Letters eliminated in 1917–18

Letter	Cursive	Italics	Old name	IPA	Common transliteration	Similar Russian letter	Examples	No.	Unicode (Hex)
Іі		І і	і десятеричное [i dʲɪsʲɪtʲɪˈrʲitɕnəjə]	/i/, / ʲi/, or /j/	i	Like и or й	стихотворенія (now стихотворения) stikhotvoréniya "poems, (of) poem"	10	U+0406 / U+0456
Ѣѣ		Ѣ ѣ	ять [jætʲ]	/e/ or / ʲe/	ě	Like е	Алексѣй (now Алексей) Aleksěy Alexey	–	U+0462 / U+0463
Ѳѳ		Ѳ ѳ	ѳита [fʲɪˈta]	/f/ or /fʲ/ or unvoiced th /θ/	f	Like ф	орѳографія (now орфография) orfográfiya "orthography, spelling"	9	U+0472 / U+0473
Ѵѵ		Ѵ ѵ	ижица [ˈiʐɨtsə]	/i/ or / ʲi/	í	Usually like и, see below	мѵро (now миро) míro "chrism (myrrh)"	400	U+0474 / U+0475

• і — Identical in pronunciation to ⟨и⟩, was used exclusively immediately before other vowels and the ⟨й⟩ ("Short I") (for example, ⟨патріархъ⟩ [pətrʲɪˈarx], 'patriarch') and in the word ⟨міръ⟩ [mʲir] ('world') and its derivatives, to distinguish it from the word ⟨миръ⟩ [mʲir] ('peace') (the two words are actually etymologically cognate^[5][6] and not arbitrarily homonyms).^[7]
• ѣ — Originally had a distinct sound, but by the middle of the eighteenth century had become identical in pronunciation to ⟨е⟩ in the standard language. Since its elimination in 1918, it has remained a political symbol of the old orthography.
• ѳ — From the Greek theta, was identical to ⟨ф⟩ in pronunciation, but was used etymologically (for example, ⟨Ѳёдоръ⟩ "Theodore" became ⟨Фёдор⟩ "Fyodor").
• ѵ — From the Greek upsilon, usually identical to ⟨и⟩ in pronunciation, as in Byzantine Greek, was used etymologically for Greek loanwords, like Latin Y (as in synod, myrrh); by 1918, it had become very rare. In spellings of the eighteenth century, it was also used after some vowels, where it has since been replaced with ⟨в⟩ or (rarely) ⟨у⟩. For example, a Greek prefix originally spelled ⟨аѵто-⟩ (equivalent to English auto-) is now spelled ⟨авто⟩ in most cases and ⟨ауто-⟩ as a component in some compound words.

Historical evolution of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, until the 19th century

• 19th century Russian Cyrillic alphabet
• 
  (Körner, 1895)
• 
  (Motti, 1890)
• 
  (Fuchs, 1888)
• 
  (Moser, 1888)
• 
  (Reiff, 1883)
• 
  (Boltz, 1880)

Letters eliminated before 1750

Letter	Cursive	Italics	Old name	IPA	Common transliteration	Similar Russian letter	Examples	No.	Unicode (Hex)
Ѕѕ	–	Ѕ ѕ	зѣло [zʲɪˈɫo][8]	/z/ or /zʲ/	z	з	sѣлѡ (obsolete word) "very"	6	U+0405, U+0455
Ѯѯ	–	Ѯ ѯ	кси [ksʲi]	/ks/ or /ksʲ/	x, ks	кс	—	60	U+046e, U+046f
Ѱѱ	–	Ѱ ѱ	пси [psʲi]	/ps/ or /psʲ/	ps	пс	—	700	U+0470, U+0471
Ѡѡ	–	Ѡ ѡ	омега [ɐˈmʲeɡə]	/o/	o, w	о	—	800	U+0460, U+0461
Ѫѫ		Ѫ ѫ	юсъ большой [jus bɐlʲˈʂoj]	/u/ or / ʲu/	ą	у or ю	—	—	U+046a, U+046b
Ѧѧ		Ѧ ѧ	юсъ малый [jus ˈmaɫɨj]	/ ʲa/	ę	я	—	900	U+0466, U+0467
Ѭѭ	–	Ѭ ѭ	юсъ большой іотированный [jus bɐlʲˈʂoj jɪˈtʲirəvənnɨj]	/ju/	yą	ю	—	—	U+046c, U+046d
Ѩѩ	–	Ѩ ѩ	юсъ малый іотированный [jus ˈmaɫɨj jɪˈtʲirəvən.nɨj]	/ja/	yę	я	—	—	U+0468, U+0469

• ⟨ѕ⟩ corresponded to a more archaic /dz/ pronunciation, already absent in East Slavic at the start of the historical period, but kept by tradition in certain words until the eighteenth century in secular writing, and in Church Slavonic and Macedonian to the present day.
• ⟨ѯ⟩ and ⟨ѱ⟩ derived from Greek letters xi and psi, used etymologically though inconsistently in secular writing until the eighteenth century, and more consistently to the present day in Church Slavonic.
• ⟨ѡ⟩ is the Greek letter omega, identical in pronunciation to ⟨о⟩, used in secular writing until the eighteenth century, but to the present day in Church Slavonic, mostly to distinguish inflexional forms otherwise written identically.
• Two "yuses", "big" ⟨ѫ⟩ and "small" ⟨ѧ⟩, used to stand for nasalized vowels /õ/ and /ẽ/. According to linguistic reconstruction, both become irrelevant for East Slavic phonology at the beginning of the historical period, but were introduced along with the rest of the Cyrillic script. The iotated yuses, ⟨ѭ⟩ and ⟨ѩ⟩, had largely vanished by the twelfth century. The uniotated ⟨ѫ⟩ continued to be used, etymologically, until the sixteenth century. Thereafter it was restricted to being a dominical letter in the Paschal tables. The seventeenth-century usage of ⟨ѫ⟩ and ⟨ѧ⟩ (see next note) survives in contemporary Church Slavonic, and the sounds (but not the letters) in Polish.
• The letter ⟨ѧ⟩ was adapted to represent the iotated /ja/ ⟨я⟩ in the middle or end of a word; the modern letter ⟨я⟩ is an adaptation of its cursive form of the seventeenth century, enshrined by the typographical reform of 1708.
• Until 1708, the iotated /ja/ was written ⟨ꙗ⟩ at the beginning of a word. This distinction between ⟨ѧ⟩ and ⟨ꙗ⟩ survives in Church Slavonic.

Although it is usually stated that the letters in the table above were eliminated in the typographical reform of 1708, reality is somewhat more complex. The letters were indeed originally omitted from the sample alphabet, printed in a western-style serif font, presented in Peter's edict, along with the letters ⟨з⟩ (replaced by ⟨ѕ⟩), ⟨и⟩, and ⟨ф⟩ (the diacriticized letter ⟨й⟩ was also removed), but were reinstated except ⟨ѱ⟩ and ⟨ѡ⟩ under pressure from the Russian Orthodox Church in a later variant of the modern typeface (1710). Nonetheless, since 1735 the Russian Academy of Sciences began to use fonts without ⟨ѕ⟩, ⟨ѯ⟩, and ⟨ѵ⟩; however, ⟨ѵ⟩ was sometimes used again since 1758.

Although praised by Western scholars and philosophers, it was criticized by clergy and many conservative scholars, who found the new standard too "Russified". Some even went as far as to refer to Peter as the Anti-Christ.^[9]

Lomonosov also contributed to the Russian standard language, developing a "High Style" with high influence of Church Slavonic, which was to be used in formal situations such as religious texts; as well as "Medium Style" and "Low Style", deemed for less formal events and casual writing. Lomonosov advocated for the "Medium Style", which later became the basis of the modern Russian standard language.^[10]

Details about individual vowels

⟨ы⟩ is an old Proto-Slavic close central vowel, thought to have been preserved better in modern Russian than in other Slavic languages. It was originally nasalized in certain positions: Old Russian камы [ˈkamɨ̃]; Modern Russian камень [ˈkamʲɪnʲ] ('rock'). Its written form developed as follows: ⟨ъ⟩ + ⟨і⟩ → ⟨ꙑ⟩ → ⟨ы⟩.

⟨э⟩ was introduced in 1708 to distinguish the non-iotated/non-palatalizing /e/ from the iotated/palatalizing one. The original usage had been ⟨е⟩ for the uniotated /e/, ⟨ѥ⟩ or ⟨ѣ⟩ for the iotated, but ⟨ѥ⟩ had dropped out of use by the sixteenth century. In native Russian words, ⟨э⟩ is found only at the beginnings of a few words э́тот/э́та/э́то 'this (is) (m./f./n.)', э́ти 'these', э́кий 'what a', э́дак/э́так 'that way', э́дакий/э́такий 'sort of', and interjections like эй 'hey') or in compound words (e.g. поэ́тому 'therefore' = по + этому, where этому is the dative case of этот). In words that come from foreign languages in which iotated /e/ is uncommon or nonexistent (such as English), ⟨э⟩ is usually written in the beginning of words and after vowels except ⟨и⟩ (e.g. поэ́т, 'poet'), and ⟨е⟩ after ⟨и⟩ and consonants. However, the pronunciation is inconsistent. Many of these borrowed words, especially monosyllables, words ending in ⟨е⟩ and many words where ⟨е⟩ follows ⟨т⟩, ⟨д⟩, ⟨н⟩, ⟨с⟩, ⟨з⟩ or ⟨р⟩, are pronounced with /e/ without palatalization or iotation: секс (seks — 'sex'), моде́ль (model' — 'model'), кафе́ (kafe — 'café'), прое́кт (proekt — 'project'; here, the spelling is etymological: German Projekt was adopted from Latin proiectum, so the word is spelled with ⟨е⟩ to reflect the original /je/ and not with ⟨э⟩ as usual after vowels; but the pronunciation is counter-etymological: a hypercorrection that has become standard). But many other words are pronounced with /ʲe/: се́кта (syekta — 'sect'), дебю́т (dyebyut — 'debut'). Proper names are sometimes written with ⟨э⟩ after consonants: Сэм — 'Sam', Пэме́ла — 'Pamela', Мэ́ри — 'Mary', Ма́о Цзэду́н — 'Mao Zedong'; the use of ⟨э⟩ after consonants is common in East Asian names and in English names with the sounds /æ/ and /ɛər/, with some exceptions such as Джек ('Jack') and Ше́ннон ('Shannon'), since both ⟨э⟩ and ⟨е⟩, in cases of же ("zhe"), ше ("she") and це ("tse"), follow consonants that are always hard (non-palatalized), yet ⟨е⟩ usually prevails in writing. However, English names with the sounds /ɛ/, /ə/ (if spelled ⟨e⟩ in English), and /eɪ/ after consonants are normally spelled with ⟨е⟩ in Russian: Бе́тти — 'Betty', Пи́тер — 'Peter', Лейк-Плэ́сид — 'Lake Placid'. Pronunciation mostly remains unpalatalized, so Пи́тер [ˈpʲitɛr] — Russian rendering of the English name 'Peter' is pronounced differently from Пи́тер [ˈpʲitʲɪr] — colloquial Russian name of Saint Petersburg.

⟨ё⟩, introduced by Karamzin in 1797 and made official in 1943 by the Soviet Ministry of Education,^[13] marks a /jo/ sound that historically developed from stressed /je/. The written letter ⟨ё⟩ is optional; it is formally correct to write ⟨e⟩ for both /je/ and /jo/. None of the several attempts in the twentieth century to mandate the use of ⟨ё⟩ have stuck.

Hard sign

The hard sign (⟨ъ⟩) acts like a "silent back vowel" that separates a succeeding "soft vowel" (⟨е, ё, ю, я⟩, but not ⟨и⟩) from a preceding consonant, invoking implicit iotation of the vowel with a distinct /j/ glide. Today it is used mostly to separate a prefix ending with a hard consonant from the following root. Its original pronunciation, lost by 1400 at the latest, was that of a very short middle schwa-like sound, likely pronounced [ə] or [ɯ]. Until the 1918 reform, no written word could end in a consonant: those that end in a "hard" consonant in modern orthography then had a final ⟨ъ⟩.

While ⟨и⟩ is also a soft vowel, root-initial /i/ following a hard consonant is typically pronounced as [ɨ]. This is normally spelled ⟨ы⟩ (the hard counterpart to ⟨и⟩) unless this vowel occurs at the beginning of a word, in which case it remains ⟨и⟩. An alternation between the two letters (but not the sounds) can be seen with the pair без и́мени ('without name', which is pronounced [bʲɪz ˈɨmʲɪnʲɪ]) and безымя́нный ('nameless', which is pronounced [bʲɪzɨˈmʲænːɨj]). This spelling convention, however, is not applied with certain loaned prefixes such as in the word панислами́зм – [ˌpanɨsɫɐˈmʲizm], 'Pan-Islamism') and compound (multi-root) words (e.g. госизме́на – [ˌɡosɨˈzmʲenə], 'high treason').

Soft sign

The soft sign (⟨ь⟩) in most positions acts like a "silent front vowel" and indicates that the preceding consonant is palatalized (except for always-hard ж, ш, ц) and the following vowel (if present) is iotated (including ⟨ьо⟩ in loans). This is important as palatalization is phonemic in Russian. For example, брат [brat] ('brother') contrasts with брать [bratʲ] ('to take'). The original pronunciation of the soft sign, lost by 1400 at the latest, was that of a very short fronted reduced vowel /ĭ/ but likely pronounced [ɪ] or [jɪ]. There are still some remnants of this ancient reading in modern Russian, e.g. in co-existing versions of the same name, read and written differently, such as Марья and Мария ('Mary').^[14]

When applied after stem-final always-soft (ч, щ, but not й) or always-hard (ж, ш, but not ц) consonants, the soft sign does not alter pronunciation, but has grammatical significance:^[15]

• the feminine marker for singular nouns in the nominative and accusative; e.g. тушь ('India ink', feminine) cf. туш ('flourish after a toast', masculine) – both pronounced [tuʂ];
• the imperative mood for some verbs;
• the infinitives of some verbs (with -чь ending);
• the second person for non-past verbs (with -шь ending);
• some adverbs and particles.