Yat
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2008-07-17T05:57:52Z
Stub12718696
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/* Iotified Yat */
{{otheruses}}
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<!-- real IPA is in //. Transliterations from the Cyrillic, etc. are in [], national spellings in ''italics''. IPA is used to make sure that old Cyrillic is displayed properly. Please don't remove it. -->
'''Yat''' or '''Jat''' ({{Unicode|Ѣ}}, {{Unicode|ѣ}}) is the name of the thirty-second letter of the old [[Cyrillic alphabet]], or of the sound it represents. Its name in [[Old Church Slavonic]] is ''yět’'' ({{Unicode|ѣть}}) or ''yat’'' (ıать), in [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]] ''yat'' (ят) or ''e dvoyno'' (е двойно, double e), in [[Russian language|Russian]] and [[Ukrainian language|Ukrainian]] ''yat’'' (ять), in [[Serbian language|Serbian]] ''yat'' (jat, јат), [[Croatian language|Croatian]] ''jat''. In the common scientific [[Latin alphabet|Latin]] [[transliteration]] for old [[Slavic language]]s, the letter is represented by ''e'' with caron: {{Unicode|''ě''}} (taken from [[Czech alphabet]]).
The ''yat'' represented a Common Slavic long [[vowel]]. It is generally believed to have represented the sound {{IPA|[æː]}}, which was a [[Reflex (linguistics)|reflex]] of earlier {{IPA|[eː], [oj]}}, or {{IPA|[aj]}}. That the sound represented by yat developed late in the history of Common Slavonic is indicated by its role in the second palatalization of the Slavonic velars. It is significant that from the earliest texts, there is considerable confusion between the yat and the Cyrillic [[a iotified|iotified a]] ({{Unicode|ıа}}). One explanation is that the dialect of Thessaloniki (on which the Old Church Slavonic literary language was based) and other South Slavonic dialects shifted from {{IPA|/æː/ to /ja/}} independent from the Northern and Western branches. The confusion was also possibly aggravated by the fact that Cyrillic [[Little Yus]] ({{Unicode|Ѧ}}) looks very similar to the older [[Glagolitic alphabet]]'s yat ({{Unicode|Ⱑ}}, supported only in Unicode 4.1; here's an image: [[Image:GlagolitsaJat.gif|10px|Yat in the Glagolitic alphabet]]). An "[[Iotified Yat|iotated yat]]" form also exists, but is extremely rare.
[[Image:yat letter russian.JPG|left|thumb|Cyrillic letter ''yat'', set in several fonts. Note that in [[cursive]] writing, the small yat has a very different shape.]]
In various modern [[Slavic languages]] the yat has reflexed into various vowels. For example, the old Slavic root ''běl'' (white) became ''bel'' {{IPA|/bʲel/}} in [[Standard Russian]] (dialectal {{IPA|/bʲal/}}, {{IPA|/bʲijel/}} or even {{IPA|/bʲil/}} in some regions), ''bil'' {{IPA|/bʲil/}} in [[Ukrainian language|Ukrainian]], ''bjal'' in [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]], ''biel / biały'' in [[Polish language|Polish]], and ''bílý'' in [[Czech language|Czech]]. Older, unrelated reflexes of yat exist; for example, old word {{Unicode|телѣгы}} (''{{Unicode|telěgi}}'', [[cart]]s) became modern Russian телеги (''telegi'') but in Serbian it is таљиге (''taljige'').
As a result of these reflexes, yat no longer represented an independent phoneme, but rather one identical to that represented by another Cyrillic letter. As a result, children had to memorise by rote where to write yat and where not. Therefore, the letter was dropped in a series of [[orthography|orthographic]] reforms: in [[Serbian language|Serbian]] with the reform of [[Vuk Karadžić]], which was later adopted for [[Macedonian language|Macedonian]], in [[Russian language|Russian]], [[Belarusian language|Belarusian]] and [[Ukrainian language|Ukrainian]] roughly with the [[October revolution]], and in [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]] and [[Rusyn language|Rusyn]] languages as late as [[1945]]. The letter is no longer used in the standard modern orthography of any of the Slavic languages written with the [[Cyrillic alphabet]], although it survives in liturgical and church texts written in the Russian recension of [[Church Slavonic language|Church Slavonic]] and has, since [[1991]], found some favour in [[advertising]].
{{IPA notice}}
==Yat in Russia and Ukraine==
In the [[Russian language]], confusion between the yat and ''e'' in writing occurs from the earliest records, but when exactly the final disappearance of the original sound from all dialects took place is a topic of scientific debate. Some scholars, for example W.K. Matthews, have placed the coalescence of the two sounds at the earliest historical phases ([[eleventh century]] or earlier), attributing its use until [[1918]] to [[Church Slavonic language|Church Slavonic]] influence. Within Russia itself, however, a consensus has found its way into university textbooks of historical grammar (e.g., V.V. Ivanov), that, taking all the dialects into account, the sounds remained predominantly distinct until the eighteenth century, at least under stress, and are distinct to this day in some localities. It may be noteworthy in this respect that the yat in [[Ukrainian language|Ukrainian]] usually merged in sound with ''i'', and therefore has remained distinct from ''e''.
The story of the letter yat and its elimination from the [[Russian alphabet]] makes for an interesting footnote in Russian cultural history. See [[Reforms of Russian orthography]] for details. A full list of words that were written with the letter yat at the beginning of [[twentieth century]] can be found at [[:ru:Ять|in the Russian Wikipedia]].
==Yat in Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian (Serbo-Croatian)==
In the [[Serbo-Croatian|central South Slavic group]], yat has morphed into three distinct forms: ''e, (i)je'' and ''i'', and this has become one of the differentiating criteria between the dialects (Ekavian, Ijekavian and Ikavian). Standard [[Bosnian language|Bosnian]] and [[Croatian language|Croatian]] are based on Ijekavian, while standard Serbian is mostly Ekavian in [[Serbia]] itself and Ijekavian in [[Bosnia and Herzegovina]] and [[Montenegro]]. Ikavian dialect is a regional substandard in parts of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. ''See [[Serbo-Croatian language#Rendering of yat|Rendering of yat in Serbo-Croatian]] for details''.
==Yat in Bulgarian ==
[[Image:Bgmap yat.png|thumb|Yat border]]
:''See also: [[Bulgarian language#Dialects]]''
In [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]], the different reflexes of the yat form the so-called [[yat border]] (''yatova granitsa''), running approximately from [[Nikopol]] on the [[Danube]] to Solun ([[Thessaloniki]]) on the [[Aegean Sea]]. The yat border is the most important Bulgarian [[isogloss]], marking pronunciation of the old ''yat'' as either /a/ and soft consonant before it (represented by '''я''' in standard Bulgarian) or /e/ to the east (''bjal'', but plural ''beli'', бял – бели) and only as ''e'' (''bel – beli'', бел – бели) to the west, continuing in Macedonian and Serbian dialects.
Literary Bulgarian is based on the pronunciation predominant in the eastern dialects. The ''yat'' is realized as /<sup>j</sup>a/ in stressed syllables when not followed by a [[front vowel]], and as /e/ elsewhere.
* ''mlyako'' (milk) [n.] → ''mlekar'' (milkman); ''mlechen'' (milky), etc.
* ''syadam'' (sit) [vb.] → ''sedalka'' (seat); ''sedalishte'' (seat, eg. of government), etc.
* ''svyat'' (holy) [adj.] → ''svetetz'' (saint); ''svetilishte'' (sanctuary), etc.
From the [[liberation of Bulgaria]] until 1945, the standard Bulgarian orthography did not reflect this alternation and used the Cyrillic letter ''yat'' for both "ya" and "e" in alternating roots. This was regarded as a way to maintain unity between Eastern and Western Bulgarians, as much of what was then seen as Western Bulgarian dialects was under foreign control. In 1945, the letter was eliminated from the Bulgarian alphabet and the spelling was changed to conform to the pronunciation.<!--If anyone doubts, as the previous wording seemed to suggest, that the Eastern alternation was already considered literary norm at the time, see e.g. Младенов, Стефан. Български етимологичен речник. 1941. p.XV-XVII.--> This was seen by many Bulgarian nationalists and Bulgarian Macedonians as “a betrayal of the western dialects” and an artificial separation of Bulgarian from the Macedonian dialects. After 1989 many right wing political and cultural organisations like the Bulgarian National Radical Party and the "Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation"-Bulgarian National Movement ([[VMRO-BND]]) in Bulgaria tried to initiate a debate on orthographic reform and reintroduction of the yat, but had little success.
== Iotified Yat ==
There is also an another version of Yat, the [[Iotified Yat]] (Majuscule: {{unicode|'''Ꙓ'''}}, miniscule: {{unicode|'''ꙓ'''}}) which is a Cyrillic Alphabet combined with a [[Decimal I (Cyrillic)|Decimal I]] and a [[Yat]]. It was rarely adopted in the earliest monuments such as the [[The Anthology 1073]].
There is no numerical value for this alphabet nor it was in the [[Glagolitic alphabet|Glagolitic]] Alphabet. There is no known name for this alphabet but in Russian, it would be йоти́рованный ять (''Ĭotírovannyĭ Yat''). It was said to be pronounced [jæ:] or [je:], similar to the Cyrillic Alphabet [[Yae (Cyrillic)|Yae]]. Not yet encoded but it is released in Unicode 5.1 respectively located at positions U+A652, and U+A653.
==Yat in Rusyn==
In the [[Rusyn language]], yat was used until 1945,{{Fact|date=June 2007}} and removed during the Soviet occupation. Nowadays some Rusyn writers and poets try to reinstate it, but this initiative isn't really popular among Rusyn [[intelligentsia]].
==Code positions==
Yat is present in [[Unicode]], though it is often absent from commonly available [[typeface|fonts]].
If your browser handles Unicode correctly and has a font which includes the letter, you should see the capital and small yats here: {{Unicode|Ѣѣ}}.
{| class="wikitable"
! [[Character encoding]] !! [[Case (orthography)|Case]] !! [[Decimal]] !! [[Hexadecimal]] !! [[Octal]] !! [[Binary numeral system|Binary]]
|-
| rowspan="2" | [[Unicode]]
| [[Majuscule|Capital]]
| 1122 || 0462 || 2142 || 0000010001100010
|-
| [[Lower case|Small]]
| 1123 || 0463 || 2143 || 0000010001100011
|}
Its [[HTML entity|HTML Entities]] are &#1122; or &#x462; for the capital and &#1123; or &#x463; for the small letter.
==See also==
* [[Yus]]
* [[Ҍ]] (Semisoft sign)
[[br:Ѣ (lizherenn)]]
[[bg:Ят]]
[[de:Jat]]
[[et:Ѣ]]
[[es:Ѣ (Cirílico)]]
[[eo:Jatj]]
[[fr:Jat']]
[[hr:Jat]]
[[it:Jat (Cirillico)]]
[[ka:Ѣ]]
[[ht:Ѣ]]
[[mk:Јат]]
[[ja:ヤチ]]
[[pl:Ѣ]]
[[pt:Yat]]
[[ru:Ять]]
[[sr:Јат (слово)]]
[[fi:Ѣ]]
[[sv:Ѣ]]
[[uk:Ять]]
[[zh:Ѣ]]