonant.
Apart from the form ''I-O'', in early Slavonic manuscripts the letter appears also in a mirrored form ''O-I''. It is this form that is probably original, precisely displaying the Greek combination omicron-iota (οι). At the time the Greek alphabet was adapted to the Slavonic language (giving rise to the Cyrillic alphabet), this denoted Close front rounded vowel in educated Greek speech. This digraphic representation of was so basic for speakers of Greek that the simple letter upsilon (υ) representing the same sound came to be called υ ψιλόν (''y psilon'') "simple" υ in contrast to "complex" οι.
Probably in analogy to the 'iotated' letters , ІА, and , which fulfilled similar functions in Slavonic, this ''OI'' ligature was soon mirrored to the modern form ю.