That's two sounds – "y" and "oo" (or, in IPA, [j] and [u]). English did some pretty weird things to its vowels in the 15th and 16th centuries – turning older [u] into [ju] was one of them. Our spelling still reflects the way things were pronounced 800 years ago (just look at "knight"), and this has confused schoolchildren for a long time.



A vowel is a speech sound where the air flow is not restricted. The "y" or [j] sound restricts it a little – not as much as, for example, a [p], but still some.

The semivowels [j] and [w] are confusing because they're basically short versions of the vowels [i] and [u] put next to an even more "open" vowel, to which they have to play second fiddle. There's no reason why a language couldn't analyse [ju] as [iu], and give words like English "a/an" their "next word begins with a vowel" form instead of their "next word begins with a consonant" form. But English analyses it as [ju], so we get the consonant form: "a" instead of "an".

I won't venture to say whether the first part of Russian ?, ? and ? is a consonant or a vowel. Are there any Russian words that change form depending on that question (like English "a/an") which would tell us?