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It's the only letter with two disconnected parts. How did this letter ы come about?

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  • Sorry, you're wrong way about "the only letter with two disconnected parts". What about Й, so called "shortened И"? And wait, there is Ё, as "Е with 2 dots".
    – Yury Schkatula
    Apr 4, 2019 at 13:18
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    @YurySchkatula Those can be considered diacritics. Something very different and common across orthographies of many languages.
    – Vladimir F Героям слава
    Apr 4, 2019 at 13:26

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19

The letter ы is a ligature of ъ and і.

In the past, these were both vowels (something like /ɤ̞/ and /i/) and ы was considered as some mixture of those two vowels.

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    Modern (and even pre-1918) 'ъ' is very much disconnected from its roots. This link can provide some insight: 'Yer'.
    – Alexander
    Apr 4, 2019 at 17:46

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