Ý


Ý is a letter of Old Norse, Icelandic, Kazakh and Faroese alphabets, as well as in Turkmen language. In Czech and Slovak languages it represents a long form of the vowel y. In Vietnamese it is a y with a high rising tonal diacritic. Originally, the letter Ý was formed from the letter Y and an acute accent.
In Icelandic, Ý is the 29th letter of the alphabet, between Y and Þ. It is read as /i/ or /iː/.
In Turkmen, Ý represents the consonant /j/, as opposed to Y, which represents the vowel sound /ɯ/.
In Kazakh, Ý was suggested as a letter for the voiced labio-velar approximant ; the corresponding Cyrillic letter is У. The 2020 revision promoted by President Tokayev proposed W instead.

Other uses

In Vietnamese, Ý means "Italy". The word is a shortened form of Ý Đại Lợi, which comes from Chinese 意大利.
Ý does not exist in Modern Spanish, but the accented letter ý can be found in the proper name Aýna, a village in Spain. Nevertheless, it was used in Early Modern Spanish, and it can be observed by some archaic spellings such as the name Ýñigo for Inigo or by the former spelling ýbamos for "íbamos" in older 16th-18th century Spanish writings.

Character mappings