The sound represented here by ы is an important feature in traditional Lemko speech and is also found among other Rusyn communities of the Carpathian region. Pronunciation can vary among speakers and generations.
A frequently cited example
Я бил — “I hit [someone]”
The contrast is memorable because changing the vowel changes the meaning. A traditional humorous explanation is essentially: I was there, but I didn't hit anybody.
What happens today?
Many descendants no longer produce the traditional sound in the same way. Speakers may substitute a sound associated with Cyrillic И / и or Polish Y / y. That makes pronunciation itself part of the linguistic heritage worth documenting.
Why preserve it?
Language is more than vocabulary and spelling. Sounds can distinguish words, reveal regional speech traditions, and carry information that is difficult to recover from written texts alone.
Language note: this page records a traditional Lemko pronunciation distinction and an example commonly used to explain it. Pronunciation varies across Rusyn/Lemko communities, countries, families and generations; the page is not intended to prescribe how every present-day speaker must speak.