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Cyrillic letter Short U
Unicode (hex)
majuscule: U+040E
minuscule: U+045E
Cyrillic alphabet
А	Б	В	Г	Ґ	Д	Ѓ
Ђ	Е	Ѐ	Ё	Є	Ж	З
Ѕ	И	Ѝ	І	Ї	Й	Ј
К	Л	Љ	М	Н	Њ	О
П	Р	С	Т	Ћ	Ќ	У
Ў	Ф	Х	Ц	Ч	Џ	Ш
Щ	Ъ	Ы	Ь	Э	Ю	Я
Non-Slavic letters
Ӑ	Ӓ	Ә	Ӛ	Ӕ	Ғ	Ӷ
Ҕ	Ӗ	Ҽ	Ҿ	Ӂ	Җ	Ӝ
Ҙ	Ӟ	Ӡ	Ӥ	Ӣ	Ӏ	Ҋ
Қ	Ҟ	Ҡ	Ӄ	Ҝ	Ӆ	Ӎ
Ҥ	Ң	Ӊ	Ӈ	Ӧ	Ө	Ӫ
Ҩ	Ҧ	Ҏ	Ҫ	Ҭ	Ӳ	Ӱ
Ӯ	Ү	Ұ	Ҳ	Һ	Ҵ	Ӵ
Ҷ	Ӌ	Ҹ	Ӹ	Ҍ	Ӭ
Archaic letters
Ҁ	Ѹ	Ѡ	Ѿ	Ѻ	Ѣ	ІА
Ѥ	Ѧ	Ѫ	Ѩ	Ѭ	Ѯ	Ѱ
Ѳ	Ѵ	Ѷ
List of Cyrillic letters

Short U (Ў, ў) is a letter of the Belarusian Cyrillic alphabet. The letter is called non-syllabic u or short u (Belarusian: "у нескладовае" — u nieskladovaje, "у кароткае" — u karotkaje) in Belarusian, because while resembling vowel У (u) it doesn't form syllables. Its equivalent in the Belarusian Latin alphabet is ŭ.

In native Belarusian words, ў represents the sonorant bilabial fricative consonant^[1], as in хлеў IPA: [xlʲeʊ] ('shed') or воўк IPA: [vɔʊk] ('wolf'). This is similar to the w in English cow /kaʊ/. The letter ў cannot occur before a vowel; when grammar would require this, ў is replaced by в /v/. Compare хлеў IPA: [xlʲeʊ] with за хлявом IPA: [za xlʲa'vom] ('behind the shed'). Also, when a word beginning with у /u/ follows a vowel, so that it forms a diphthong through liaison, it is usually, but not necessary, written with ў instead. For example, у хляве IPA: [u xlʲa'vʲe] ('in the shed') but увайшлі яны ў хлеў IPA: [uvajʂ'lʲi ja'nɨ ʊ xlʲeʊ] ('they went in the shed').

The letter ў is also used to represent the labial-velar approximant /w/ in foreign borrowings.

This letter is not used in any other Slavic language. Among the non-Slavic languages using Cyrillic alphabets, ў is used in the Dungan language and in the Siberian Eskimo (Yuit) language. It was also used in Uzbek before the adoption of the Latin alphabet in 1992.

The letter originates from the combination "izhitsa with breve" (Іереѵ̆ская власть, пучина Егеѵ̆ская etc.) used in certain Ukrainian books during end of 16th—beginning of 17th cc.^{[citation needed]} Later, this character was probably in use in the Romanian Cyrillic script, from where it was borrowed in 1837 by the compilers of Ukrainian poetry book "Rusalka Dnistrovaya" (Русалка днѣстровая). In the foreword, they said (see [1], page V):

...приймилисмо сербскоє џ (виџу wydzu) и волоскоє ў (аў, αυ Erazm. Rotterd., au, еў, ευ: спѣваў, spiwαυ; душеў, dušευ)...

(we've accepted Serbian џ... and Wallachian (i.e. Romanian) ў...). In this book, ў is used mostly for etymological [l] transformed to [w] (modern Ukrainian spelling uses letter в in this position).

For the Belarusian language, the combination of the Cyrillic "Ў" (U with breve) was proposed by P.A. Bessonov in 1870^[2]. Before that, various ad hoc adaptations of the letter U were used, e.g., U in italics style in some publications of Vintsent Dunin-Martsinkyevich, "Ú" (U with accent) in Jan Czeczot's Da milykh mužyczkoú ("To dear peasants", 1846 edition), "W̆" (W with breve, Epimakh-Shypila, 1889) or just the letter U itself was used (e.g., in publications of Kalinowski in 1862—1863). Also, "Ǔ" (U with caron) was used^[3].

After the 1870, both the distinction for the phoneme and the new shape of the letter still weren't consistently used^[4] until the mid-1900s. Among the first publications using it were folklore collections published by Michał Federowski and the first edition of Francišak Bahuševič's Dudka Biełaruskaja ("Belarusian flute", published in Kraków, 1891). Also, for quite a while other kinds of renderings ("U", "U with accent", "U with caron", "U with caret") were still being used, sometimes in a single publication (Bahushevich, 1891, Pachobka, 1915)^[5].

Monument

In September 2003, during the tenth Days of Belarusian Literacy celebrations, the city authorities of the oldest Belarusian city Polatsk made a monument to honor the unique Cyrillic Belarusian letter ў. The original idea for the monument came from Belarusian professor Paval Siemčanka, who has studied Cyrillic calligraphy and type for many years.

• Ŭ in Esperanto and Belarusian
• Breve

1. ^ E.g., per Беларуская мова: Вучэб. дапам. / Э. Д. Блінава, Н. В. Гаўрош, М. Ц. Кавалёва і інш.; Пад рэд. М. С. Яўневіча. — Мн. : Выш. школа, 1991. ISBN 5-339-00539-9.
2. ^ Булыка (Bulyka). У нескладовае // Энцыклапедыя літаратуры і мастацтва Беларусі. Т.4. p.377.
3. ^ Per (Bulyka).
4. ^ Due to the technical problems, per Bulyka.
5. ^ Supposedly, because of technical problems, too.