cyrilic alphabet - logic!?

learn_russian — 29.06.2010

Ok. I have to admit, that learning cyrilic alphabet was for me somewhat of a puzzle.
A puzzle that I have not been able to solve for past 24 years.
And the more other languages I understand (especially other slavic lang. that use cyrilics),
the more odd the Russian cyrilic system seems to me.

I will try to explain what I mean the best I can.
But Im not sure that my knowledge of phonetics is good enough,
but Im sure that there are some other people around here (f.ex. thouse who have czech or polish as mother tounge),
who will see what I mean, and plz .  do not be shy in transforming my question into more internationally understandible.

Look, in Russian there is a letter "е"  and it is actionly a combination of й+э, or in some cases just plane э. (whith softer consonant)
Than there is ю which is a combination of й+у. or just y (w.softer consonant)
Than there is я which is й+а
Than there is ё which is й+o

So? so 2 questions:

1st: WHY? why choose 1 consonant "й", and separate into separate letters the combination of it w. vowel ? ? ? 

I mean one could say that its some necesity of cyrilic alphabet, but its not. I can not see any situation were the letters "е ё ю я" would be impossible to replace by combination of other letters.
F.ex. in serbian (where they use in cyrilic same "j" as in English), they spell "Ja" instead of "я".
and if one would wanna make the consonant softer there is always "ь", right ???
Ok, fine, lets say one wants to make a language w. as few symbols in every word as possible. thus one would need more letters.
Seems logical. but why isn't there letters like "Ka", "Ko", and all the other combinations of consonant + vowel, with its own separate letter ?

So, I still can't get the logic. Does anyone get it ?

2nd: Whats the story? what was the historic background?
what was the reason for making "й" this very special letter,
with all the own letters for combination with vowels?
was it Cyrill that fell in love w. it?
or prehaps some of thouse letters came up after Lenins reform of Russian?
 

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