Richard A wrote:we were taught that e and ë were different letters
They are. ë is more closely related to "o" than to "e".
Richard A wrote:But then that in informal Russian, the umlaut could sometimes be dispensed with.
It is often omitted, but since everyone is supposed to know what the words are, you're supposed to be able to figure out when it's an "e" and when it's an "ë" - I can often, but not always.
Richard A wrote:Ï, as far as I know, only appears in Ukrainian - a reminder that different Cyrillic languages have different letters.
I think there's a fairly close correspondence between some of the Russian vowels and the Ukrainian vowels, but not all. But the thing to keep in mind, after Comrade Ulyanov came to power, there was a reform in Russian spelling. When I was in St. Peter and Paul's looking at some of the tombs, I noticed the inscriptions often had letters that don't exist in modern Russian.
"Putin" is written three different ways in Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian
Richard A wrote:Trivia fact: Mongolian is written in Mongolian script in China but not in Mongolia.
Heh, you can even see it on the Chinese bank notes