At the end of 1783, the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Princess Ekaterina Dashkova, a favorite of Empress Catherine II, gathered academicians of literature, among whom were prominent writers Gavrila Derzhavin and Denis Fonvizin. The princess asked the pundits if they knew how to spell the word "Yolka". After a short brainstorming session, the academics decided that "yulka" should be written. But to the next question of Dashkova, whether it is legitimate to display one sound with two letters, pundits could not find what to answer. Going to the board, the princess erased the "i" and "o", writing the letter "yo" instead. Since then, in correspondence with the princess, academicians began to use the letter "ё". The letter stepped into the people only in 1797 through the efforts of Nikolai Karamzin, who used it in his almanac "Aonides".

Ekaterina Dashkova was born in 1744 into a family of Moscow boyars. Her father Roman Vorontsov became fabulously rich during the time of Catherine I and even received the nickname "Roman - a big pocket." Dashkova was one of the most educated women of her time, capable of arguing on equal terms with philosophers and encyclopedists. She was considered the closest friend of Catherine II. True, on the night when the queen overthrew her husband Peter III, Dashkova overslept. Ekaterina could not forgive this Dashkova, and the friendship broke up.

The letter "ё" became widely known thanks to the famous historian Karamzin. In the first book of his poetic almanac "Aonides" with the letter "e" the words "dawn", "eagle", "moth" and "tears" were printed, as well as the verb "drip". In this regard, Karamzin was considered the author of the letter "e" ... And of all the thirty-three letters of the Russian alphabet, none of them caused as much controversy as the letter "Yo" ...

On November 29, 1783, in the house of the director of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Princess Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova, one of the first meetings of the newly created Russian Academy was held, which was attended by G. R. Derzhavin, D. I. Fonvizin, I. I. Lepekhin, Ya. B. Knyazhnin , Metropolitan Gabriel and others. The project of a complete explanatory Slavic-Russian dictionary, later famous 6-volume Dictionary of the Russian Academy, was discussed.

The academics were about to go home when Ekaterina Romanovna asked those present if anyone could write the word "Christmas tree". The academicians decided that the princess was joking, but she, having written the word “olka” she had spoken, asked: “Is it right to represent one sound with two letters?” Noting that “these pronunciations have already been introduced by custom, which, when it does not contradict common sense, must be followed in every possible way,” Dashkova suggested using the new letter “e” “to express words and pronunciations, with this consent beginning as matіory, іolka, іozh , iol".

Dashkova's arguments seemed convincing, and the expediency of introducing a new letter was proposed to be assessed by a member of the Academy of Sciences, Metropolitan Gabriel of Novgorod and St. Petersburg. On November 18, 1784, the letter "ё" received official recognition.

After that, the letter Yo for 12 years occasionally appeared only in handwritten form and, in particular, in the letters of G. R. Derzhavin. It was replicated with a printing press in 1795 at the Moscow University Printing House by H. Ridiger and H. A. Claudius during the publication of the book “And My Trifles” by Ivan Ivanovich Dmitriev, a poet, fabulist, chief prosecutor of the Senate, and then Minister of Justice. This printing house, which, by the way, printed the newspaper Moskovskie Vedomosti since 1788, was located on the site of the current Central Telegraph.

The first word printed with the letter Ё was the word "everything". Then followed the words: light, stump, deathless, cornflower. In 1796, in the same printing house, N. M. Karamzin in his first book “Aonid” with the letter Ё prints: dawn, eagle, moth, tears and the first verb with Ё ​​“drip”. Then, in 1797, the first unfortunate typo in the word with Y. The proofreader did not see it through, and the circulation was published with “garnished” instead of “faceted”. And in 1798, G. R. Derzhavin used the first surname with the letter E - Potemkin. These are Yo's first steps through the pages of books.

The spread of the letter "e" in the 18th-19th centuries was also hampered by the then attitude to the "yoking" pronunciation as a petty-bourgeois, the speech of "vile mob", while the "church" "yoking" reprimand was considered more cultured and noble.
Formally, the letter "ё", like "й" entered the alphabet (and received serial numbers) only in Soviet time.

The decree signed by the Soviet People's Commissar for Education A.V. Lunacharsky read: "To recognize the use of the letter ё as desirable, but optional." And on December 24, 1942, by order of the People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR Vladimir Petrovich Potemkin, the mandatory use of the letter "ё" in school practice was introduced, and from that time on. it is officially considered to be part of the Russian alphabet.

The next 14 years of artistic and scientific literature came out with the almost complete use of the letter "ё", but in 1956, at the initiative of Khrushchev, new, somewhat simplified spelling rules were introduced, and the letter "ё" again became optional.

Now the question of the use of "yo" has become the subject of scientific battles, and the patriotic part of the Russian intelligentsia selflessly defends the obligatory use of it. In 2005, a monument was even erected to the letter “ё” in Ulyanovsk.

In accordance with 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”, it is required to write the letter “ё” in cases where a misreading of a word is possible, for example, in names own, since ignoring the letter "e" in this case is a violation of the Federal Law "On state language Russian Federation».

According to the current rules of Russian spelling and punctuation, the letter ё is used selectively in ordinary printed texts. However, at the request of the author or editor, any book can be printed sequentially with the letter "ё".

Myths about the letter Y

The problem with the letter ё is this: the vast majority of those who talk about it or defend it know very little about it and about the language as a whole. This fact, of course, negatively affects its reputation. Due to the fact that the quality of the arguments of the supporters of yo is close to zero, it is easier to fight against it. Arguments about the sacred seventh place in the alphabet can only work to prove the insanity of their supporter, but not in favor of the use of the letter ё itself.

1. The letter ё has always been, and now enemies are fighting with it

This is the most common myth, it is completely unclear where it came from. It seems that people say this because no one will check, but the reference to tradition looks convincing. In reality, the prevalence of the letter ё throughout its history has only grown (except for a slight deviation, when in the 1940s, it seems, there was a directive on its mandatory use, and then everyone scored on it).

You need to understand that once there was not only the letter ё, but even such a sound. In the Church Slavonic language, those words that we pronounce with e are pronounced with e (“brothers and sisters!”), And in general, the pair o - e (ѣ) stands in the row a - i, ou - u and s - and (ï) (see, for example, Abridged Practical Slavic Grammar with Systematic Slavonic and Russian Examples, Selected Books and Dictionaries, Moscow, 1893). Yes, there are no letters e in Church Slavonic either.

The episodic appearance in print at the end of the 18th and in the 19th century of the symbol ё was a response to the emergence of a new sound in speech. But it received official status after the revolution. In the textbook of the Russian language of 1911, we read: “E is written in words when this sound is pronounced like yo: ice, dark, light.” Not even written "like yo", written "like yo". And in the alphabet there is no e: after e comes w. It’s not for me to judge, but I believe that the letter e at that time looked as outlandish in books as the ruble sign looks today.

The letter Yo - the entrance to the store - in Moscow

2. Without e, it is impossible to distinguish everything and everything

This, of course, is not entirely a myth, but there is so much misunderstanding around this situation that it should be analyzed separately.

Let's start with the fact that the words everything and everyone were written with different letters and without any ё, so that their indistinguishability today must be blamed on the reform of the language, in which yati was canceled, and not at all on the practical unusability of ё. Wherein modern rules The Russian language requires writing two dots in cases of possible discrepancies, therefore, not using ё where “everything” is read without it is a spelling mistake.

It is clear that the situation can also be reversed, when it is necessary to suggest that in a certain case it is e that is read. But this problem cannot be overcome by requiring the mandatory use of e.

Memorial sign to the letter Yo in Perm (on the territory of the Remputmash locomotive repair plant)

3. Numerous examples of reading difficulties prove the need for

When fighting for the letter ё, a set of pairs of words is constantly given, most of which is some unimaginable crap. It seems that these words were specially invented to protect the letter ё. What the hell is a bucket, what a fable? Have you seen or heard these words before you started collecting examples?
And, again, in cases where both words can be used equally, spelling rules require the use of ё.

For example, in Gordon's Book of Letters, published by the ArtLebedev Publishing House, the word "recognize" does not contain dots over e, which is why it naturally reads "recognize". This is a spelling mistake.

The very fact that in order to prove your point of view you need to collect bit by bit examples, most of which are completely unconvincing, it seems to me, only proves that the problem is sucked out of thin air. Examples with unspecified stress can be picked up no less, but no one is fighting for the placement of stresses.
It would be much more practical if the word healthy were written “healthy”, because “healthy” would be desirable to read with an emphasis on the first syllable. But for some reason no one fights for it!

4. Because of the inconsistency of the use of ё, they spell the name Montesquieu incorrectly.

We also write the surname Jackson “incorrectly”: in English it is pronounced much closer to Chaksn. The very idea of ​​transmitting a foreign pronunciation in Russian letters is obviously a failure for everyone, but when it is necessary to defend the letter ё, as I said, no one pays attention to the quality of the argument.

The topic of transferring foreign names and titles by means of Russian graphics generally lies outside the topic of the letter ё and is exhaustively disclosed in the corresponding reference book by R. Gilyarevsky and B. Starostin.

By the way, the sound at the end of Montesquieu is between e and e, so in this situation, even if there is a task to accurately convey the sound, the choice of e is obvious. And "Pasteur" is completely nonsense; there is no smell of iotation or softening, so “Pastor” is much better suited for transmitting sounds.

5. Poor yo is not a letter

The letter ё is often sympathized with due to its unfair non-inclusion in the alphabet. The conclusion that it is not in the alphabet, apparently, is made from the fact that it is not used in the numbering of houses and in the lists.

In fact, of course, it is in the alphabet, otherwise the rules of the Russian language would not have been able to require its use in some cases. In the lists, it is not used in the same way as th, because of the similarity with its neighbor. It's just inconvenient. In some cases, it is advisable to also exclude Z and O because of the similarity with the numbers 3 and 0. It’s just that of all these letters, ё is closest to the beginning of the alphabet, and therefore its “loss” is noticeable most often.

By the way, only 12 letters of the alphabet are used in license plates.
The situation was completely different in pre-revolutionary spelling: there was no letter ё in the alphabet. It was just a symbol that some publishers used as a show off. Here Zhenya, in another note, places ё in a quote from a book published in 1908. It wasn't in the book itself. Why was the quote distorted? In a pre-revolutionary text, ё looks completely ridiculous.

In any case, fighting for the letter ё is the same nonsense as fighting against it. Like - write, do not like - do not write. I like to write because I don't see any reason not to write it. And a Russian-speaking person must be able to read both ways.

compilation based on RuNet materials - Fox

A few facts

The letter Yo stands on the sacred, "happy" 7th place in the alphabet.
In Russian, there are about 12,500 words with Ё. Of these, about 150 start with Ё ​​and about 300 end with Ё.
The frequency of occurrence Yo - 1% of the text. That is, for every thousand characters of text, there are an average of ten yoshki.
In Russian surnames, Yo occurs in about two cases out of a hundred.
There are words in our language with two or even three letters Yo: “three-star”, “four-bucket”, “Borolekh” (river in Yakutia), “Börögyosh” and “Kögelön” ( male names in Altai).
More than 300 surnames differ only in the presence of E or Y in them. For example, Lezhnev - Lezhnev, Demina - Demina.
In Russian, there are 12 male and 5 female names, in full forms which Y. is present. These are Aksen, Artyom, Nefyod, Parmen, Peter, Rorik, Savel, Seliverst, Semyon, Fedor, Yarem; Alyona, Maple, Matryona, Thekla, Flena.
In Ulyanovsk, the hometown of Nikolai Karamzin's "yofikator", there is a monument to the letter Y.
In Russia, there is an official Union of Russian Yofikators, which is engaged in the struggle for the rights of "de-energized" words. Thanks to their tireless activity in besieging the State Duma, now all the Duma documents (including laws) are completely “official”. Yo - at the suggestion of the chairman of the Union Viktor Chumakov - appeared in the newspapers "Version", "Slovo", "Gudok", "Arguments and Facts", etc., in television credits and in books.
Russian programmers have created etator - a computer program that automatically arranges a letter with dots in the text. And the artists came up with an epiraite - an icon for marking official publications.

I would like to know what documents exist that regulate the use of the letter "Ё". Thank you.

Serebryakov Sergey Nikolaevich

The decision of the Interdepartmental Commission on the Russian Language notes that the first appearance of the letter Yo noted in the press in 1795. It was used in the lifetime editions of A.S. Pushkin and other great Russians writers of the 19th century, the dictionary of V.I. Dahl, alphabet systems L.N. Tolstoy, K.D. Ushinsky. This letter was used by I.I. Dmitriev, G.R. Derzhavin, M.Yu. Lermontov, I.I. Kozlov, F.I. Tyutchev, I.I. Lazhechnikov, V.K. Kuchelbecker, I.S. Turgenev, c. L.N. Tolstoy, K.D. Ushinsky, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, A.P. Chekhov and many others. After fixing it in seventh place in the Russian alphabet of 33 letters, after the reform of 1917-1918, the scope of its application in writing and in print was steadily expanding.

In connection with the rapid development of typographic activity at the end of the 19th century, the letter Yo began to be forced out of the texts by a similar outwardly, but completely different letter E. This phenomenon had economic justification: the presence of the letter Y caused additional material costs. Now the presence of a letter in the text Yo with computer typing and layout in any size and typeface, printing does not lead to an increase in the cost. As the experience of magazines and newspapers has shown, it takes 3-4 months for editors and proofreaders to get used to correct the omissions of this letter.

Now the letter Yo contained in more than 12,500 words, 2,500 names of Russian citizens and former USSR, in thousands of geographical names of Russia and the world, names and surnames of citizens of foreign countries. According to the statistics of the occurrence of Russian letters in various texts for the letter Yo the result is below 0.5 percent (less than once per 200 characters).

Russian citizens have problems with documents if in their last name, first name, place of birth in some cases the letter Yo listed, while others are not. Problems arise when filling out passports, birth certificates, registration of inheritance, transliteration of surnames, transmission of telegrams, and in a number of other cases. About 3 percent of citizens of the Russian Federation have surnames, names or patronymics that contain the letter Yo, and often the entry in the passport is distorted. The reason for this is the non-observance of the requirement established by the Rules of Russian Spelling and Punctuation approved in 1956 that it is mandatory to use the letter Yo in cases where a misreading of the word is possible. Proper names (surnames, first names, patronymics, geographical names, names of organizations and enterprises) just refer to this case. Therefore, the use of the letter Yo in proper names must be indisputable and obligatory.

Russian alphabetconsists of thirty three letters. One of them stands somewhat apart from the general row. Firstly, she is the only one among her colleagues who has dots on top. Secondly, she was introduced into an already existing alphabet in order.

This is a letter Her.

The history of the letter began in 1783 year.November twenty ninth 1783, one of the first meetings of the newly created Academy of Russian Literature took place with the participation of its director - Princess Ekaterina Dashkova, as well as well-known writers Fonvizin and Derzhavin. Ekaterina Romanovna proposed to replace the two-letter designation of the sound "io" in the domestic alphabet with one new letter "E" with two dots on top. Arguments Dashkova seemed convincing to the academicians, and soon her proposal was approved general meeting Academy.

And the well-known new letteryo became thanks to the historian N.M. Karamzin. In 1797, Nikolai Mikhailovich decided to replace two letters in the word “sl io zy" for one letter e. Yes, with light hand Karamzin, the letter "ё" took its place under the sun and was fixed in the Russian alphabet. Due to the fact that N.M. Karamzin was the first to use the letter ё in printed edition, which was released in a rather large circulation, some sources, in particular, the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, it is he who is erroneously indicated as the author by the letter ё.

The Bolsheviks, having come to power, "scrambled" the alphabet, removed the "yat" and fita and Izhitsu, but did not touch the letter Yo. It was under Soviet rule that the dots over yo in order to simplify typing disappeared in most words. Although formally no one forbade or abolished it.

The situation changed dramatically in 1942. Supreme Commander-in-Chief Stalin received German maps on the table, in which German cartographers entered the names of our settlements up to points. If the village was called "Demino", then Demino (and not Demino) was written in both Russian and German. The Supreme appreciated the enemy's meticulousness. As a result, on December 24, 1942, a decree was issued prescribing the mandatory use of the letter Yё everywhere, from school textbooks to the Pravda newspaper. Well, of course, on the cards. By the way, no one has ever canceled this order!

Some statistics

In 2013, the letter Yoyo turns 230 years old!

She stands at the 7th (lucky!) place in the alphabet.

In Russian, there are about 12,500 words with the letter ё, of which about 150 words begin with it and about 300 words end with ё!

For every hundred characters of text, there is an average of 1 letter ё. .

There are words in our language with two letters Ё: “three-star”, “four-bucket”.

In Russian, there are several traditional names in which the letter Y is present:

Artyom, Parmen, Peter, Savel, Seliverst, Semyon, Fedor, Yarem; Alena, Matryona, Thekla and others.

Optional use letters ё leads to erroneous readings and the inability to restore the meaning of the word without additional explanations, for example:

Loan-loan; perfect-perfect; tears-tears; sky-sky; chalk-chalk; donkey donkey; merry merry...

And of course, classic example from "Peter the Great" by A.K. Tolstoy:

Under such a sovereign take a break!

It was meant - " let's take a break". Feel the difference?

And how do you read "We'll Sing"? Do we all eat? Do we eat everything?

And the name of the French actor will be Depardieu, not Depardieu. (see Wikipedia)

And, by the way, A. Dumas has the name of the cardinal not Richelieu at all, but Richelieu. (see Wikipedia)

And it is necessary to pronounce the name of the Russian poet correctly Fet, not Fet.

Interesting expressions from Russian speech:

The expression “not every bast in a line” is, as it were, understandable, but not for every modern

Word tocsin attributed to Arabic (or Turkic?) origin. With this word

The expression "our regiment has arrived" is direct action. Means simply "ours"

In fact, Suvorov called his instructions (formulated in the form of a manuscript for

The expression "to be out of your element" means to feel awkward, uncomfortable,

The expression "in seventh heaven" is usually used with the verb to be

From ancient times (to this day) nuts - favorite treat children.

Climbing on the wall- talk about those who are in an extremely excited or state

Incense is common name incense, which smoked not only in front of the altars

An interesting expression scapegoat. The phrase is unsaid, but everything is fine

An interesting expression is to buy a pig in a poke. It can be classified as intuitive

Nightingale - the most pleasant songbird living in the vastness of Russia. Why of all

Kuzka's mother(or show Kuz'kin's mother) - a stable phrase of indirect

Expression mutual responsibility is an expression of direct meaning, that is, it means that

This expression - squaring the circle you must have seen it somewhere. And that's what it is

The expression in all Ivanovo, more precisely, yelling in all Ivanovo, is known very

Why, yo-my, you don’t write “Yo” anywhere?

Recently there has been an amazing transformation of the Russian language. Reforms in the field of word formation and stress have already led to the fact that coffee has become an indefinite gender, and the letter “Yo” is being completely eliminated from the alphabet.

200 year "war"
The first discrepancies associated with "Ё", the youngest letter in the Russian alphabet, began more than 220 years ago. In 1783, it was invented by Ekaterina Dashkova, an associate of Catherine II, a princess and head of the Imperial Russian Academy. At an academic meeting, Ekaterina Romanovna asked Derzhavin, Fonvizin, Knyazhin and other letter scholars whether it was legal to write “iolka” and whether it would be more reasonable to replace the digraph “io” with one letter “Ё”.

Already in 1795, the letter “Yo” began to appear in print, but linguistic conservatism still prevented the young letter from moving to the masses. For example, Tsvetaeva basically wrote “devil”, Andrei Bely wrote “yellow”, and the Minister of Education Alexander Shishkov, for example, leafed through volume after volume of his books, erasing two hated points from them. In all pre-revolutionary Primers, "Yo" was not after "E", but at the very end of the alphabet.

The appearance of "Yo", according to its opponents, is the result of the arbitrariness of one person, Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin. Allegedly for external effect in 1797 he used the European umlaut, the Latin "E" with two dots in the Russian text. Opponents of "Yo" are still trying by hook or by crook to get rid of the hated letter. And what, in the end, leads us to an extra, in my opinion, “disinfection”?

On the computer keyboard it is “exiled” to the upper left corner, and in the phone, it is often completely absent. Sending a telegram, we insistently ask you to send "more money." Many of us are sure that the great Dumas wrote not about Cardinal Richelieu, but about Richelieu, the beloved French actor's name is not Depardieu, but Depardieu. And our countryman Fet, once became Fet.

And how many legal problems arise for me, an honest citizen of the Russian Federation, because of negligent passport officers, nurses, secretaries, ignoring the letter “Yo” in my last name. It turns out that, according to my passport, I am one person, according to a driver’s license, another ... Literary critics and letter critics say correctly: “So we live, as if in our alphabet there are 32.5 letters.”

Hard facts:
- the letter Yo stands on the sacred, "happy" 7th place in the alphabet;
- in Russian there are about 12,500 words with "Yo". Of these, about 150 begin with "Yo" and about 300 end with "Yo";
- the frequency of occurrence of "Yo" - 1% of the text. That is, for every thousand characters of text, on average, there are ten “yoshkas”;
- in Russian surnames "Yo" occurs in about two cases out of a hundred;
- there are words in our language with two and even three letters "Yo": "three-star", "four-bucket", "Berolekh" (a river in Yakutia), "Berögyosh" and "Kögelyon" (male names in Altai);
- in Russian there are 12 male and 5 female names, in the full forms of which there is "Yo". These are Aksen, Artyom, Nefyod, Parmen, Peter, Rorik, Savel, Seliverst, Semyon, Fedor, Yarem; Alyona, Maple, Matryona, Thekla, Flena;
- in Ulyanovsk, the hometown of the inveterate "yofikator" Nikolai Karamzin, there is a monument to the letter "Yo".

By the way:
In Russia, there is an official Union of Russian Yofikators, which is engaged in the struggle for the rights of "de-energized" words. Thanks to their tireless activity in besieging the State Duma, now all the Duma documents (including laws) are completely “official”. "Yo" - at the suggestion of the chairman of the Union Viktor Chumakov - appeared in some all-Russian newspapers, in television credits and in books.

Russian programmers have created "etator" - a computer program that automatically arranges a letter with dots in the text. And the artists came up with "epiraite" - a badge for marking official publications.

For a long time in the Russian language there was no famous letter "ё". But this letter can boast that the date of its birth is known - namely, November 29, 1783. The "mother" of the letter is Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova, an enlightened princess.

Let's take a look at the details of this event...

In the house of Princess Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova, who at that time was the director of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, a meeting of the Academy of Literature, created shortly before this date, was held. Present at that time were G. R. Derzhavin, D. I. Fonvizin, Ya. B. Knyazhnin, Metropolitan Gabriel, and others.

And somehow, during one of the meetings, she asked Derzhavin to write the word "Christmas tree." Those present took the offer as a joke. After all, it was clear to everyone that it was necessary to write “iolka”. Then Dashkova asked a simple question. Its meaning made academics think. Indeed, is it reasonable to designate one sound with two letters when writing? The proposal of the princess to introduce into the alphabet a new letter "e" with two dots on top to denote the sound "io" was appreciated by connoisseurs of literature. This story happened in 1783. And then off we go. Derzhavin began to use the letter "ё" in personal correspondence, then Dmitriev published the book "my knick-knacks" with this letter, and then Karamzin joined the "yo-movement".

The image of the new letter was probably borrowed from the French alphabet. A similar letter is used, for example, in writing the car brand Citroën, although it sounds completely different in this word. Cultural figures supported the idea of ​​Dashkova, the letter took root. Derzhavin began to use the letter ё in personal correspondence and for the first time used it when writing a surname - Potemkin. However, in print - among the typographic letters - the letter ё appeared only in 1795. Even the first book with this letter is known - this is the book of the poet Ivan Dmitriev "My knick-knacks". The first word, over which two dots were blackened, was the word “everything”, followed by the words: light, stump, etc.

A well-known new letter yo became thanks to the historian N.M. Karamzin. In 1797, Nikolai Mikhailovich decided to replace two letters in the word “sl io zy" for one letter e. So, with the light hand of Karamzin, the letter "e" took its place under the sun and was fixed in the Russian alphabet. Due to the fact that N.M. Karamzin was the first to use the letter ё in a printed publication, which was published in a fairly large circulation, some sources, in particular, the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, it is he who is erroneously indicated as the author of the letter ё.

In the first book of the poetic almanac “Aonides” (1796) published by him, he printed the words “dawn”, “eagle”, “moth”, “tears” and the first verb with the letter ё - “drip”. But, oddly enough, in the famous "History of the Russian State" Karamzin did not use the letter "e".

In the alphabet, the letter fell into place in the 1860s. IN AND. Dahl placed yo along with the letter "e" in the first edition of " explanatory dictionary living Great Russian language. In 1875 L.N. Tolstoy in his “ new alphabet” sent her to 31st place, between yat and the letter e. But the use of this symbol in typographic and publishing was associated with some difficulties due to its non-standard height. Therefore, officially the letter ё entered the alphabet and received serial number 7 only in Soviet times - December 24, 1942. However, for many decades publishers continued to use it only in case of emergency, and even then mainly in encyclopedias. As a result, the letter “e” disappeared from the spelling (and then the pronunciation) of many surnames: Cardinal Richelieu, philosopher Montesquieu, poet Robert Burns, microbiologist and chemist Louis Pasteur, mathematician Pafnuty Chebyshev (in the latter case, the place of stress even changed: Chebyshev; exactly the beets became beets). We speak and write Depardieu instead of Depardieu, Roerich (who is pure Roerich), Roentgen instead of the correct Roentgen. By the way, Leo Tolstoy is actually Leo (like his hero, the Russian nobleman Levin, and not the Jew Levin).

The letter ё also disappeared from the spellings of many geographical names - Pearl Harbor, Koenigsberg, Cologne, etc. See, for example, the epigram on Lev Pushkin (authorship is not exactly clear):
Our friend Pushkin Lev
Not devoid of reason
But with champagne fat pilaf
And duck with milk mushrooms
They will prove to us better than words
that he is healthier
The power of the stomach.

The Bolsheviks, having come to power, “scrambled” the alphabet, removed the “yat” and fita and Izhitsa, but did not touch the letter Yo. It was under Soviet rule that the dots over yo in order to simplify typing disappeared in most words. Although formally no one forbade or abolished it.

The situation changed dramatically in 1942. Supreme Commander-in-Chief Stalin received German maps on the table, in which German cartographers entered the names of our settlements to the point. If the village was called "Demino", then Demino (and not Demino) was written in both Russian and German. The Supreme appreciated the enemy's meticulousness. As a result, on December 24, 1942, a decree was issued requiring the mandatory use of the letter Yё everywhere, from school textbooks to the Pravda newspaper. Well, of course, on the cards. By the way, no one has ever canceled this order!

Often the letter "e", on the contrary, is inserted into words in which it is not needed. For example, "scam" instead of "scam", "being" instead of "being", "guardianship" instead of "guardianship". The first Russian world chess champion was actually called Alexander Alekhine and was very indignant when his noble surname was spelled incorrectly, “commonly” - Alekhin. In general, the letter "ё" is contained in more than 12 thousand words, in about 2.5 thousand names of citizens of Russia and the former USSR, in thousands of geographical names.

The categorical opponent of the use of this letter when writing is designer Artemy Lebedev. For some reason she didn't like him. I must say that on the computer keyboard it is really located inconveniently. Of course, it is possible to do without it, as, for example, the text will be understandable, even if it does not contain all glans bkv. But is it worth it?

AT last years a number of authors, in particular Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Yuri Polyakov and others, some periodicals, as well as the scientific publishing house "Great Russian Encyclopedia" publish their texts with the obligatory use of the discriminated letter. Well, the creators of the new Russian electric car gave their brainchild a name from this one letter.

Some statistics

In 2013, the letter Yoyo turns 230 years old!

She stands at the 7th (lucky!) place in the alphabet.

In Russian, there are about 12,500 words with the letter ё, of which about 150 words begin with it and about 300 words end with ё!

For every hundred characters of text, there is an average of 1 letter ё. .

There are words in our language with two letters Ё: “three-star”, “four-bucket”.

In Russian, there are several traditional names in which the letter Y is present:

Artyom, Parmen, Peter, Savel, Seliverst, Semyon, Fedor, Yarem; Alena, Matryona, Thekla and others.

Optional use letters ё leads to erroneous readings and the inability to restore the meaning of the word without additional explanations, for example:

Loan-loan; perfect-perfect; tears-tears; sky-sky; chalk-chalk; donkey donkey; merry merry...

And, of course, a classic example from "Peter the Great" by A.K. Tolstoy:

Under such a sovereign take a break!

It was meant - " let's take a break". Feel the difference?

And how do you read "We'll Sing"? Do we all eat? Do we eat everything?

And the name of the French actor will be Depardieu, not Depardieu. (see Wikipedia)

And, by the way, A. Dumas has the name of the cardinal not Richelieu at all, but Richelieu. (see Wikipedia)

And it is necessary to pronounce the name of the Russian poet correctly Fet, not Fet.