Ѵ

See also: и, ѵ, υ, v, and V

Ѵ U 0474, Ѵ CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER IZHITSA ← ѳ [U 0473] Cyrillic ѵ → [U 0475]

Old Church Slavonic

Etymology

From Ancient Greek Υυ (Uu, “upsilon”).

Letter

Ѵ • (Ü) (lower case ѵ)

1. letter ižica (Old Church Slavonic: ижица (ižica))

Usage notes

Ižica was used to denote the sound [y~i] when in a syllabic position and [v] when in a consonantal position, analogous to Greek upsilon. In some texts, however, ižica was used to denote [v] exclusively, whereas [y~i] was written as ѷ (ižica with kendima) instead.

Russian

Letter

Ѵ • (I) (upper case, lower case ѵ)

1. (obsolete) Cyrillic Letter izhitsa (Russian: ижица (ižica).

Usage notes

In Russian, this letter was used for the letter υ (y) (y, "ypsilon"). It was pronounced [i] by itself, and [f] or [v] before a consonant, similar to its counterpart in modern Greek.

Since the 18th century, the letter izhitsa became rarely used in Russian, until in the early 20th century it consistently appeared in one word, мѵро (miro, “myrrh”) and derived words. There were several other words that were sometimes written with the izhitsa, such as сѵнодъ (sinod, “synod, church council”), Сѵрія (Sirija, “Syria”), and ѵпостась (ipostasʹ, “hypostasis, the being of Jesus Christ”).

It was finally eliminated during the spelling reform of 1918.