I (Cyrillic)

I (И, и) is the tenth letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. It looks like a backwards version of the Latin alphabet's N and in Russian is pronounced [i], like the "i" in the English word "machine". It is derived from the Greek capital letter eta (pronounced [ɛː] in Ancient Greek but [i] in Modern Greek), which looks like (and is the source of) Latin H. Although not palatized or iotated like Russian's other "soft" vowels (Е, Ё, Ю, and Я), it is considered the soft counterpart to Ы, pronounced [ɨ], or [1] in SAMPA.

Like the Cyrillic letter ya, it is commonly used by those who want to give a Slavic feel to English text by replacing English letters with Cyrillic letters vaguely resembling them. Ya is frequently used in place of English R, while I is used to represent N (e.g. ЯUSSIAИ, which is totally illegible in any Slavic language).

In Ukrainian and Belarussian, the sound [i] is represented by a symbol identical to Latin I and derived from Greek iota. This symbol is sometimes called Ukrainian I. Belarusian has dispensed entirely with the letter И, while Ukrainian has assigned it the lax vowel sound [ɪ] (SAMPA /I/, pronounced as in English igloo).

With a diacritic, it forms и краткое or short I, a semivowel pronounced [j] (as in English yellow), which can be used to form diphthongs like the following:

• ai in aisle
• ei in vein
• oi in oil
• ui

Note that the short I is not found in many South Slavic languages, and is replaced by Cyrillic alphabet А
A Б
Be В
Ve Г
Ge Ѓ
Gje Ґ
Ghe Д
De Ђ
Dje Е
E Є
Ukrainian E Ѐ
E with grave Ё
Yo Ж
Zhe Ѕ
Dze З
Ze И
I Й
short I Ѝ
I with grave І
Ukrainian I Ї
Yi Ј
Je К
Ka Ќ
Kje Л
El Љ
Lje М
Em Н
En Њ
Nje О
O П
Pe Р
Er С
Es Т
Te Ћ
Tshe Ѹ
Ou У
U Ў
U short Ф
Ef Х
Ha Ѡ
Omega Cyrillic Ц
Tse Ч
Che Џ
Dzhe Ш
Sha Щ
Shcha Ъ
Hard sign (yer) Ы
Yery Ь
Soft sign Ѣ
Yat Э
E reversed Ю
Yu Я
Ya ɾa
(not in Unicode)
A iotified Ѥ
E iotified Ѧ
Yus small Ѫ
Yus big Ѩ
Yus small iotified Ѭ
Yus big iotified Ѯ
Ksi Cyrillic Ѱ
Psi Cyrillic Ѳ
Fita Ѵ
Izhitsa Ѷ
Izhitsa with double grave    

(Russian letters bolded; old letters italics)