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Uk (Cyrillic)

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Cyrillic letter Uk
Phonetic usage:/u/
Numeric value:400
The Cyrillic script
Slavic letters
АА́А̀А̂А̄ӒБВ
ГҐДЂЃЕЕ́Ѐ
Е̄Е̂ЁЄЖЗЗ́Ѕ
ИІЇИ́ЍИ̂Ӣ
ЙЈКЛЉМНЊ
ОО́О̀О̂ŌӦПР
СС́ТЋЌУУ́У̀
У̂ӮЎӰФХЦЧ
ЏШЩЪЪ̀ЫЫ́
ЬѢЭЭ́ЮЮ́Ю̀Я
Я́Я̀
Non-Slavic letters
ӐА̊А̃Ӓ̄ӔӘӘ́Ә̃
ӚВ̌ԜГ̑Г̇Г̣Г̌Г̂
Г̆Г̈г̊ҔҒӺҒ̌
ғ̊ӶД́Д̌Д̈Д̣Д̆
ӖЕ̃Ё̄Є̈ԐԐ̈ҖӜ
ӁЖ̣ҘӞЗ̌З̣З̆Ӡ
И̃ӤҊҚӃҠҞҜ
К̣к̊қ̊ԚЛ́ӅԮ
ԒЛ̈ӍН́ӉҢԨ
ӇҤО̆О̃Ӧ̄ӨӨ̄Ө́
Ө̆ӪԤП̈ҎР̌С̌Ҫ
С̣С̱Т́Т̈Т̌Т̇Т̣Ҭ
У̃ӲУ̊Ӱ̄ҰҮҮ́
Х̣Х̱Х̮Х̑Х̌ҲӼх̊
Ӿӿ̊ҺҺ̈ԦЦ̌Ц̈Ҵ
ҶҶ̣ӴӋҸЧ̇Ч̣
ҼҾШ̣Ы̆Ы̄Ӹ
ҌҨЭ̆Э̄Э̇ӬӬ́Ӭ̄
Ю̆Ю̈Ю̄Я̆Я̄Я̈Ӏʼ
ˮ
Archaic or unused letters
А̨Б̀Б̣Б̱В̀Г̀Г̧
Г̄Г̓Г̆Ҕ̀Ҕ̆ԀД̓
Д̀Д̨ԂЕ̇Е̨
Ж̀Ж̑Џ̆
Ꚅ̆З̀З̑ԄԆ
ԪІ̂І̣І̨
Ј̵Ј̃К̓К̀К̆Ӄ̆
К̑К̇К̈К̄ԞК̂
Л̀ԠԈЛ̑Л̇Ԕ
М̀М̃Н̀Н̄Н̧
Н̃ԊԢН̡Ѻ
П̓П̀
П́ҦП̧П̑ҀԚ̆Р́
Р̀Р̃ԖС̀С̈ԌҪ̓
Т̓Т̀ԎТ̑Т̧
Ꚍ̆ѸУ̇
У̨ꙋ́Ф̑Ф̓Х́Х̀Х̆Х̇
Х̧Х̾Х̓һ̱ѠѼ
ѾЦ̀Ц́Ц̓Ꚏ̆
Ч́Ч̀Ч̆Ч̑Ч̓
ԬꚆ̆Ҽ̆Ш̀
Ш̆Ш̑Щ̆Ꚗ̆Ъ̄Ъ̈
Ъ̈̄Ы̂Ы̃Ѣ́Ѣ̈Ѣ̆
Э̨Э̂Ю̂
Я̈Я̂Я̨ԘѤѦѪ
ѨѬѮѰѲѴ
Ѷ

Uk (Ѹ ѹ; italics: Ѹ ѹ) is a digraph of the early Cyrillic alphabet of the letters О and У, although commonly considered and used as a single letter. To save space, it was often written as a vertical ligature (Ꙋ ꙋ), called "monograph Uk". In modern times, ⟨оу⟩ has been replaced by the simple ⟨у⟩. Ѹ is romanized as U, Ꙋ is romanized as Ū.[1]

Development in Old East Slavic

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Monograph Uk ligature

The simplification of the digraph ⟨оу⟩ to ⟨у⟩ was first brought about in Old East Slavic texts and only later taken over into South Slavic languages.

One can see this development in the Novgorod birch-bark letters: The degree to which this letter was used here differed in two positions: in word-initial position or before a vowel (except for the jers), and after a consonant.

Before a consonant, ⟨оу⟩ was used 89% of the time in the writings before 1100. By 1200, it was used 61% of the time, with the letter ⟨у⟩ used 14% of the time; by 1300, оу had reached 28%, surpassed by ⟨у⟩ at 45%. From the late 14th century on, there are no more instances of ⟨оу⟩ being used in this position, with ⟨у⟩ appearing 95% of the time.

The decrease in usage was more gradual after a consonant. Although there are no instances of the use of ⟨у⟩ in this position before c. 1200, ⟨оу⟩ gradually decreased from 88% before 1100 to 57% by 1200. The frequency of ⟨оу⟩ remained steady between 47% and 44% until 1400, when it experienced another decrease to 32%. Meanwhile, the use of ⟨у⟩ increased from 4% in the early 13th century, to 20% by the mid-13th century, 38% by the mid 14th century, and 58% by the early 15th century.[2]

Church Slavonic

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Similarly to the letter І, the usage of Uk in Church Slavonic orthography was standardised by Meletius Smotrytsky, who assigned the two different forms (monograph and digraph) different functions. The original оу form was to be used at the beginning of words (for example, оучитель) while the monograph was to be used in the middle and end of words (for example, мꙋжъ, комꙋ). Similarly to the rule for і, this would be used in most Cyrillic languages until the adoption of the Civil script.

Representation on computers

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The letter Uk was first represented in Unicode 1.1.0 as U+0478 and 0479, CYRILLIC CAPITAL/SMALL LETTER UK (Ѹ ѹ). It was later recognized that the glyph to be used for the letter had not been adequately specified, and it had been represented as either a digraph or monograph letter in different released fonts. There was also the difficulty that in written texts the letter may appear in lowercase (оу), uppercase (Оу), or in all caps (ОУ), which is possible to be used for heading.

To resolve this ambiguity, Unicode 5.1 has deprecated the use of the original code points, introduced U+A64A and A64B, CYRILLIC CAPITAL/SMALL LETTER MONOGRAPH UK (Ꙋ ꙋ), and recommends composing the digraph with two individual characters ⟨о⟩+⟨у⟩.[3]

Unicode 9.0 has also introduced U+1C82 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER NARROW O which can also be used for composing the digraph form (⟨ᲂ⟩+⟨у⟩) and U+1C88 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER UNBLENDED UK (ᲈ) as a variant of monograph form.[4][5]

However, the recommended method may cause some text representation problems. The letter У did not originally appear alone in the Old Church Slavonic orthography, and thus its code point was replaced in different Old Slavonic computer fonts with digraph or monograph forms of the Uk or with the tailed form of Izhitsa. Tailed Izhitsa may be used as a part of the digraph, but using the shape of the monograph Uk as a part of the digraph Uk (оꙋ) is incorrect.

The minuscule monograph Uk was used in the Romanian Transitional Alphabet to represent /u/, but due to font restrictions, the Ȣ ligature or Latin gamma are occasionally used instead.

Computing codes

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Character information
Preview О о У у
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER O CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER O CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER NARROW O CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER U CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER U
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 1054 U+041E 1086 U+043E 7298 U+1C82 1059 U+0423 1091 U+0443
UTF-8 208 158 D0 9E 208 190 D0 BE 225 178 130 E1 B2 82 208 163 D0 A3 209 131 D1 83
Numeric character reference О О о о ᲂ ᲂ У У у у
Named character reference О о У у
Character information
Preview Ѹ ѹ
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER UK CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER UK CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER
MONOGRAPH UK
CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER
MONOGRAPH UK
CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER
UNBLENDED UK
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 1144 U+0478 1145 U+0479 42570 U+A64A 42571 U+A64B 7304 U+1C88
UTF-8 209 184 D1 B8 209 185 D1 B9 234 153 138 EA 99 8A 234 153 139 EA 99 8B 225 178 136 E1 B2 88
Numeric character reference Ѹ Ѹ ѹ ѹ Ꙋ Ꙋ ꙋ ꙋ ᲈ ᲈ

References

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  1. ^ "Church Slavic" (PDF). Library of Congress. 2022. Retrieved 2024-08-11.
  2. ^ Зализняк, Андрей Анатольевич (2004). Древненовгородский диалект [Old Novgorod Dialect] (2nd ed.). Moscow: Языки Славянской Культуры. pp. 28–31. ISBN 5-94457-165-9.
  3. ^ Everson, Michael; et al. (2007). "Proposal to encode additional Cyrillic characters in the BMP of the UCS" (application/pdf).
  4. ^ "Cyrillic Extended-C: Range: 1C80–1C8F" (PDF). The Unicode Standard, Version 9.0. 2016. Retrieved 2016-07-15.
  5. ^ "Church Slavonic Typography in Unicode" (PDF). Aleksandr Andreev, Yuri Shardt, Nikita Simmons. 2015. pp. 13–15. Retrieved 2016-07-15.

Further reading

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