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 entertaining history.
Single letter story
Of all thirty-three letters of the Russian alphabet, not one has caused as much controversy as the letter "ё". Many consider it optional, but this letter has a long and very entertaining history.
The letter "E" (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 ABCs 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 “ё” is usually absent on the buttons of cell phones and on keyboards of computers, and where it is, the corresponding button is often located outside the main alphabetical zone of the keys.
At the same time, the letter "ё" has its own, interesting story. The sound itself, corresponding now to this letter (after soft consonants), exists in the Russian language for a long time, although in the XVIII – XIX centuries. such a "fucking" pronunciation by some figures was considered "peasant", "philistine" or, in any case, too common, unlike the more "noble" church reprimand through "E". However, in writing this sound for a long time had no designation, and since the middle of the XVIII century. recorded in a couple of letters: "io".
The letter "ё" appeared thanks to the director of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Princess Yekaterina Romanovna Dashkova. November 29, 1783 (now this date can be considered the "birthday" of the letter "E") was one of the first meetings of the Academy of Russian Literature with the participation of Princess Ekaterina Dashkova, writer Denis Fonvizin, poet Gavriil Derzhavin and other then famous writers. During the discussion of the draft full six-volume explanatory Slavic-Russian “Dictionary of the Academy of the Russian” Dashkova suddenly asked those present: “Is it legitimate to depict one sound in two letters?” And recommended that the symbol “ё” borrowed from the French language be used to designate the sound “io”.
The letter ё became widely known thanks to Nikolai Karamzin, who in 1797 used the letter ё in one of his poems in the almanac published by him “Aonides”. True, it is still unclear whether this was the initiative of N. Karamzin or one of the typesetters (at least, in his “History of the Russian State,” Karamzin did not use the letter “E”). Because of this, Karamzin was long considered the “inventor” of the letter “E” until the true history of its appearance was clarified and it became clear that the letter “E” before Karamzin was used by Ivan Dmitriev (in his book “And My Trinkets”, 1795; first print with "ё"). And the first surname ("Potemkin") with this letter was printed in 1798 by G.R. Derzhavina
However, despite all this, the letter “ё” was not officially included in the Russian alphabet (and the same was true for the letter “» ”). The letter "E" was contained in the New Alphabet of Leo Tolstoy (1875) almost at the very end of the alphabet, between "YT" and "E". And only from December 24, 1942, when the order of the People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR No. 1825 ("On the use of the letter" »" in Russian spelling ") introduced the mandatory use of" »" in educational literature, this letter finally received "citizenship rights" in the alphabet. They say that it was not anyone who “put a hand” to the said order of the People’s Commissariat, but Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin himself: allegedly on December 6, 1942, an order was received for his signature, in which the names of several generals were printed through “E” instead of “» ”. Stalin was very angry, and the next day the letter “ё” appeared in all the articles of the newspaper Pravda. After that, almost all print publications began to be produced with ё, but later the use of this letter began to fade.
Currently, according to the Letter of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation dated 03.05.2007 No. AF-159/03 “On Decisions of the Interdepartmental Commission on the Russian Language”, the letter “E” is required when an incorrect reading of the word is possible (for example, in the 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 "E" is optional.
Illustrations: 1. Monument to the letter "E" in Ulyanovsk. 2. Princess Ekaterina Dashkova. 3. The writer Nikolai Karamzin.
From the first class, everyone knows 33 letters of the Russian alphabet. It is hard to imagine how to pronounce or write words without at least one of them. Still, there are lovers to ignore the modest, but completely irreplaceable letter “ё” when writing, which leads to the irreparably distorted meaning of the text.
The story of the birth of a small letter began in 1783 in the house of the enlightened Russian Princess Dashkova, Ekaterina Romanovna. The meeting of the Academy of Russian Literature led by her just ended. Derzhavin and Fonvizin discussed the draft edition of the Dictionary of the Russian Academy in 6 volumes. The project bore the working title “Complete Explanatory Slavic-Russian Dictionary”.
When the debate subsided, Ekaterina Romanovna asked those present to write the word "Christmas tree." Everyone knew that the word was written as "iolka". Therefore, pundits took the test for a joke. Then Dashkova asked a simple question. The meaning of it made the academicians think. Indeed, is it reasonable to designate one sound in two letters?
The princess’s proposal to introduce a new letter “e” into the alphabet with two dots above to indicate the sound “io” was appreciated by connoisseurs of literature. Gavriil Romanovich Derzhavin immediately picked up a brilliant idea and began to widely use the new letter in personal correspondence.
In 1795, a book by Ivan Dmitriev under the funny title “My Trinkets” appeared as a pioneer of Russian print media, where the letter “ё” took its rightful place. By popularizing the new letter, we owe it to the outstanding writer Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin. In 1797, he released his poems, replacing the traditional two letters “io” in the word “slioza” with one innovative “ё”.
Karamzin's book was published in a significant circulation. His revolutionary step resonated in enlightened circles of society. And the Russian language has enormously enriched, thanks to the priceless letter that accurately and succinctly denotes the meaning of a great many words.
Until recently, it was Karamzin who was considered the parent of the letter “ё”. In particular, the Great Soviet Encyclopedia authoritatively declared this. Now historical justice is restored. And if Princess Dashkova can be called the mother of a new letter, then Karamzin, by right, is her godfather.
Since 1942, the order of the People’s Commissar of Education has been in force in Russia since 1942, which prescribes the use of the letter ё in school education. Indeed, not using the letter “ё” can lead to a distortion of the meaning of certain phrases and expressions. So, the famous phrase of Alexei Nikolayevich Tolstoy from the novel “Peter the Great”: “With a kind of sovereign we shall rest!” Printed in the last word with the letter “e” instead of “e” - which acquires a semantic color?
To avoid mistakes in the interpretation of what is written, often recall the unique letter of the Russian alphabet. It will be clear to those reading the text when you mean “donkey”, when “donkey”, where you want to talk about “heaven”, where about “palate”. They will always understand you correctly!
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E, e (called: e) is one of the letters found in all Cyrillic modern alphabets. 6th in a row in the Russian alphabet, as well as in the Belarusian and Bulgarian; 7th - in Ukrainian, Macedonian and Serbian; also used in writing among non-Slavic peoples.
In the Church and Old Slavonic alphabets - the 6th, it is referred to as "is" and "ѥстъ" (from the Greek. "Εστι"); the cyrillic symbol -, has a value of 5, in the glagolitic looks like, and corresponds to the number 6.
It came from the letter Ε, ε (epsilon) of the Greek alphabet (the appearance of the glagolic spelling is sometimes also associated with Semitic scripts). In the form identical to the Latin "E, e", it has been used since 1707-1711, when the civilian font was introduced.
Previously, only an open style was used for a printed lowercase letter: e narrow - in the form of a square E, and e wide, in the form of an elongated rounded Є (it was written only at the beginning of a word and in specific grammatical forms, sometimes after vowels). The development of small handwritten and printed e occurred in the XVII century. in Old Russian cursive writing, and before that, its form was close to either lowercase Greek ε (epsilon) or є.
Pronunciation
In Russian, the pronunciation depends on the stress and position of the letter in the word:
Being stressed after the vowels and at the beginning of the words denotes the sound pair [ye], it is reduced in the pre-stressed 1st syllable to [yi e], in other unstressed syllables it sounds like [y];
After consonants (except for w, q and w, and individual borrowings, such as molybdenum, amber, panel, pace, highway, bazedova disease, etc., and abbreviations such as esdec, eser) softens the previous consonant and sound under stress [e ], (in the first pre-stressed syllable - [and e]; in other unstressed syllables - [b]);
Under stress after g, q and w (and other consonants in the above individual cases) means [e], in the first prestressed syllable - [s e], in other syllables without stress - [b];
Also, sometimes the letter E is written as E. The reason for this is to speed up writing by eliminating dots, but when printing texts, such a replacement is usually not recommended.
The meaning of the letter in the Belarusian language is basically the same, only because of the greater phonetics of the language, the reading rules are somewhat simpler: it is impossible to relax the previous consonant (in this case, e, not e is written: tendency, sesst), with strong reduction, other letters are also used (six - six, Myafodziy - Methodius).
In Ukrainian, it is similar to the Russian letter E (and the letter Є is the equivalent of the Russian letter).
In the Serbian language it is always pronounced as [e], since in the Serbian writing, softening and iotization are indicated explicitly with special letters for soft consonants (“recently” - “in recent times”).
As in Russian, in the Bulgarian language, it softens the preceding consonant, and after vowels and at the beginning of a word it is pronounced with an iot (esik [esik]). A similar sound is characteristic of eastern Bulgaria. In the west of the country, the pronunciation corresponds to the Russian "e."
Derived letters "E"
From the letter E of the Cyrillic alphabet in the scripts of various peoples, Ѥ (it was used in Old Russian, Old Slavonic, Old Serbian, etc. Church Slavonic), E (in Russian and Belarusian); from the verb form came the inscription E (exists in the Russian and Belarusian languages, previously it was also in Bulgarian and Serbian).
In the near future, the inscription È, used in the Macedonian language with the aim of distinguishing homonyms (“All that you write, will be used (can be used) against you” - “Cè you can write and use it against you!” Can become an independent letter. Sometimes it already occupies a separate position in a number of some computer fonts and encodings.
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