Learn something new every day: decimal and octal i

[pne]

Apparently, Cyrillic и and і (both pronounced [i] in at least one language) derive from Greek η and ι, respectively (which were also both pronounced [i] at the time the Cyrillic alphabet got started).

And the reason why two characters were kept even though they represent exactly the same sound has to do with the use of letters as numbers: the two letters represent the numbers 8 and 10, respectively (hence "decimal i" and "octal i", as they are, it seems, sometimes called).

Interesting; I never knew that и was descended from η, but it makes sense, not least due to the letter shape.

Comments

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

So the Ukrainian use of и for [ɪ] and і for [i] represents a more recent innovation?

[pne.livejournal.com]

Beats me what the history on those is. That does seem plausible, though.

[edricson.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. Well, modern Ukrainian orthography is itself relatively recent :).

[edricson.livejournal.com]

Well, it's perfectly obvious if you consider that Cyrillic was based on majuscule Greek, and the earliest shape of и was H (whereas today's н was N).