Ukrainian Ye (Є є; italics:
Є є) is a character of the
Cyrillic script. It is considered as an individual letter of the modern
Ukrainian alphabet (in 8th position row since 1992, and 7th position before that) and as a variant form of
Ye (Е е) in modern
Church Slavonic (where the selection of Є and Е is driven by orthography rules, see below). Until the mid-19th century, Є/є was also used in
Serbian (the letter was eliminated in
Vuk Karadžić's alphabet, and replaced by digraph је). Other modern Slavonic languages may use Є/є shapes instead of Е/е for decorative purposes. In these circumstances, the letter is usually referred to by the older name
Yest, and the descriptive names
long E, or
anchor E.