Ya (Cyrillic) - Use in Loanwords and Transcriptions

Use in Loanwords and Transcriptions

In Russian, the letter has little use in loanwords and orthographic transcriptions of foreign words. A notable exception is the use of ⟨ля⟩ to transcribe /la/, mostly from Romance languages, German and Arabic. This makes ⟨л⟩ to match better than its dark l pronunciation in ⟨ла⟩.

Although is a distinctive pronunciation of ⟨я⟩ in Russian, the letter is almost never used to transcribe that sound, unlike the use of ⟨ю⟩ to approximate close front and central rounded vowels. For example, German ⟨ä⟩ is transcribed as ⟨е⟩ in Russian. Though, ⟨я⟩ used for Estonian ⟨ä⟩ – for instance, Pärnu is written ⟨Пярну⟩ in Russian, although the Russian pronunciation does not match the original.