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Monument inUlyanovsk marking the 200th anniversary of the letterYo.
Yo,Jo,Io, orYe with diaeresis (Ё ё; italics:Ёё;Russian pronunciation:[jɵ]) is a letter of theCyrillic script. InUnicode, the letter⟨Ё⟩ is namedCYRILLIC CAPITAL/SMALL LETTER IO.
In English, the letter Yo is romanized using the Latinë (according to theALA–LC andBritish Standards),ë (yë word-initially) (BGN/PCGN) oryo/jo (orthographic transcription) for Russian, and asi͡o (ALA–LC),yo (BGN/PCGN), orë (BSI) for Belarusian. In international systems, Yo is romanized asë (ISO 9).
This section describes the pronunciation inRussian andBelarusian. Other languages may have subtle differences.
The letter⟨ё⟩ is astressed syllable in the overwhelming majority of Russian and Belarusian words. In Russian, unstressed⟨ё⟩ occurs only in compound numerals and a few derived terms, wherein it is considered an exception.
It is a so-callediotated vowel. In initial or post-vocalic position, it represents the sounds/jo/, like in 'York'. The same applies if⟨ё⟩ is preceded by either⟨ъ⟩ or⟨ь⟩.
The letter⟨ё⟩ also indicates the phoneme/o/ together withpalatalization of the precedingconsonant (if it is possible). No/j/ sound occurs between the consonant and the vowel in this case.
Exact pronunciation of the vowel sound of⟨ё⟩ can vary because ofallophony inSlavic languages. In Russian, it is pronounced[jɵ], with an[ɵ] vowel similar tobird in New Zealand or South African English; seepalatalization for some background.
The letter Yo or Jo is the seventh letter of the alphabet, but although it indicates a distinct sound fromYe, it is often treated as the same letter for alphabetisation and sorting. In the dictionary,ёж (hedgehog) comes afterедо́к (eater) and beforeе́здить (to go).
⟨Ё⟩ represents thephoneme/o/ after/j/ or a softconsonant (or occasionally after⟨ж⟩,⟨ш⟩), and is almost alwaysstressed. It alternates with⟨е⟩, written in non-stressed positions. Unstressed⟨ё⟩ appears only in rare loanwords, in compound words (in this case it may be considered to have secondary stress; most notably,⟨ё⟩ occurs in words containing the prefixesтрёх- 'three-' andчетырёх- 'four-'), in derivatives of the name of the letter⟨ё⟩ itself (ёфика́тор -yoficator), inloanwords (кёнигсбе́ргский - adjective fromKönigsberg,сёрфинги́ст fromsurfing - surfer,сёдзё -shōjo,гёмбёц -gömböc).
In modern Russian,Common Slavonic/e/ in a stressed syllable generally became/o/ after apalatalized consonant, unless the vowel was followed by a second palatalized consonant.[a] For examples, compareлёт[lʲɵt]ⓘ ("flight") from *letъ[1] in contrast toлещ[lʲeɕː]ⓘ ("bream") from *leščь;[1] orосётр[ɐˈsʲɵtr] ("sturgeon") from *esetr[2] in contrast toосeть[ɐˈsʲetʲ] ("granary, rack for drying grain") from *esetь.[2][b] However, since the sound change took place after the introduction of writing, the letter⟨е⟩ continued to be written in that position.
For a long time, no distinction was made in written Russian between the vowels/e/ and/o/ after/j/ or after a palatalized (soft) consonant. It was not until the 18th century that efforts were made to create a distinct spelling for/jo/ or/ʲo/. From the mid-1730s, there was sporadic use of adigraph⟨іо⟩, or alternatively a ligature with a top joiner⟨і͡о⟩, but this was cumbersome and used rarely. This digraph and a new letter⟨ґ⟩ for the sound/ɡ/ were proposed as additions to the official alphabet in 1783 at a session of theRussian Academy under the presidency of PrincessYekaterina Romanovna Vorontsova-Dashkova, but both propositions were rejected by the academicians and the Metropolitan of Novgorod and Saint Petersburg Gavriil. At that time, the sounds/jo/—/ʲo/ and/ɡ/ were common in everyday Central Russian speech, but Church-Slavonic-styled pronunciation with/je/–/ʲe/ and/ɣ/ was preferred when reading literary texts. Other variant spellings used for/jo/ or/ʲo/ were о, ьо, їô, ió, ио.
In 1797, instead of existing options, the letter "Ё" was created by Russian Imperial historian, writer, poet and criticNikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin. It was used for the first time in the 2nd book of "Aonides" in his poem "Sophistiated Solomon's Wisdom, or Thoughts Selected from Ecclesiastes" to create a rhyme between the words слёзы [ˈslʲɵzɨ] and розы [ˈrozɨ]. In other places of the poem he used the spelling слезы [ˈslʲezɨ].[5][6][7][8]
Thediaeresis ◌̈ does not appear above any other letter in Russian. It serves no purpose except to differentiate between⟨е⟩ and⟨ё⟩.
Except for a brief period afterWorld War II, the use of⟨ё⟩ was never obligatory in standard Russian orthography. By and large, it is used only in dictionaries and in pedagogical literature intended for children and students of Russian as a second language. Otherwise,⟨е⟩ is used, and⟨ё⟩ occurs only when it is necessary to avoid ambiguity (such as to distinguish betweenвсе ("everybody") andвсё ("everything") when it is not obvious from the context) or in words (principally proper nouns) whose pronunciation may not be familiar to the reader. Recent recommendations (2006) from theRussian Language Institute are to use⟨ё⟩ in proper nouns to avoid an incorrect pronunciation.[9] It is permitted, however, to mark⟨ё⟩ whenever it occurs,[9] which is the preference of some Russian authors and periodicals.
The fact that⟨ё⟩ is frequently replaced with⟨е⟩ in print often causes some confusion to both Russians and non-Russians, as it makes it more difficult for Russian words and names to be transcribed. One recurring problem is with Russian surnames, as both-ев (-ev/-yev) and-ёв (-yov/-ov) are common endings. Thus, the English-speaking world knows two leaders of the formerSoviet Union asKhrushchev andGorbachev, but their surnames end in Russian with-ёв, better transcribed-yov/-ov (which is why many English-speakerspronounce these names as if they end in -ov but theyspell them with -ev).
The advent of the computer has had a great influence on the process of substitution⟨ё⟩ with⟨е⟩ for a counterintuitive reason: currently, the Russian alphabet contains 33 letters including⟨ё⟩, and codepage designers usually prefer to omit⟨ё⟩ so that all Russian letters can be placed into sections of 16 letters (16, like other powers of 2, is often preferred in computing over other numbers). Some examples are pre-Unicode character pages866 for Microsoft DOS and1251 for Microsoft Windows. Since in both cases,⟨ё⟩ was placed outside its alphabetically correct position, it made text sorting more complex. Software developers would then choose to substitute all⟨ё⟩ letters with⟨е⟩ at an early stage of text processing to simplify later stages.[citation needed]
⟨Ё⟩ can be used inRussian transcription of foreign words originating from languages that use the sound/ø/ or/œ/, spelled eu/ö/ő/ø (French,Germanic languages other than English,Uralic languages), such as "Gerhard Schröder", whose last name is transliterated asШрёдер because of its similarity to the native Russian sound [ɵ]. This letter is also often used for transcribing the English vowel/ɜr/, in names likeРоберт Бёрнс for "Robert Burns" orХёрст for "Hearst"/"Hurst"/"Hirst". However, several authoritative sources recommend the transcriptionер for/ɜr/. Word-initial and post-vocalic/ø/ or/œ/ is usually transcribed⟨э⟩ in Russian (but⟨o⟩ in names fromTurkic languages).
However, the sound[jo], in words from European languages, is normally transcribed into Russian as⟨йо⟩ in initial and post-vocalic position and⟨ьo⟩ after consonants:Нью-Йорк for "New York" andбатальон for "battalion". An apparent exception is the Russian word for "serious", which is spelledсерьёзный rather thanсериозный. However, this is due to the fact that this word stems from Frenchsérieux with an/ø/ sound. (In the 19th and the early 20th century, both spellings were in use.[10] The spelling with⟨ио⟩ —⟨іо⟩ in the pre-1918 orthography— was based on Latinseriosus.)
The letter⟨ё⟩ is normally used to transcribe the Japanese⟨よ⟩ into Russian Cyrillic, appearing in theRussian transcription of Japanese that would appear asyo (よ),kyo (きょ),sho (しょ) etc. inHepburn Romanization, but there are a few traditional spellings which break this rule. For example, "Yokohama" is spelled in Russian with⟨Ио⟩, not⟨Ё⟩. Similarly,⟨ё⟩ is used totranscribe into Russian Cyrillic the Korean soundsromanized as⟨yo⟩, and confusingly also for⟨yeo⟩ with the same letter. In such transcriptions, as well as in languages other than Russian where ё is used, the use of ё rather than е is obligatory.
The⟨ё⟩-less Bulgarian uses⟨ьo⟩/ʲo/ (after consonants) and⟨йo⟩/jo/ (word-initial and after vowels) for transcribing the foreign vowels/ø/ or/œ/, and also for French labialized schwa: "de" and "le" are transcribedде andле in Russian butдьо andльо in Bulgarian.
However, in Ukrainian (which also lacks the letter⟨ё⟩ and uses⟨йo⟩ for/jo/ and⟨ьo⟩ for/ʲo/), the standard way for transcribing/ø/ or/œ/ in foreign names is⟨е⟩/e/.
It is thought that the letter⟨ё⟩ is found in at least 2500 surnames used in Russia and other states of the former USSR. It is common for a person who has one of these surnames to possess some legal documents (passports, identification cards, marriage and birth certificates, property ownership papers, etc.) where the name is written with a⟨ё⟩, and some that use the simple⟨е⟩ instead. In other situations, a child's birth certificate may have a⟨ё⟩ and the parents' identity papers all have⟨е⟩. On occasion such mismatches caused problems to citizens who receive inheritance or complete property transactions.[11]
Unlike the Russian spelling system,⟨ё⟩ is mandatory in the Cyrillic alphabet used byDungan. In thatSinitic language, the⟨е⟩/⟨ё⟩ distinction is crucial, as the former is used such as to write the syllable that would have thepinyin spelling ofye inStandard Chinese, and the latter is used for the syllable that appears asyao in pinyin.⟨Ё⟩ is very prominent in Dungan spelling since the very common syllable appearing asyang inPinyin is spelled⟨ён⟩ in Dungan.
In the Cyrillic alphabet for theMongolian language,⟨ё⟩ is the seventh letter, and it is always different from⟨е⟩. It represents the syllable /jɔ/. For example, the word for "two" in Mongolian, "khoyor", is spelled as хоёр.
In some older alphabets used forUkrainian, such asPanteleimon Kulish's Kulishivka's alphabet,⟨ё⟩ was formerly used for the sound/jo/—/ʲo/. This letter no longer exists in the modernUkrainian alphabet.
In modern Ukrainian spelling, the sound/jo/—/ʲo/ is written as⟨ьо⟩ after soft consonants in the middle of words (such as "нього", "him" after a preposition), and⟨йо⟩ elsewhere (such as "його", "him"). The standard way to transcribe the foreign phonemes/ø/ or/œ/ in Ukrainian is with the letter⟨е⟩.
There are computer software or extension that is used to restore theCyrillic letter Yo ⟨Ё⟩ in Russian texts in places where the letterYe ⟨Е⟩ was used instead.ORFO andYoficator are examples of such.
^abTrubachyov, Oleg, editor (1987)Этимологический словарь славянских языков [Etymological dictionary of Slavic languages] (in Russian), issue 14 (*labati – *lěteplъjь), Moscow: Nauka, p. 142, 150
^abDerksen, Rick (2008),Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series;4), Leiden; Boston: Brill. p. 145
^Derksen, Rick (2008),Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series;4), Leiden; Boston: Brill. p. 95
^Snoj, Marko (2016) “téta”, inSlovenski etimološki slovar [Slovenian Etymology Dictionary] (in Slovene), 3rd edition
^Е. В. Пчелов, "Буква ё в русской азбуке и письменности",Палеография и кодикология: 300 лет после Монфокона. Материалы (Ред. М. В. Бибиков и др.), Москва, 2008: стр.139–148
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