The Rise and Fall and Rise again of the Seventh Letter: A Technological Story of the Russian Alphabet

It goes without saying that the letter ё is not obligatory in the rules of Russian language – even though there are many names and words that include it. This lack of obligation led to the absence of that letter in the typewriters, keyboards and code systems. The difficulty and impossibility of using that letter then led to its slow disappearance in printed texts, even though there are still many names and words that include it. Therefore, persons who have the letter ё in their name will try to obtain this letter with two dots in programs and technical devices. Currently, the use of inbuilt dictionaries without having a possibility of variational typing and machine learning led to the tendency of using the letter ё due to autocorrection and systems of hints in the smartphones. When using keyboard applications in electronic devices, some words which contain the letter ё, are typed with the letter e. In particular, some words are changed automatically to e, others are not. Only time will tell what will happen with the letter the seventh letter of Russian alphabet in the future, whether it will lose its relevance or whether there will be a resurgence of its use.