Origin of the Russian alphabet. How the letter “F” appeared in Russian

For a long time There was no famous letter “ё” in the Russian language. 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 remember the details of this event...

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

And once during one of the meetings she asked Derzhavin to write the word “Christmas tree”. Those present took the proposal 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 academicians think. Indeed, is it reasonable to designate one sound when writing with two letters? The princess's proposal to introduce a new letter “e” into the alphabet with two dots on top to indicate the sound “io” was appreciated by literature experts. This story happened in 1783. And then off we went. Derzhavin began to use the letter “ё” in personal correspondence, then Dmitriev published the book “My Trinkets” with this letter, and then Karamzin joined the “e-movement”.

The image of the new letter was probably borrowed from the French alphabet. Similar letter used, for example, in writing the car brand Citroën, although it sounds completely different in this word. Cultural figures supported Dashkova’s idea, and the letter took root. Derzhavin began using the letter e in personal correspondence and used it for the first time when writing his last name - Potemkin. However, in print - among typographical letters - the letter е appeared only in 1795. Even the first book with this letter is known - this is the book of the poet Ivan Dmitriev “My trinkets”. The first word, over which two dots were blackened, was the word “everything”, followed by the words: light, stump, etc.

A widely known new letter e became thanks to the historian N.M. Karamzin. In 1797, Nikolai Mikhailovich decided to replace two letters in the word “sl” when preparing to publish one of his poems io zy" with one letter e. Yes, with light hand Karamzin, the letter “e” took its place in the sun and became entrenched in the Russian alphabet. Due to N.M. Karamzin was the first to use the letter e in printed edition, published in quite a large circulation, some sources, in particular, the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, erroneously indicate him as the author of the letter e.

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

The letter came into place in the alphabet in the 1860s. IN AND. Dahl placed е along with the letter "e" in the first edition of " Explanatory dictionary living Great Russian language." In 1875, L.N. Tolstoy in his “New ABC” sent it to 31st place, between yat and the letter e. But the use of this symbol in typography and publishing was associated with some difficulties due to its non-standard height. Therefore, the letter e officially 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 cases of extreme necessity, and even then mainly in encyclopedias. As a result, the letter “е” disappeared from the spelling (and then 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 emphasis even changed: CHEBYSHEV; exactly the same 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 has also disappeared from the spellings of many geographical names– Pearl Harbor, Königsberg, Cologne, etc. See, for example, the epigram on Lev Pushkin (the authorship is not exactly clear):
Our friend Pushkin Lev
Not without reason
But with champagne fatty pilaf
And a duck with milk mushrooms
They will prove to us better than words,
That he is healthier
By the strength of the stomach.

When the Bolsheviks came to power, they “combed through” the alphabet, removed “yat” and fita and izhitsa, but did not touch the letter E. Precisely when Soviet power dots above e In order to simplify typing, most words were missing. Although no one formally banned or abolished it.

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

Often the letter “е”, 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” - Alekhine. In general, the letter “е” is contained in more than 12 thousand words, in approximately 2.5 thousand surnames of citizens of Russia and the former USSR, in thousands of geographical names.

A categorical opponent of using this letter when writing is designer Artemy Lebedev. For some reason he didn't like her. It must be said that it is indeed inconveniently located on a computer keyboard. Of course, you can do without it, as, for example, the text will be understandable even if zngo sklcht vs glsn bkv. But is it worth it?

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

Some statistics

In 2013, the letter Yoyo turns 230 years old!

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

There are about 12,500 words in the Russian language with the letter Ё, of which about 150 words begin with е and about 300 words end with е!

On average, there is 1 letter e for every hundred characters of text. .

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

There are several traditional names in the Russian language that contain the letter Ё:

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

Optional use letters e 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; palate-palate; chalk-chalk; donkey-donkey; fun-fun...

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

Under such a sovereign let's take a break!

It was meant - " let's take a break" Do you feel the difference?

How do you read “Let’s Sing Everything”? Are we all eating? Shall we eat everything?

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

And, by the way, A. Dumas’s cardinal’s name is not Richelieu, but Richelieu. (see Wikipedia)

And the correct way to pronounce the surname of the Russian poet is Fet, not Fet.

Alphabet.

The Guinness Book of Records considers...

Ancient

The earliest example of alphabetic writing was found in Ugarit (now Ras Sharma, Syria). It dates from approximately 1450 BC. e. and is a clay tablet with 32 wedge-shaped letters printed on it.

The oldest letter

The oldest letter “o” remained unchanged in the same form in which it was adopted in the Phoenician alphabet (about 1300 BC). There are currently 65 alphabets in use.

The longest and shortest alphabets

Largest quantity letters - 72 - are found in the Khmer language, the smallest - 11 (a, b, e, g, i, k, o, p, t, u) - in the Rotokas language from the island of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea.

Origin of the Russian alphabet.

The alphabet in the 33-letter form we are familiar with did not always exist. Its prototype was the alphabet called Old Slavonic, or Church Slavonic.

The appearance of the Cyrillic alphabet, which dates back to the Greek language, is traditionally associated with the activities of the famous enlighteners Cyril and Methodius.

The Old Church Slavonic language, being the language of the church in Rus', was influenced by the Old Russian language. Thus, the Russian alphabet originated from the Old Russian Cyrillic alphabet, which was borrowed from the Greeks and became widespread in Kievan Rus after the adoption of Christianity (988).

At that time, it apparently had 43 letters. He looked like this:

It is easy to notice that some Cyrillic letters sound like our modern words: “good”, “earth”, “people”. Others - az, beeches, lead... What do they mean and what is their origin?

A3 – first person personal pronoun singular.

BUKI - letter. There were quite a few words with the nominative singular form, which was unusual for us: “kry” - blood, “bry” - eyebrow, “lyuby” - love.

VEDI is a form of the verb “vedeti” - to know.

VERB - a form of the verb “verb” - to speak.

GOOD – the meaning is clear.

IS – third person singular present tense from the verb “to be”.

LIVE – second person plural present tense from the verb “to live”.

ZELO is an adverb meaning “very”, “strongly”, “very”.

IZHE (AND OCTAL) is a pronoun with the meaning “that”, “which”. In Church Slavonic the conjunction is “what”. This letter was called “octal” because it had the numerical value of the number 8.

AND (AND DECIMAL) - so called because of its numerical value - 10.

KAKO – interrogative adverb “how”.

PEOPLE – the meaning is self-explanatory.

MYSLETE is a form of the verb “to think.”

OUR is a possessive pronoun.

OH is a third person singular personal pronoun.

RTSY is a form of the verb “speech”, to speak.

THE WORD – the meaning is beyond doubt.

SOLID – also does not require comments.

UK – in Old Slavonic – teaching.

FERT - the etymology of this letter name has not been reliably clarified by scientists. From the outline of the sign came the expression “stand on the fence,” that is, “hands on hips.”

CHER – it is believed that this is an abbreviation of the word “cherub”, the name of one of the ranks of angels. Since the letter is “cruciform”, the meaning of the verb “to take away” has developed - to cross out, abolish, destroy.

HE THE GREAT is a Greek omega, which we got its name from the letter “he”.

TSY is an onomatopoeic name.

WORM - in Old Church Slavonic and Old Russian the word “worm” meant “red paint”, and not just “worm”. The name of the letter was given acrophonic - the word “worm” began with “ch”.

SHA, SHA - both letters are named according to a principle already familiar to us: the sound itself signified by the letter plus any vowel sound before and after it.

ERY - the compound name of this letter - “er” plus “and” - was, as it were, a “description” of its shape. We renamed it “s” a long time ago.

ER, ER - conventional names of letters that have ceased to express the sounds of incomplete education and have become simply “signs”.

YAT – it is believed that the name of the letter “yat” may be associated with “yad” - food, food.

Yu, Ya - these letters were called according to their sound: “yu”, “ya”, as well as the letter “ye”, meaning “iotated e”.

YUS – the origin of the name is unclear. They tried to derive it from the word “us”, which in the Old Bulgarian language sounded with a nasal sound at the beginning, or from the word “yusenitsa” - caterpillar. The explanations do not seem uncontroversial.

FITA - in this form the name of the Greek letter Θ, called in different time sometimes “theta”, sometimes “fita” and, accordingly, meaning either a sound close to “f”, or a sound that is now represented in Western alphabets by the letters TN. We hear it close to our “g”. The Slavs adopted "fita" at a time when it was read as "f". That is why, for example, we wrote the word “library” as “vivliofika” until the 18th century.

IZHITSA is the Greek “upsilon”, which conveys a sound that seems to stand between our “i” and “yu” in the surname “Hugo”. The Slavs originally conveyed this sound differently, imitating the Greeks. So, Greek name"Kirillos", a diminutive of "Kyuros" - master, was usually rendered as "Kirill", but the pronunciation "Kurill" was also possible. In the epics “Kurill” was changed into “Chyurilo”. Until recently, in the west of Ukraine there was a place called “Kurilovtsi” - the descendants of “Kuril”.

Time rushes forward rapidly and makes its own adjustments. Some letters disappeared, and new ones appeared in their place.

The Russian alphabet remained in this form until the reforms of Peter I of 1708-1711. (and Church Slavonic is still the same today), when superscripts were eliminated (which incidentally “cancelled” the letter Y) and many doublet letters and letters used to write numbers were abolished (which became irrelevant after the transition to Arabic numerals).

Subsequently, some abolished letters were restored and abolished again. By 1917, the alphabet came in a 35-letter (officially; in fact there were 37 letters) composition: A, B, C, D, D, E, (E was not considered a separate letter), ZH, Z, I, (Y was not considered a separate letter considered), I, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, F, X, C, Ch, Sh, Shch, b, S, b, Ѣ, E, Yu, I , Ѳ, Ѵ. (The last letter was formally listed in the Russian alphabet, but de facto its use came to an almost nonexistent level, and it was found in only a few words).

The last major reform of writing was carried out in 1917-1918 - as a result, the current Russian alphabet, consisting of 33 letters, appeared. This alphabet also became the written basis for most languages of the USSR, for which writing was absent before the 20th century or was replaced during the years of Soviet power.

Related information.

The only sound that is found in all known languages of the world is [a]. But what can we say if a baby with any skin color in any corner of the earth, when born, utters this sound first? Naturally, all languages that have writing also have their own letter for this sound. How did she appear?

In Abkhazian there are only three vowel sounds: [a], [s] and diphthong [aa], and there are 57 consonants, and this is only in the literary version, in dialects there are even more. And in the extinct Ubykh language, a relative of Abkhazian, there were two vowel sounds: long and short [a].

About how it all began

The glory of creating letter No. 1 belongs to the Phoenicians. In fact, most likely, they did not invent their own writing, in particular the letter “A”. The Phoenicians were a people of seafarers and traders, they tried to grab the most popular goods from local producers, and then distribute them throughout the world they knew. This happened with letters. The bright idea of writing each sound with a special sign (what is called “phonetic writing”) came to an unknown resident of the Middle East. Scientists have still not even decided which tribe we owe this innovation to. But they could have used hieroglyphs like all normal ancient Egyptian or Chinese people.

The letter "alp", as it was roughly called in Phoenician, looked like it had been turned upside down. left side“A” most likely denoted a glottal stop - a dull guttural explosive consonant sound. In Russian, we say something similar in the colloquial interjection “ne-a”, as if slightly clicking our throat.
There were no glottal stops in Greek. But the letter brought by Phoenician merchants was beautiful, and it was necessary to somehow adapt it to the household. They came up with the idea that “alpha” (this is how provincials from the shores of the Aegean Sea distorted the word “alp”) would mean the sound [a]. Also, the Hellenes rightly decided that the “bull” would look much more aesthetically pleasing if placed on “horns”. This is how the letter acquired its modern appearance.
In this form it was adopted by the Etruscans, and then by the Romans. However, the Romans, during the infancy of their civilization, fine motor skills was poorly developed, so they sometimes wrote “a” like this:

During the heyday of the empire, the Romans loved the “A” style without a crossbar - Λ. This option, oddly enough, is associated with the appearance of the familiar italic “a”. How this happened, says the head of the School of Historical Calligraphy, Candidate of Philological Sciences Andrei Sannikov.

"And in Russian

The Slavs had a complex relationship with letters in general and with “A” in particular. Greek-speaking Byzantium was faced with the task of baptizing (and at the same time making more civilized and consolidating in its sphere of influence) the wild northern barbarians. To do this, it was necessary to give them writing. But the language of the Slavs contained so many barbaric sounds that the delicate Greek alphabet did not seem to suit them. Therefore, Constantinople sent the learned monks Cyril and Methodius to create a special alphabet for their restless neighbors.

Serbian writer Milorad Pavic compared the creation of the Slavic alphabet to trying to carry a jug through a barred window: you need to break it, carry each shard separately, and then glue the shards together with clay. “They [Cyril and Methodius] did the same with the Slavic language - they broke it into pieces, transferred them through the lattice of the Cyrillic alphabet into their mouths and glued the fragments together with their own saliva and Greek clay under their feet...”
Before the spread of Arabic numerals, it was letters that replaced the designation of numbers for many peoples. Among the Slavs, “A” conveyed one. The number was distinguished from the letters by the title: a wavy dash above the sign - as well as two dots on the sides: ·Ã·
In fact, in Rus', as is known, at first there was not a Cyrillic alphabet, but a Glagolitic alphabet. The monks, who pursued primarily a missionary goal, endowed the alphabet they created with this name (from the Old Slavonic “verb” - “word”) with religious meanings. Keeping the order of the Greek letters, they created a new symbol for each of them. The first letter, denoting [a], was shaped like a cross. Why this happened, Andrei Sannikov explains.
Glagolitic letters were too intricate and inconvenient to write, so this alphabet was quickly supplanted by the Cyrillic alphabet, which was probably created by Cyril’s students on the basis of the Greek letter. Since then we write “normal” “A”.

In other languages

Phoenician letters became the basis for other alphabets. "Alp" in Arabic has become a graceful vertical stroke ﺍ (called "alif", meaning a long [a:] or glottal stop), the appearance of which varies slightly depending on its location in the word. In modern Hebrew - in א (“aleph”, also sometimes denoting a glottal stop). They trace back to the Phoenician “bull” Armenian letterԱ (“aib”, conveys the sound [a]), with doubt and the Georgian ა (“ani”, sound [a]).
This same tradition put "A" first. There it remained in most other alphabets. Before the spread of Arabic numerals, it was letters that replaced the designation of numbers for many peoples. Among the Slavs, “A” conveyed one. The number was distinguished from the letters by the title - a wavy line above the sign - as well as two dots on the sides: ·Ã·.

God symbol

The Greek "alpha" together with the last letter of the alphabet "omega" (Ω) became a symbol of God in Christianity; the corresponding expression appears many times in the Book of Revelation of John the Theologian (Apocalypse), for example: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord, who is and was and is to come, the Almighty” (Rev. 1:8). That is why the symbols A and Ω are sometimes found on icons to the left and right of Jesus’ head.

The ancient Germanic rune ᚨ (ansuz) also has the meaning “god”. By the way, according to one version, this sign from the Viking alphabet came from “A” from the Latin alphabet. That is, it is a distant relative of the Phoenician “alp”. In the Viking alphabet, Ansuz was in fourth place, and in first place was the rune ᚠ (fehu), which meant “cattle”: for some reason, the ancients were in agreement that it was necessary to start with bulls. Such are the priorities.

Children "A"

IN different languages the letter "A" represents a variety of sounds. From [o] to diphthong [ej]. But sometimes a standard set of alphabetic characters is not enough to convey the entire phonetic palette of the language. This is how letters have descendants. One of the most famous heirs of “A” is the ligature Æ (æ), obtained, as you might guess, from the combination of “A” and “E”. Typically, this letter denotes a sound close to that conveyed by the “ya” in the word “to crush.”
There are many variants of "A" with the "second floor" - diacritics. For example, Å - with a circle at the top. In the old days, to convey a special sound in the languages of Northern Europe, a small “o” was written above the “A”. Then these letters merged into one. Now, for example, in Swedish this hybrid is read as [o]. In the same way, Ä was born - with two dots, which are a trace of the letter “E” written on top.
And these are also letters for [a] or sounds close to it in other writing systems not related to Phoenician: in Khmer - ឣ, in Sanskrit - अ or आ, in Bengal - আ, in one of the variants of Japanese - あ.
Text: Nikolay Guryanov, Svetlana Guryanova

Description of the presentation by individual slides:

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* At first I thought that a long time ago, the letters were invented by some clever man. I sat down and wrote. But there is not just one Russian language, there are many of them. Who came up with letters for other languages? Or maybe no one invented letters at all, they have always been there, like the people themselves, the earth and the mountains? And then I decided to find out how, where and when letters actually appeared.

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* I drew up a work plan that consistently helped me in finding information: Consulting an explanatory dictionary; Collecting information in the library (encyclopedias, magazines, articles); Search for articles on the Internet; Watching TV programs; Appeal to adults.

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* In the explanatory dictionary, the word “Letter” is interpreted as “an alphabet sign.” This means that a letter is a sign, but this definition does not reveal the essence of the issue. Then, I started my research from primary sources. And this is what happened: What is a letter?

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* How did people learn to write with letters? At first people drew. If it was necessary to write the word “deer”, they drew a deer, if it was necessary to write the word “hunting”, they drew hunters and animals. People at that time lived in caves and they painted on the walls of their homes - caves, on rocks... This is pictographic writing.

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* The Peruvians practiced knot writing, called KIPU. A stick with multi-colored cords and knots tied to it. A messenger brought such a stick, and in order to read it, one had to know the secret meaning of the cords and knots. Color, shape, order of their arrangement had a certain exact meaning, the knowledge of which was passed on from generation to generation

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* Although people did not know how to write, they sent letters to each other, for example, if a tribe wanted to declare war, it sent another a spear or arrow. If it was about peace, they sent tobacco and a pipe in addition. This is where the expression “to smoke a pipe of peace” comes from, that is, to agree on peace. But in this way it was possible to convey simple messages, and how, for example, to draw “I have come”, legs? But the legs not only come, but also go, what to do in this case? We need letters. And they appeared, although from the beginning they were not quite ordinary - letters and pictures. For example, they will draw a lion. This word begins with the letter L, which means read the letter L. They will draw a Falcon - read S, they will draw a tree - read D... But imagine how many drawings had to be drawn to depict one sentence, for each letter - a drawing. L

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* To do this, the ancient Egyptians had to keep an entire army of scribes. This kind of writing was called descriptive. Stone and clay tablets were used for writing.

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* And in our time, picture writing is used: road signs, signs at airports, train stations, store doors: “Dangerous turns” - a section of the road with dangerous turns. Above the doors or in the doors of emergency exits. . Directional arrow in buildings, airports

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* As centuries passed, scribes began to replace some complex designs with icons for simplicity. It was already something like real letters. But not all icons denoted letters; some denoted entire words, others - individual syllables. This is a saying - BREAD IS THE HEAD OF EVERYONE.

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* Before getting into our primers, letters traveled for a long time from country to country with merchants transporting goods. They had no time to draw pictures; they were hastily written with icons. This has already happened in Greece. The modern Greek alphabet has 24 letters. The word “alphabet” itself is of Greek origin, as we have already said. Derived from the name of the first letters of the Greek “alpha” and “vita”. Later, the Latin alphabet appeared, which is still used today. There are 25 letters in the Latin alphabet. From the Greek and Latin alphabets came the Old Slavic English, Russian and others. In the alphabet in English 26 letters. It included all the letters of the Latin alphabet, and added the letter W. The English alphabet is known all over the world.

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* Almost a thousand years later, the Old Slavic alphabet appeared. In the 9th century, in Byzantium, there lived two brothers, Cyril and Methodius, monks. They were wise and very educated people and knew the Slavic language well. They created Slavic alphabet, which became known as the Cyrillic alphabet. How did they create it? Cyril and Methodius took the Greek alphabet as a basis and adapted it to the sounds of the Slavic language, so many of our letters look similar to Greek. There were 43 letters in this alphabet Greek Αα Γγ Δδ Κκ Μμ Slavic Aa Gg Dd Kk Mm

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* The first alphabet book in our country was printed for children by Ivan Fedorov. He was also the first who began to print books on a press in a printing house, rather than rewrite them with a pen. His printed primer had a lot of pictures and it became easier and more interesting for the children to learn.

How did the letter E appear?

For a long time, the Russian language did not have the 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 remember the details of this event...

The image of the new letter was probably borrowed from the French alphabet. A similar letter is used, for example, in the spelling of the Citroën car brand, although it sounds completely different in this word. Cultural figures supported Dashkova’s idea, and the letter took root. Derzhavin began using the letter e in personal correspondence and used it for the first time when writing his last name - Potemkin. However, in print - among typographical letters - the letter е appeared only in 1795. Even the first book with this letter is known - this is the book of the poet Ivan Dmitriev “My trinkets”. The first word, over which two dots were blackened, was the word “everything”, followed by the words: light, stump, immortal, cornflower.

A widely known new letter e became thanks to the historian N.M. Karamzin. In 1797, Nikolai Mikhailovich decided to replace two letters in the word “sl” when preparing to publish one of his poems io zy" with one letter e. So, with Karamzin’s light hand, the letter “е” took its place in the sun and became entrenched in the Russian alphabet. Due to 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, erroneously indicate him as the author of the letter ё.

The letter came into place in the alphabet in the 1860s. IN AND. Dahl placed е along with the letter “e” in the first edition of the Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language. In 1875, L.N. Tolstoy in his “New ABC” sent it to 31st place, between yat and the letter e. But the use of this symbol in typography and publishing was associated with some difficulties due to its non-standard height. Therefore, the letter e officially entered the alphabet and received the serial number 7 only in Soviet times - December 24, 1942. However, for many decades, publishers continued to use it only in cases of extreme necessity, and even then mainly in encyclopedias. As a result, the letter “е” disappeared from the spelling (and then 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 emphasis even changed: CHEBYSHEV; exactly the same 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 е also disappeared from the spellings of many geographical names - Pearl Harbor, Königsberg, Cologne, etc. See, for example, the epigram on Lev Pushkin (the authorship is not exactly clear):
Our friend Pushkin Lev
Not without reason
But with champagne fatty pilaf
And a duck with milk mushrooms
They will prove to us better than words,
That he is healthier
By the strength of the stomach.

When the Bolsheviks came to power, they “combed through” the alphabet, removed “yat” and fita and izhitsa, but did not touch the letter E. It was under Soviet rule that the points above e In order to simplify typing, most words were missing. Although no one formally banned or abolished it.

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