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Yus
Little yus (Ѧ, ѧ; italics: Ѧ, ѧ) and big yus (Ѫ, ѫ; italics: Ѫ, ѫ), or jus, are letters of the Cyrillic script representing two Common Slavonic nasal vowels in the early Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets. Each can occur in iotated form (Ѩ ѩ, Ѭ ѭ), formed as ligatures with the decimal i (І). Other yus letters are closed little yus (Ꙙ ꙙ), iotated closed little yus (Ꙝ ꙝ) and blended yus (Ꙛ ꙛ).
Phonetically, little yus represents a nasalized front vowel, possibly [ɛ̃] (like the French ‘in’ in “cinq” or Polish 'ę' in “kęs”), while big yus represents a nasalized back vowel, such as IPA [ɔ̃] (like the French ‘on’ in “bombon” or Polish 'ą' in “kąt”). This is also suggested by the appearance of each as a 'stacked' digraph of 'Am' and 'Om' respectively.[citation needed]
The names of the letters do not imply capitalization, as both little and big yus exist in majuscule and minuscule variants.
All modern Slavic languages that use the Cyrillic alphabet have lost the nasal vowels (at least in their standard varieties), making yus unnecessary.
Big yus was a part of the Bulgarian alphabet until 1945. However, by then, in the eastern dialects, the back nasal was pronounced the same way as ъ [ɤ]. Since the new Soviet-sponsored regime wanted to break with the one which it replaced at the end of WWII and closer align the official language with Russian, which was closer to the eastern dialects and had already removed its Big Yus, the western pronunciations were deemed unliterary, and the letter was gone.[citation needed]
There were some Bulgarian and Macedonian dialects spoken around Thessaloniki and Kastoria in northern Greece (Kostur dialect, Solun dialect) that still preserve a nasal pronunciation e.g. [ˈkɤ̃de ˈɡrẽdeʃ ˈmilo ˈt͡ʃẽdo] (Къде гредеш, мило чедо?; "Where are you going, dear child?"), which could be spelled pre-reform as "Кѫдѣ грѧдешъ, мило чѧдо?" with big and little yus.
On a visit to Razlog, in Bulgaria's Pirin Macedonia, in 1955, the Russian dialectologist Samuil Bernstein noticed that the nasal pronunciation of words like [ˈrɤ̃ka] (hand), [ˈt͡ʃẽdo] (child) could still be heard from some of the older women of the village. To the younger people, the pronunciation was completely alien; they would think that the old ladies were speaking Modern Greek.
In Russia, the little yus came to be pronounced as an iotated /ja/ (я) in the middle or at the end of a word and therefore came to represent that sound also elsewhere;[citation needed] the modern letter я is an adaptation of its cursive form of the 17th century, enshrined by the typographical reform of 1708. (That is also why я in Russian often corresponds to nasalized ę in Polish; cf. Russian пять; Polish pięć.)
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Yus
Little yus (Ѧ, ѧ; italics: Ѧ, ѧ) and big yus (Ѫ, ѫ; italics: Ѫ, ѫ), or jus, are letters of the Cyrillic script representing two Common Slavonic nasal vowels in the early Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets. Each can occur in iotated form (Ѩ ѩ, Ѭ ѭ), formed as ligatures with the decimal i (І). Other yus letters are closed little yus (Ꙙ ꙙ), iotated closed little yus (Ꙝ ꙝ) and blended yus (Ꙛ ꙛ).
Phonetically, little yus represents a nasalized front vowel, possibly [ɛ̃] (like the French ‘in’ in “cinq” or Polish 'ę' in “kęs”), while big yus represents a nasalized back vowel, such as IPA [ɔ̃] (like the French ‘on’ in “bombon” or Polish 'ą' in “kąt”). This is also suggested by the appearance of each as a 'stacked' digraph of 'Am' and 'Om' respectively.[citation needed]
The names of the letters do not imply capitalization, as both little and big yus exist in majuscule and minuscule variants.
All modern Slavic languages that use the Cyrillic alphabet have lost the nasal vowels (at least in their standard varieties), making yus unnecessary.
Big yus was a part of the Bulgarian alphabet until 1945. However, by then, in the eastern dialects, the back nasal was pronounced the same way as ъ [ɤ]. Since the new Soviet-sponsored regime wanted to break with the one which it replaced at the end of WWII and closer align the official language with Russian, which was closer to the eastern dialects and had already removed its Big Yus, the western pronunciations were deemed unliterary, and the letter was gone.[citation needed]
There were some Bulgarian and Macedonian dialects spoken around Thessaloniki and Kastoria in northern Greece (Kostur dialect, Solun dialect) that still preserve a nasal pronunciation e.g. [ˈkɤ̃de ˈɡrẽdeʃ ˈmilo ˈt͡ʃẽdo] (Къде гредеш, мило чедо?; "Where are you going, dear child?"), which could be spelled pre-reform as "Кѫдѣ грѧдешъ, мило чѧдо?" with big and little yus.
On a visit to Razlog, in Bulgaria's Pirin Macedonia, in 1955, the Russian dialectologist Samuil Bernstein noticed that the nasal pronunciation of words like [ˈrɤ̃ka] (hand), [ˈt͡ʃẽdo] (child) could still be heard from some of the older women of the village. To the younger people, the pronunciation was completely alien; they would think that the old ladies were speaking Modern Greek.
In Russia, the little yus came to be pronounced as an iotated /ja/ (я) in the middle or at the end of a word and therefore came to represent that sound also elsewhere;[citation needed] the modern letter я is an adaptation of its cursive form of the 17th century, enshrined by the typographical reform of 1708. (That is also why я in Russian often corresponds to nasalized ę in Polish; cf. Russian пять; Polish pięć.)