I (Cyrillic)

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I or Y (И, и) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet, representing /i/ in Russian and /ɪ/ in Ukrainian. It looks like a backwards version of the Latin alphabet's capital N, and is derived from the Greek letter eta (Η, η, pronounced [ɛː] in Ancient Greek but [i] in Modern Greek).

In the early Cyrillic alphabet there was little or no distinction between the letters и (izhei) and і (izhe), descended from the Greek letters η (eta) and ι (iota). They both remained in the alphabetical repertoire because they represented different numbers in the Cyrillic numeral system, eight and ten, and are therefore sometimes referred to as octal I and decimal I.

It is the tenth letter of the Russian alphabet, and in Russian is represents /i/, like the i in machine. Although in isolation it is not preceded by the /j/ semivowel like other "soft" vowels (е, ё, ю, and я), in Russian it is considered the soft counterpart to ы, which represents /ɨ/. (In Ukrainian and Belarusian, the sound /i/ is represented by the letter і, sometimes called Ukrainian I.)

The letter и is the eleventh letter of the Ukrainian alphabet, and in Ukrainian represents /ɪ/, as in English image.

Belarusian has dispensed entirely with the letter и.

With a breve, it forms the letter й, called I kratkoye ("short I") in Russian or Yot in Ukrainian and represents the Y in English "yet."

It is transliterated from Russian as i, or from Ukrainian as y or i, using different romanization systems. See transliteration of Russian into English and romanization of Ukrainian.

The Cyrillic letters и and я are used in faux Cyrillic typography.

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