Yus

The Slavic nasal vowels are the pre-Slavic phonemes * ę and ǫ * and its sequels in today's Slavic languages ​​or representing them letters of the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet.

• 2.1 Glagolitic
• 2.2 Cyrillic
• 2.3 names
• 2.4 numerical value

The sounds * ę and ǫ *

Proto-Slavic

The pre-Slavic sounds that ę as * and * umschriftet ǫ, one has to be the nasal vowels [ ɛ ] and [ ɔ ] (similar to French basin or mouton ) imagine. They originated from Indo-European compounds with n and m, namely * ę of syllabic -M and-N - and -em- and -en, * ǫ, however, from - the - ,-an -,- om- and - on, respectively, if this were between consonants.

Examples:

• Ursl. * pa - mętь 'memory' is to IE * mn̥tis formed on the even Latin mens ( genitive mentis ) " mind, intellect ' back.
• Ursl. * zǫbъ ' tooth ' has arisen from IE * g̑ombhos, which has become the German to comb.
• * In pętь ' five ' puts IE * penkti, from which also five German, Latin quinque and Greek πέντε / pente have developed.

Further development

In most Slavic languages ​​the pre-Slavic nasal vowels have been entnasaliert, so become normal oral vowels. Only in Polish and Kashubian they are largely preserved as nasal vowels.

Polish

In Old Polish are the two pre-Slavic nasal vowels collapsed (perhaps to [ ɑ ] as in French chance). Ę Between etymological * and ǫ * so could not distinguish based on the pronunciation of the Nasalvokals you, but only because the * ę * ǫ unlike the preceding palatalized consonants. (This is called palatalization in today's Polish orthography by a silent i behind the consonant, eg Zab ' tooth ' < * zǫbъ vs. Ziąb ' cold ' < * zębъ. )

This traditional Polish nasal vowel could be long or short. (Regardless of course of whether he ę from * and * ǫ was created ) The long nasal vowel has since spoken of as o -nasal [ ɔ ] (ie quite similar to the earlier: In the 15th century evolved from this quantitative distinction again a qualitative ancient Slavic * ǫ ) and the short e- Nasal [ ɛ ] (how * ę ). There are now in Polish no more differences in length, so that the two vowels only distinguishes the quality.

The e -nasal is in today's Polish orthography, written as ę, ie e with ogonek, the o -nasal, however, for historical reasons ± with the time used for the single nasal vowel letters, ie a with ogonek. ( But he will not speak as a nasal [ ɑ ]! )

For details of the debate, the nasal vowels in today's Polish see pronunciation of the Polish.

Kashubian

The Kashubian has two nasal vowels, namely ± the back nasal vowel and the front nasal vowel ã. The ± is basically pronounced [ ɔ ], the ã [ ɑ ].

The Jus -letter

As the Slavic writings were invented, the pre-Slavic nasal vowels in Old Church Slavonic were obviously still spoken as such, because both the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets have letters of their own to play these sounds.

Glagolitic

In the originally created by Constantine - Cyril Glagolitic alphabet, there were probably only two Nasalvokalbuchstaben: for ę and ǫ (or perhaps originally * ǫ ). This " Urglagolica " is not preserved as such. Maybe it was reformed by Clement of Ohrid and offset as in the 'classical' state. The traditional in the manuscripts state contains four Nasalvokalbuchstaben for ę and ǫ and the präjotierten variants and jǫ, which is only for * get ę, while the other three letters are formed as a digraph ligatures, as the second part seems to indicate only the nasality: for each with ( e), for ǫ with (o ) and even for jǫ with the old nasal vowel, which alone does not happen again now.

Cyrillic

The Cyrillic alphabet of the Old Church Slavonic language monuments also contains the four Nasalvokalbuchstaben ѧ for ę, ѫ for ǫ ѩ for ever and ѭ for jǫ. It is ѫ by 90 ° rotation emerged from the Glagolitic, while ѧ originally a square variant thereof. The two präjotierten letters have emerged as ligature with i as the first ingredient.

In the further development of the Cyrillic alphabet, the präjotierten Nasalvokalbuchstaben were soon abandoned. In the Russian Church Slavonic ѧ until today ( ę, according to the historical development of *, see above) as a sign of yes next to the präjotierten a receive. In the alphabet reform of Peter the Great in 1708 the latter point has been removed from the bourgeois font, while a cursive form of Nasalbuchstabens ѧ based on the Latin R was to Я.

The letter ѫ for the back nasal vowel, which has collapsed in Eastern Slavic with u, there was soon abandoned. In contrast, Bulgarian alphabet ѫ survived until 1946 as the letter for [ ɐ ], which was created there * ǫ. Only after the Second World War ѫ was abandoned in favor of standing for the same sound ъ. This now also arose words that begin with ъ ( old ѫгълъ with mute end ъ → today ъгъл 'Angle' and its derivatives ).

Name

As a name for all four nasal vowels only Russian and Bulgarian юс ( jus ) is occupied. Probably the Nasalvokalbuchstaben originally had all the names formed in this way, ie * ęsъ ( ѧ ) * ǫsъ ( ѫ ) * jęsъ ( ѩ ) and * jǫsъ ( ѭ ). But is in fact texts are just great Jus (eg Russian юс большой ( jus bolšoj ), Bulgarian голям юс ( Goljam jus ) ) for ѫ and small Jus (eg Russian юс малый ( jus Maly ), Bulgarian малък юс ( Malak jus ) ) for ѧ. In contrast to most other Cyrillic letters, the nasal vowels have apparently so no, speaking ' names. For ѩ and ѭ no old names are used; in science to use the name jotiertes small Jus or Jus jotiertes large (eg Russian юс малый йотированный ( jus Maly jotirovannyj ) юс большой йотированный ( jus bolšoj jotirovannyj ) ).

In Bulgaria, where the letter ѫ was abolished only in 1946, was the name голѣмъ юсъ ( Golem jus ) 'big Jus' till then in everyday use. In addition, although the letter was the letter also широко ѫ ( Široko ă ) ' broad ă ' (as opposed to the narrower ' letter ъ ( ă ) with the same phonetic value ) or ( голѣма ) носовка ' (Large) Nasal called ' to this time was not more pronounced nasalized in the default language.

Value

Since the Cyrillic numeral system goes back to the Greek, have nasal vowels, which have no equivalent in the Greek alphabet, no numerical values. However, it was in the earliest texts of the e - Nasal ѧ for the very similar-looking Greek Sampi ( ϡ ) is used, which stood for 900. In later texts is ц in this function.

The Glagolitic numbers depend irrespective of Greek equivalents according to the order of the Glagolitic alphabet and also contain thousands of characters. Therefore, it seems plausible to assume that the Nasalvokalbuchstaben were involved here in some form and had numerical values. However, there are only a dubious document as a sign of 9000, the other nasal vowels are not occupied as numerals.