Yi or Ji (ÃÂ ÃÂ; italics: <span style="font-family: times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: larger">ÃÂ ÃÂ</span>) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. Yi is derived from the Greek letter iota with two dots.
It was the initial variant of the Cyrillic letter ÃÂ/ÃÂ, which saw change from two dots to one in the 18th century, possibly inspired by similar Latin letter i. Later two variants of the letter separated to become distinct letters in the Ukrainian alphabet.
It is used in the Ukrainian alphabet, the Pannonian Rusyn alphabet, and the Preà ¡ov Rusyn alphabet of Slovakia, where it represents the iotated vowel sound , like the pronunciation of in "yeast". As the historical variant of the Cyrillic ÃÂÃÂ, it represented either /i/ (as i in pizza) or /j/ (as y in yen).
In various romanization systems of Ukrainian, àis represented by Latin letters i or yi (word-initially), yi, ji, or even simply ï.
It was formerly also used in the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet in the late 1700s and early 1800s, where it represented the sound ; in this capacity, it was introduced by Dositej Obradoviàbut was eventually replaced with the modern letter àby Vuk StefanoviàKaradà ¾iÃÂ.
In Ukrainian, the letter was introduced as part of the Zhelekhivka orthography, in 's UkrainianâÂÂGerman dictionary (2 volumes, 1885âÂÂ86).