Re: Cyrillics, was: Re: Russian orthography (was: ...

Vasiliy Chernov wrote:

> The ligature I-O (without ypsilon) was used long before Peter I. Actually,
> I don't remember if I-OY has ever been in use; it *is* mentioned in
> the literature, but only hypothetically (AFAIK).
Yes, I was wrong to attribute this change to Peter.  But I think that
I-OY was real, not just hypothetical.

> There are more such ligatures. Modern 'JA' is originally I-A; in early
> Slavonic manuscripts, there are also I-E, I-E~ (with 'small YUS'), and
> I-O~ (with 'big YUS').
Indeed, and Unicode has all of these except IA.  The modern letter
YA is by origin a variant of small-yus:  both letters had come to be
pronounced /ja/ in Russian, and Peter abolished the IA ligature.

> BTW, 'YERU' - Oh... :( - is a ligature 'hard sign'
> + iota (not 'soft sign', as it may seem because of its modern shape).
Indeed; in old manuscripts one sometimes sees the hard sign
explicitly.

> It seems that Peter picked up what was already in use, selecting such
> forms that resembled the Roman letters most.
Undoubtedly.

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