I (Cyrillic) - Accented Forms and Derived Letters

Accented Forms and Derived Letters

The vowel represented by ⟨и⟩, as well as almost any other Slavonic vowel, can be stressed or unstressed. Stressed variants are sometimes (in special texts, like dictionaries, or to prevent ambiguity) graphically marked by acute, grave, double grave, or circumflex accent marks.

Special Serbian texts also use ⟨и⟩ with a macron to represent long unstressed variant of the sound. Serbian ⟨и⟩ with a circumflex can be unstressed as well; in this case, it represent the genitive case of plural forms and is used to distinguish them from other similar forms.

Modern Church Slavonic orthography uses smooth breathing sign (Greek and Church Slavonic: psili, Latin: spiritus lenis) above the initial vowels (just for tradition, there is no difference in pronunciation). It can be combined with acute or grave accents, if necessary.

None of these above-mentioned combinations is considered as a separate letter of respective alphabet, but one of them (⟨Ѝ⟩) has an individual code position in Unicode.

⟨И⟩ with a breve forms the letter ⟨й⟩ for the consonant /j/ or a similar semi-vowel, like the y in English "yes" or "boy." This form has been used regularly in Church Slavonic since the 16th century, but it officially became a separate letter of alphabet much later (In Russian, only in 1918). The original name of ⟨й⟩ was I s kratkoy ('I with the short '), later I kratkoye ('short I') in Russian, similarly I kratko in Bulgarian, but Yot in Ukrainian. For the details, see the article Short I.

Cyrillic alphabets of non-Slavic languages have additional ⟨и⟩-based letters, like ⟨Ӥ⟩ or ⟨Ӣ⟩.

Read more about this topic:  I (Cyrillic)

Famous quotes containing the words forms, derived and/or letters:

    Of the three forms of pride, that is to say pride proper, vanity, and conceit, vanity is by far the most harmless, and conceit by far the most dangerous. The meaning of vanity is to think too much of our bodily advantages, whether real or unreal, over others; while the meaning of conceit is to believe we are cleverer, wiser, grander, and more important than we really are.
    John Cowper Powys (1872–1963)

    Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. From that divine tear and from that human smile is derived the grace of present civilization.
    Victor Hugo (1802–1885)

    Letters are like wine; if they are sound they ripen with keeping. A man should lay down letters as he does a cellar of wine.
    Samuel Butler (1835–1902)