(Ы, ы) is a letter in the
Cyrillic Alphabet . It represents the phoneme after non-palatalized (hard) consonants in the
Belarusian and
Russian Alphabet s. Because of phonological processes, the actual realization of after hard consonants is retracted to a
Close Central Unrounded Vowel (
IPA ).
Like many
Cyrillic Letters , originally the letter Yery was formed from a ligature — between
Yer (Ъ) and
Izhe (then І) or Izhei (then Н, now И). In ancient manuscripts, it is almost without exception found as ЪІ or ЪН. Once the letters Ъ and Ь subsequently lost their values as vowels from the
Slavonic Language , the current form Ы evolved.
