Why, oh my, don’t you write “Yo” anywhere?

Recently, an amazing transformation of the Russian language has been taking place. Reforms in the field of word formation and stress have already led to the fact that coffee has become of an indefinite gender, and they are trying to completely eliminate the letter “Y” from the alphabet.

200-year "war"
The first discrepancies associated with “Yo,” the youngest letter in the Russian alphabet, began more than 220 years ago. In 1783, it was invented by Ekaterina Dashkova, an associate of Catherine II, princess and head of the Imperial Russian Academy. At an academic meeting, Ekaterina Romanovna asked Derzhavin, Fonvizin, Knyazhin and other letter scholars whether it was legal to write “iolka” and whether it would be wiser to replace the digraph “io” with one letter “Yo”.

Already in 1795, the letter “Y” began to appear in print, but linguistic conservatism still prevented the promotion of the young letter to the masses. For example, Tsvetaeva wrote “damn” on principle, Andrei Bely wrote “zholty”, and the Minister of Education Alexander Shishkov, for example, leafed through the books that belonged to him volume after volume, erasing two hated dots from them. In all pre-revolutionary Primers, “Y” did not stand after “E”, but at the very end of the alphabet.

The appearance of “Yo,” according to its opponents, is the result of the arbitrariness of one person, Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin. Allegedly for the sake of external effect, in 1797 he used the European umlaut, the Latin “E” with two dots, in the Russian-language text. Opponents of “Yo” are still trying, by hook or by crook, to get rid of the letter they hate. And where does this unnecessary, in my opinion, “disinfection” ultimately lead us?

On a computer keyboard it is “relegated” to the upper left corner, but on a phone it is often completely absent. When sending a telegram, we insistently ask for “more money.” Many of us are sure that the great Dumas wrote not about Cardinal Richelieu, but about Richelieu; the favorite French actor’s name is not Depardieu, but Depardieu. And our fellow countryman Fet once became Fet.

And how many legal problems do I, an honest citizen of the Russian Federation, have because of negligent passport officers, nurses, secretaries who ignore the letter “Y” in my last name? It turns out that according to my passport I am one person, but according to my driver’s license I am another... Literary and letter scholars say correctly: “We live like this, as if there are 32.5 letters in our alphabet.”

Hard facts:
— the letter E is in the sacred, “lucky” 7th place in the alphabet;
— in the Russian language there are about 12,500 words with “Ё”. Of these, about 150 begin with “Yo” and about 300 end with “Yo”;
— frequency of occurrence of “Ё” – 1% of the text. That is, for every thousand characters of text there are on average ten “yoshkas”;
- in Russian surnames “Yo” occurs in approximately two cases out of a hundred;
- there are words in our language with two and even three letters “Yo”: “three-star”, “four-vector”, “Byoryoloh” (a river in Yakutia), “Byoryogyosh” and “Kyogolyon” (male names in Altai);
— in the Russian language there are 12 male and 5 female names, the full forms of which contain “Yo”. These are Aksen, Artyom, Nefed, Parmen, Peter, Rorik, Savel, Seliverst, Semyon, Fedor, Yarem; Alena, Klena, Matryona, Thekla, Flena;
— in Ulyanovsk, the hometown of the inveterate “yofikator” Nikolai Karamzin, there is a monument to the letter “Y”.

By the way:
In Russia, there is an official Union of Eficators of Russia, which is engaged in the fight for the rights of “de-energized” words. Thanks to their vigorous activity to besiege the State Duma, now all Duma documents (including laws) are completely “eified.” “Yo” - at the suggestion of the chairman of the Union Viktor Chumakov - appeared in some all-Russian newspapers, in television credits and in books.

Russian programmers have created "etator" - a computer program that automatically places letters with dots in the text. And the artists came up with the “epyrite” - an icon for marking official publications.

The Russian alphabet consists of thirty-three letters. One of them, completely undeservedly, is increasingly falling out of use.

Its history began in 1783. (18) On November 29, 1783, one of the first meetings of the newly created Academy of Russian Literature took place with the participation of its director, Princess Ekaterina Dashkova, as well as Fonvizin and Derzhavin. The project of a complete explanatory Slavic-Russian dictionary, later famous “Dictionary of the Russian Academy,” was discussed. Ekaterina Romanovna proposed replacing the designation of the sound “io” with one new letter – “e”. Dashkova's arguments seemed convincing, and soon her proposal was approved by the general meeting of the academy.

The princess's innovative idea was supported by a number of leading cultural figures of the time, including Derzhavin, who was the first to use Yo in personal correspondence. The first printed publication in which the letter “е” appears is Ivan Dmitriev’s book “My Trinkets” (1795).

The letter “e” became famous thanks to Karamzin. In 1797, Nikolai Mikhailovich decided to replace two letters in the word “sliosis” with one – “e” when preparing to publish one of his poems. So, with Karamzin’s light hand, the letter “ё” became part of the Russian alphabet. Due to the fact that Karamzin was the first to use the letter “ё” in a printed publication, which was published in a fairly large circulation, it is his that some reference publications, in particular the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, mistakenly indicate as the author of the letter “ё”.

In Soviet Russia, the mandatory use of the letter “ё” in school practice was introduced in 1942 by order of the People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR. By the way, no one has ever canceled this order.

The optional use of “е” leads to erroneous readings and the inability to restore the meaning of the word without detailed context. For example, loan-loan; perfect-perfect; tears-tears; palate-palate; chalk-chalk; donkey-donkey; fun-fun...

You can also give an example from “Peter the Great” by A.N. Tolstoy: “Under such and such a sovereign, we will rest!” What was meant was “let’s take a break.” Can you feel the difference?

In 1997, the idea arose to erect a monument to the letter E in Ulyanovsk, when local historians celebrated the 200th anniversary of the appearance of the letter “E” in print. In 2001, the city held a competition for the best design of the monument in order to erect it in honor of the 205th anniversary of the use of the letter. The winner of the competition was one of the initiators of the installation of the monument - Ulyanovsk artist Alexander Zinin.
His design was a granite stele with an indented letter E in the form of an enlarged copy of the letter first printed on page 166 in the word “tears” in the almanac “Aonida” in 1797. The opening of the monument was timed to coincide with the 160th anniversary of the installation in Simbirsk of a monument to Nikolai Karamzin, the publisher of the almanac “Aonida”.

The monument was unveiled on Venets Boulevard near the regional scientific library. By the appointed time, the artist did not receive the ordered red granite, and had to make the monument from black granite.

In 2005, the monument was made and took its place in accordance with the original plan. The triangular prism was made by the Ulyanovsk branch of the Military Memorial Company. The height of the monument is 2.05 meters. Weight - more than three tons.

Ё, ё is the 7th letter of the Russian and Belarusian alphabets and the 9th letter of the Rusyn alphabet. It is also used in a number of non-Slavic alphabets based on the civil Cyrillic alphabet (for example, Mongolian, Kyrgyz, Udmurt and Chuvash).

If possible, it means the softness of the consonants, being after them, and the sound [o]; in all other cases it sounds like . In native Russian words (in addition to words with the prefixes three- and four-), it is always under stress. Cases of unstressed use are rare, mainly these are borrowed words - for example, Königsberg surfers, complex words - loess-like or words with prefixes three- and four- - for example, four-part. Here the letter is phonetically equivalent to the unstressed “e”, “i”, “ya” or has a side stress, but can also reflect the characteristic features of writing in the source language.

In the Russian language (i.e., in Russian writing), the letter “е” stands, first of all, where the sound [(j)o] comes from [(j)e], this explains the form derived from “e” letters (borrowed from Western scripts). In Russian writing, unlike Belarusian, according to the rules for using letters, placing dots above the “е” is optional.

In other Slavic Cyrillic alphabet there is no letter “ё”. To indicate the corresponding sounds in writing in the Ukrainian and Bulgarian languages, they write “yo” after consonants and in other cases, “yo”. Serbian writing (and the Macedonian one based on it) generally does not have special letters for iotated vowels and/or softening the preceding consonant, since to distinguish syllables with a hard and soft consonant they use different consonants, and not different vowel letters, and iot is always written a separate letter.

In the Church and Old Church Slavonic alphabets there is no letter equivalent to “е”, since there are no such combinations of sounds; Russian “yokanye” is a common mistake when reading Church Slavonic texts.

Superscript element and its name

There is no generally accepted official term for the extension element present in the letter “e”. In traditional linguistics and pedagogy, the word “colon” ​​was used, but most often in the last hundred years they used a less formal expression - “two dots”, or generally tried to avoid mentioning this element separately.

It is considered incorrect to use foreign language terms (dialytics, diaresis, trema or umlaut) in this situation, since they relate to diacritics and denote, first of all, a specific phonetic function.

Historical aspects

Introduction of Yo into use

For a long time, the sound combination (and after soft consonants - [o]), which appeared in Russian pronunciation, was not expressed in writing in any way. From the middle of the 18th century. they were designated by the letters IO, located under a common cap. But such a designation was cumbersome and was rarely used. The following variants were used: the signs o, iô, ьо, іо, ió.

In 1783, instead of the existing options, they proposed the letter “e”, borrowing from French, where it has a different meaning. However, it was first used in print only 12 years later (in 1795). The influence of the Swedish alphabet was also assumed.

In 1783, on November 29 (Old style - November 18) at the house of the head of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Princess E. R. Dashkova, one of the first meetings of the newly formed Russian Academy was held, where Fonvizin D. I., Knyazhnin were present Ya. B., Derzhavin G. R., Lepyokhin I. I., Metropolitan Gabriel and others. They discussed the project of a complete version of the explanatory dictionary (Slavic-Russian), subsequently the famous 6-volume Dictionary of the Russian Academy.

The academicians were about to go home, like E.R. Dashkova asked if any of them could write the word “Christmas tree.” The learned men thought that the princess was joking, but she wrote the word “yolk”, which she had pronounced, and asked the question: “Is it legal to represent one sound with two letters?” She also noted: “These reprimands have already been introduced by custom, which, when it does not contradict common sense, should be followed in every possible way.” Ekaterina Dashkova suggested using the “newborn” letter “e” “to express words and reprimands, with this consent, beginning as matiory, iolka, iozh, iol.”

She turned out to be convincing in her arguments, and Gabriel, Metropolitan of Novgorod and St. Petersburg, who is a member of the Academy of Sciences, was asked to evaluate the rationality of introducing a new letter. So, in 1784, on November 18, the official recognition of the letter “e” took place.

The princess's innovative idea was supported by a number of leading cultural figures of that period, incl. and Derzhavin, who was the first to use “ё” for personal correspondence. And the first printed publication in which the appearance of the letter “е” was noticed was in 1795 the book “And My Trinkets” by I. Dmitriev, published by the Moscow University Printing House of H. A. Claudia and H. Riediger (in this printing house since 1788 published the newspaper “Moskovskie Vedomosti”, and it was located on the site of the present building of the Central Telegraph).

The first word printed with the letter “е” became “everything”, then “vasilyochik”, “stump”, “light”, “immortal”. For the first time, a surname with this letter (“Potemkin”) was printed by G. R. Derzhavin in 1798.

The letter “e” became famous thanks to N.M. Karamzin, so until recently he was considered its author, until the story outlined above received wide publicity. In 1796, in the 1st book of the anthology of poems “Aonids”, published by Karamzin, who came out of the same university printing house, the words “dawn”, “moth”, “eagle”, “tears” were printed with the letter “e”. ", and the 1st verb is "flowed".

It’s just not clear whether this was Karamzin’s personal idea or the initiative of some employee of the publishing house. It should be noted that Karamzin did not use the letter “e” in scientific works (for example, in the famous “History of the Russian State” (1816-1829)).

Distribution issues

Although the letter “е” was proposed to be introduced in 1783, and was used in print in 1795, for a long time it was not considered a separate letter and it was not officially introduced into the alphabet. This is very typical for newly introduced letters: the status of the symbol “th” was the same; it (in comparison with “e”) became mandatory for use back in 1735. In his “Russian Spelling”, Academician J. K. Grot noted, that both of these letters “should also occupy a place in the alphabet,” but for a long time this remained only a good wish.

In the XVIII-XIX centuries. An obstacle to the spread of the letter “е” was the then attitude towards such a “yocking” pronunciation as petty-bourgeois speech, the dialect of the “vile rabble,” while the “yokking” “church” pronunciation was considered more noble, intelligent and cultural (with a “yocking” "Fought, for example, V.K. Trediakovsky and A.P. Sumarokov).

12/23/1917 (01/05/1918) a decree was published (undated) signed by the Soviet People's Commissar of Education A.V. Lunacharsky, who introduced reformed spelling as mandatory, it said, among other things: “To recognize the use of the letter “е” as desirable, but not mandatory. "

Thus, the letters “ё” and “й” formally entered the alphabet (having received serial numbers) only in Soviet times (if you do not take into account the “New ABC” (1875) by Leo Tolstoy, where there was the letter “ё" between " e" and yatem, in 31st place).

On December 24, 1942, the use of the letter “e” by order of the People’s Commissar of Education of the RSFSR was introduced into compulsory school practice, and since then (sometimes, however, they remember 1943 and even 1956, when spelling normative rules were first published) it is considered officially included in the Russian alphabet .

For the next 10 years, scientific and fiction literature was published almost exclusively using the letter “е,” and then publishers returned to the old practice: using the letter only when absolutely necessary.

There is a legend that Joseph Stalin influenced the popularization of the letter “ё”. It says that in 1942, on December 6, I.V. An order was brought to Stalin for signature, where the names of a number of generals were printed not with the letter “ё”, but with “e”. Stalin was angry, and the next day all the articles in the Pravda newspaper suddenly appeared with the letter “e”.

On July 9, 2007, Russian Minister of Culture A. S. Sokolov, giving an interview to the Mayak radio station, expressed his opinion on the need to use the letter “e” in written speech.

Basic rules for using the letter “ё”

Legislative acts

On December 24, 1942, the People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR V.P. Potemkin, by order No. 1825, introduced the letter “Ё,ё” into mandatory practice. Shortly before the order was issued, an incident occurred when Stalin treated rudely the manager of the Council of People's Commissars, Ya. Chadayev, because on December 6 (or 5), 1942, he brought him a decree for signature, where the names of a number of generals were printed without the letter “e”.

Chadayev informed the editor of Pravda that the leader wanted to see “ё” in print. Thus, already on December 7, 1942, the newspaper issue suddenly came out with this letter in all articles.

Federal Law No. 53-FZ “On the State Language of the Russian Federation” dated 06/01/2005 in part 3 of Art. 1 states that when using Russian modern literary language as a state language, the Government of the Russian Federation determines the procedure for approving the rules and norms of Russian punctuation and spelling.

The Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation “On the procedure for approving the norms of the modern Russian literary language when used as the state language of the Russian Federation, the rules of Russian spelling and punctuation” dated November 23, 2006 No. 714 establishes that, based on the recommendations given by the Interdepartmental Commission on the Russian Language, a list reference books, grammars and dictionaries, which contain the norms of the modern Russian literary language, when it is used in the Russian Federation as the state language, as well as the rules of Russian punctuation and spelling, are approved by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.

Letter No. AF-159/03 dated 05/03/2007 “On the decisions of the Interdepartmental Commission on the Russian Language” of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation prescribes writing the letter “e” in case of probability of misreading words, for example, in proper names, since in In this case, ignoring the letter “е” violates the requirements of the Federal Law “On the State Language of the Russian Federation.”

According to the current rules of Russian punctuation and spelling, the letter ё is used selectively in texts during normal printing. But, at the request of the editor or author, any book can be printed using the letter e sequentially.

The sound of "Yo"

The letter "ё" is used:

To convey the stressed vowel [o] and at the same time indicate the softness of the previous consonant: youth, comb, crawl, oats, lying, during the day, honey, dog, everything, trudged, Fedor, aunt (after g, k, x this is only used for borrowing : Höglund, Goethe, liqueur, Cologne, exception - the only proper Russian word tkesh, tkem, weave, weave with derivatives, and formed in Russian from the borrowed word panicer);

To convey the accent [o] after hissing words: silk, zhzhem, click, damn (in this position, the conditions for choosing between writing with “o” or with “e” are set by a rather complex system of lists of exception words and rules);

To convey the combination of [j] and the percussive sound [o]:

At the beginning of the words: container, hedgehog, Christmas tree;

After consonants (a separating sign is used): volume, viet, linen.

After the vowel letters: her, loan, striker, tip, spit, forges;

In native Russian words, only the stressed sound “ё” is possible (even if the stress is collateral: loess-like, four-story, three-seater); if, during word formation or inflection, the stress moves to another syllable, then “е” will be replaced by “e” (takes - will choose, honey - honey - on honey, about what - nothing (but: about nothing )).

Along with the letter “е” in borrowings, the same sound meaning can be conveyed after consonants - the combination ё and in other cases - yo. Also in borrowings “ё” can be an unstressed vowel.

Yo and E

Officially, since 1956, the “Rules of Russian Spelling and Punctuation” define the cases when “ё” is used in writing:

"1. When it is necessary to prevent incorrect reading and understanding of a word, for example: we recognize as opposed to learn; everything is different from everything; bucket as opposed to bucket; perfect (participle) as opposed to perfect (adjective), etc.

2. When you need to indicate the pronunciation of a little-known word, for example: Olekma river.

3. In special texts: primers, school textbooks of the Russian language, spelling textbooks, etc., as well as in dictionaries to indicate the place of stress and correct pronunciation
Note. In foreign words, at the beginning of words and after vowels, instead of the letter ё, yo is written, for example; iodine, district, major."

§ 5 of the new edition of these rules (published in 2006 and approved by the Spelling Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences) regulates these issues in more detail:

“The use of the letter ё can be consistent and selective.
Consistent use of the letter ё is mandatory in the following types of printed texts:

a) in texts with sequentially placed accent marks;

b) in books addressed to young children;

c) in educational texts for primary schoolchildren and foreigners studying the Russian language.

Note 1. The sequential use of ё is adopted for the illustrative part of these rules.

Note 3. In dictionaries, words with the letter e are placed in the general alphabet with the letter e, for example: barely, unctuous, fir-tree, spruce, elozit, fir-tree, fir-tree, spruce; to have fun, to have fun, gaiety, cheerful, fun.

In ordinary printed texts, the letter е is used selectively. It is recommended to use it in the following cases.

1. To prevent incorrect identification of a word, for example: everything, sky, summer, perfect (in contrast to the words everything, sky, summer, perfect), including to indicate the place of stress in the word, for example: bucket, we recognize (unlike a bucket, let's find out).

2. To indicate the correct pronunciation of a word - either rare, not well known, or having a common incorrect pronunciation, e.g.: gyozy, surfing, fleur, harder, lye, including to indicate the correct stress, e.g.: fable, brought, carried away , convicted, newborn, spy.

3. In proper names - surnames, geographical names, for example: Konenkov, Neyolova, Catherine Deneuve, Schrödinger, Dezhnev, Koshelev, Chebyshev, Veshenskaya, Olekma.”

“Yo”, “yo” and “yo” in borrowed words and the transfer of foreign proper names

The letter “е” is often used to convey the sounds [ø] and [œ] (for example, denoted by the letter “ö”) in foreign names and words.

In borrowed words, the letter combinations “jo” or “yo” are usually used to record combinations of phonemes such as /jo/:

After consonants, at the same time softening them (“broth”, “battalion”, “mignon”, “guillotine”, “senor”, ​​“champignon”, “pavilion”, “fjord”, “companion”, etc.) - in Romance languages usually in places after palatalized [n] and [l] “о” is written.

At the beginning of words ("iota", "iodine", "yogurt", "yoga", "York", etc.) or after vowels ("district", "coyote", "meiosis", "major", etc.) spelled “yo”;

However, in recent decades, “ё” has been increasingly used in these cases. It has already become a normative element in the systems of transferring titles and names (transliteration sense) from a number of Asian languages ​​(for example, the Kontsevich system for the Korean language and the Polivanov system for the Japanese language): Yoshihito, Shogun, Kim Yongnam.

In European borrowings, the sound is conveyed by the letter “е” very rarely; it is most often found in words from the languages ​​of Scandinavia (Jörmungand, Jötun), but, as a rule, it exists along with the usual transmission through “yo” (for example, Jörmungand) and is often considered non-normative.

“Ё” in borrowed words is often unstressed and in this position its pronunciation is indistinguishable from the letters “I”, “i” or “e” (Erdős, shogunate, etc.), i.e., its original clarity is lost and it sometimes turns into just an indication of a certain pronunciation in the source language.

Consequences of not using the letter “ё”

The slowness of the entry of the letter “е” into the practice of writing (which, by the way, never fully took place) is explained by its inconvenient form for cursive writing, which contradicts its main principle - the unity (without tearing the pen from the sheet of paper) of the style, as well as the technical difficulties of technology publishing houses of pre-computer times.

In addition, people with last names with the letter “е” often have difficulties, sometimes insurmountable, when preparing various documents, since some workers are irresponsible when writing this letter. This problem became especially acute after the introduction of the Unified State Examination system, when there is a danger of differences in the spelling of the name in the passport and in the Certificate of Unified State Examination results.

The habitual optionality of use led to the erroneous reading of a number of words, which gradually became generally accepted. This process affected everything: both a huge number of personal names and numerous common nouns.

Stable ambiguity is caused by words written without the letter e such as: piece of iron, everything, flax, let's take a break, blowjob (will fly by without hitting you), perfect, planted, in summer, recognize, palate, tapeworm, admits, etc. are increasingly used erroneous pronunciation (without ё) and shifting stress in the words beet, newborn, etc.

"e" turns into "e"

The ambiguity contributed to the fact that sometimes the letter “е” began to be used in writing (and, naturally, read [`o]) in those words where it should not be there. For example, instead of the word “grenadier” - “grenadier”, and instead of the word “scam” - “scam”, also instead of the word “guardianship” - “guardianship”, and instead of the word “being” - “being”, etc. Sometimes such incorrect pronunciation and spelling become common.

Thus, the famous chess player Alexander Alekhine, world champion, was, in fact, Alekhine and was very indignant if his last name was pronounced and spelled incorrectly. His surname belongs to the noble family of Alekhins and is not derived from the familiar variable “Alyokha” from the name Alexey.

In those positions where it is necessary to be not ё, but е, it is recommended to place an accent in order to prevent incorrect recognition of words (everyone, takes) or erroneous pronunciation (grenadier, scam, Croesus, stout, Olesha).

Due to the spelling of words without e in the 20s and 30s. XX century Many errors arose in the pronunciation of those words that people learned from newspapers and books, and not from colloquial speech: musketeer, youth, driver (these words said “e” instead of “e”).

Orthoepy: the emergence of new variants

Due to the optional use of the letter “е”, words have appeared in the Russian language that allow the possibility of being written with both the letter “e” and “е”, and the corresponding pronunciation. For example, faded and faded, maneuver and maneuver, whitish and whitish, bile and bile, etc.

Such variants constantly appear in the language due to the action of contradictory analogies. For example, the word nadsekshiy has variants of pronunciation with e/e due to the double motivation: notch/notch. The use or non-use of the letter “ё” does not matter here. But, developing naturally, a literary language, as a rule, tends to eliminate variants: either one of them will become non-literary, incorrect (golo[l`o]ditsa, iz[d`e]vka), or pronunciation variants will acquire different meanings (is[ t'o]kshiy - is[t'e]kshiy).

It is preferably pronounced not “glider”, but “glider” (stressed 1st syllable), since the following trends exist in the Russian language: in the names of mechanisms, machines, and various devices, stress is preferable on the 1st syllable, or more precisely, on the penultimate one , i.e., glider, trireme, glider, tanker, and on the last one - when indicating the character: combine operator, driver, watchman.

Inconsistency in the use of the letter “е” is an artificial rather than a natural factor. And it helps to slow down the natural development of the language, giving rise to and maintaining pronunciation options that are not determined by intralingual reasons.

History of the letter Yoyo

On November 29, 2013, the letter E turns 230 years old!

Russian alphabetconsists of thirty-three letters. One of them stands somewhat apart from the general row. Firstly, it is the only one among its colleagues that has dots at the top. Secondly, it was introduced into the already existing alphabet by order.

This is a letter Her.

The history of the letter began in 1783 year.November twenty ninth In 1783, one of the first meetings of the newly created Academy of Russian Literature took place with the participation of its director - Princess Ekaterina Dashkova, as well as the then famous writers Fonvizin and Derzhavin. Ekaterina Romanovna proposed replacing the two-letter designation of the sound “io” in the Russian alphabet with one new letter “E” with two dots on top. Arguments Dashkova The academicians seemed convincing, and soon her proposal was approved by the general meeting of the Academy.

A widely known new letter e became thanks to the historian N.M. Karamzin. In 1797, Nikolai Mikhailovich decided to replace two letters in the word “sl” when preparing to publish one of his poems io zy" with one letter e. Yes, with a light hand Karamzina, the letter “ё” took its place in the sun and became entrenched in the Russian alphabet. Due to N.M. Karamzin was the first to use the letter ё in a printed publication, which was published in a fairly large circulation; some sources, in particular, the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, erroneously indicate him as the author of the letter ё.

When the Bolsheviks came to power, they “combed through” the alphabet, removed “yat” and fita and izhitsa, but did not touch the letter E. It was under Soviet rule that the points above e In order to simplify typing, most words were missing. Although no one formally banned or abolished it.

The situation changed dramatically in 1942. Supreme Commander-in-Chief Stalin received German maps on his desk, in which German cartographers wrote down the names of our settlements down to the dots. If the village was called "Demino", then in both Russian and German it was written Demino (and not Demino). The Supreme Commander appreciated the enemy's meticulousness. As a result, on December 24, 1942, a decree was issued requiring the mandatory use of the letter Yoyo everywhere, from school textbooks to the Pravda newspaper. Well, of course, on the maps. By the way, no one has ever canceled this order!

Some statistics

In 2013, the letter Yoyo turns 230 years old!

She is in 7th (lucky!) place in the alphabet.

There are about 12,500 words in the Russian language with the letter Ё, of which about 150 words begin with е and about 300 words end with е!

On average, there is 1 letter e for every hundred characters of text. .

There are words in our language with two letters E: “three-star”, “four-bucket”.

There are several traditional names in the Russian language that contain the letter Ё:

Artyom, Parmen, Peter, Savel, Seliverst, Semyon, Fedor, Yarem; Alena, Matryona, Fyokla and others.

Optional use letters e leads to erroneous readings and the inability to restore the meaning of the word without additional explanations, for example:

Loan-loan; perfect-perfect; tears-tears; palate-palate; chalk-chalk; donkey-donkey; fun-fun...

And, of course, the classic example from “Peter the Great” by A.K. Tolstoy:

Under such a sovereign let's take a break!

It was meant - " let's take a break" Do you feel the difference?

How do you read “Let’s Sing Everything”? Are we all eating? Shall we eat everything?

And the last name of the French actor will be Depardieu, not Depardieu. (see Wikipedia)

And, by the way, A. Dumas’s cardinal’s name is not Richelieu, but Richelieu. (see Wikipedia)

And the correct way to pronounce the surname of the Russian poet is Fet, not Fet.

Interesting expressions from Russian speech:

The expression “not every bast fits the line” is understandable, but not to every modern

to the word alarm bell attributed to Arab (or Turkic?) origin. With this word

The expression “our regiment has arrived” has a direct effect. Means simply “ours”

In fact, Suvorov called his instructions (formulated in the form of a manuscript for

The expression “to be out of place” means to feel awkward, uncomfortable,

The expression “in seventh heaven” is usually used with the verb be

Since ancient times (and to this day), nuts have been a favorite treat for children.

Climbing on the wall- talk about those who are in an extremely excited or state

Incense is the general name for incense that smoked not only in front of altars

Interesting expression - scapegoat. The phrase is unsaid, but everything is fine

An interesting expression is to buy a pig in a poke. It can be classified as intuitive

The nightingale is the most pleasant songbird living in the vastness of Russia. Why of all

Kuzka's mother(or show Kuzka’s mother) – a stable indirect phrase

Expression mutual responsibility- this is an expression of direct meaning, that is, it means that

This expression - squaring the circle, you've probably come across it somewhere. And that's what it is

The expression at the top of Ivanovo, or rather, to yell at the top of Ivanovo, is very well known

Letters also have birthdays. On November 29, 1783, the letter E appeared in the Russian alphabet. Many consider it optional, but this letter has a long and very interesting history.

The story of one letter

Of all the thirty-three letters of the Russian alphabet, none has caused as much controversy as the letter “Ё”. Many consider it optional, but this letter has a long and very interesting history.

The letter “Yo” (more precisely, its use in writing) still causes heated debate. At one time they practically forgot about it and did not use it anywhere (except perhaps for the alphabet and books for children); Today, the use of the letter “E” is mandatory, at least in educational literature, although in other cases this letter is most often replaced with “E”. The letter “Y” is usually absent from cell phone buttons and computer keyboards, and where it is present, the corresponding button is often located outside the main alphabetical key area.

At the same time, the letter “Y” has its own interesting history. The sound itself, now corresponding to this letter (after soft consonants), has existed in the Russian language for a long time, although in the 18th–19th centuries. Such a “fucking” pronunciation was considered by some figures to be “peasant”, “philistine”, or, in any case, too common, in contrast to the more “noble” church pronunciation through “E”. However, this sound did not have any designation in writing for a long time, and from the middle of the 18th century. written with a pair of letters: “io”.

The letter “Y” appeared thanks to the director of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Princess Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova. On November 29, 1783 (now this date can be considered the “birthday” of the letter “Y”) one of the first meetings of the Academy of Russian Literature took place with the participation of Princess Ekaterina Dashkova, writer Denis Fonvizin, poet Gabriel Derzhavin and other then famous writers. During a discussion of the draft of the complete six-volume explanatory Slavic-Russian “Dictionary of the Russian Academy,” Dashkova suddenly asked those present: “Is it legal to represent one sound with two letters?” and recommended using the symbol “Ё”, borrowed from the French language, to indicate the sound “io”.

The letter “Y” became widely known thanks to Nikolai Karamzin, who in 1797 used the letter “Y” in one of his poems in the almanac “Aonids” he published. True, it is still unclear whether this was the initiative of N. Karamzin or one of the typesetters (in any case, Karamzin did not use the letter “Y” in his “History of the Russian State”). Because of this, Karamzin was considered for a long time the “inventor” of the letter “Y”, until the true history of its appearance was clarified and it turned out that the letter “Y” was used by Ivan Dmitriev before Karamzin (in his book “And My Trinkets”, 1795; the first printed edition with “Yo”). And the first surname (“Potemkin”) with this letter was printed in 1798 by G.R. Derzhavina

However, despite all this, the letter “Y” was not officially included in the Russian alphabet (and the same applied to the letter “Y”). The letter “Yo” was contained in Leo Tolstoy’s “New Alphabet” (1875) almost at the very end of the alphabet, between “YAT” and “E”. And only on December 24, 1942, when the order of the People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR No. 1825 (“On the use of the letter “Y” in Russian spelling”) introduced the mandatory use of “Y” in educational literature, this letter finally received “citizenship rights” in the alphabet. They say that it was not just anyone who “had a hand” in the aforementioned order of the People’s Commissariat for Education, but Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin himself: supposedly on December 6, 1942, an order was brought to him for signature, in which the names of several generals were printed with “E” instead of “Yo”. Stalin became very angry, and the next day the letter “Y” appeared in all articles of the Pravda newspaper. After this, almost all printed publications began to be published with “Yo,” but later the use of this letter began to fade away.

Currently, according to the Letter of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation dated May 3, 2007 No. AF-159/03 “On decisions of the Interdepartmental Commission on the Russian Language,” the letter “Y” is required when a word can be misread (for example, in names and surnames), in texts with accent marks, in books for young children (including textbooks) and in textbooks for foreigners. In other cases, the use of the letter “Ё” is optional.

Illustrations: 1. Monument to the letter “Y” in Ulyanovsk.2. Princess Ekaterina Dashkova. 3. Writer Nikolai Karamzin.