The letter Ъ (italics
''Ъ'', ''ъ'') of the
Cyrillic script
The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, ...
is known as er golyam (ер голям – "big er") in the
Bulgarian alphabet
The Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet is used to write the Bulgarian language.
The Cyrillic alphabet was originally developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 9th – 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School.
It has been used in Bulgaria ...
, as the hard sign (russian: твёрдый знак, tvjórdyj znak, , rue, твердый знак, tverdyj znak) in the modern
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
and
Rusyn
Rusyn may refer to:
* Rusyns, Rusyn people, an East Slavic people
** Pannonian Rusyns, Pannonian Rusyn people, a branch of Rusyn people
** Lemkos, a branch of Rusyn (or Ukrainian) people
** Boykos, a branch of Rusyn (or Ukrainian) people
* Rusyn l ...
alphabets (although in Rusyn, ъ could also be known as ір), as the debelo jer (дебело їер, "fat er") in pre-
reform
Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill#The Yorkshire Associati ...
Serbian orthography, and as ''ayirish belgisi'' in the
Uzbek Cyrillic alphabet
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = G ...
. The letter is called back yer or back jer and yor or jor in the
pre-reform Russian orthography, in
Old East Slavic
Old East Slavic (traditionally also Old Russian; be, старажытнаруская мова; russian: древнерусский язык; uk, давньоруська мова) was a language used during the 9th–15th centuries by East ...
, and in
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic languages, Slavic literary language.
Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine Empire, Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with Standard language, standardizing the lan ...
.
Originally the yer denoted an ultra-short or
reduced mid rounded vowel
In phonetics, vowel roundedness is the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. It is labialization of a vowel. When a ''rounded'' vowel is pronounced, the lips form a circular opening, and ''unrounded'' vowels are pron ...
. It is one of two reduced vowels that are collectively known as the
yer
A yer is either of two letters in Cyrillic alphabets, ъ (ѥръ, ''jerŭ'') and ь (ѥрь, ''jerĭ''). The Glagolitic alphabet used, as respective counterparts, the letters (Ⱏ) and (Ⱐ). They originally represented phonemically the "ult ...
s in Slavic philology.
Bulgarian
In
Bulgarian
Bulgarian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria
* Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group
* Bulgarian language, a Slavic language
* Bulgarian alphabet
* A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria
* Bul ...
, the ''er goljam'' ("") is the 27th letter of the alphabet. It is used for the phoneme representing the
mid back unrounded vowel
The mid back unrounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. Although there is no dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the exact mid back unrounded vowel between close-mid and open-mid ...
, sometimes also notated as a
schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
. It sounds somewhat like the vowel sound in some pronunciations of English "b''u''t" or the Chinese "''de''" (的) . It sounds similar to the
Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
**Romanian cuisine, traditional ...
letter "
ă" (for example, in "''băiat''" ) and
Estonian
Estonian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe
* Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent
* Estonian language
* Estonian cuisine
* Estonian culture
See also ...
letter
õ. In unstressed positions (in the same manner as ⟨а⟩), ⟨ъ⟩ is normally pronounced , which sounds like Sanskrit "''a''" (अ), Portuguese "''terra''" , or the German ''-er'' in the word "''Kinder''" . Unlike the schwa sound in English, the Bulgarian can appear in unstressed as well as in stressed syllables, for example in ""
vɤ̞zdux'air' or even at the beginning of words (only in the word ""
ɤ̞gɐɫ‘angle’).
Before the reform of 1945, this sound was written with two letters, "ъ" and "
ѫ" ("big yus", denoting a former
nasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced wit ...
). Additionally "ъ" was used silently after a final consonant, as in Russian. In 1945 final "ъ" was dropped; and the letter "ѫ" was abolished, being replaced by "ъ" in most cases. However, to prevent confusion with the former silent final "ъ", final "ѫ" was replaced instead with "а" (which has the same sound when not
stressed).
It is variously transliterated as ⟨ǎ⟩, ⟨ă⟩, ⟨ą⟩, ⟨ë⟩, ⟨ę⟩, ⟨ų⟩, ⟨ŭ⟩, or simply ⟨a⟩, ⟨u⟩ and even ⟨y⟩.
Belarusian and Ukrainian
The letter ъ is not used in the alphabets of
Belarusian and
Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
, its functions being performed by the
apostrophe
The apostrophe ( or ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes:
* The marking of the omission of one o ...
. In the Latin Belarusian alphabet (
Łacinka
The Belarusian Latin alphabet or Łacinka (from be, лацінка or łacinka, BGN/PCGN: ''Latsinka'', ) for the Latin script in general is the common name for writing Belarusian using Latin script. It is similar to the Sorbian alphabet a ...
), as in
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
, the hard sign's functions are performed by a following ''j'' rather than the ''i'' that would be present after a palatalized consonant.
Rusyn
In the
Carpatho-Rusyn
Rusyn (; rue, label= Carpathian Rusyn, русиньскый язык, translit=rusîn'skyj jazyk; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, руски язик, translit=ruski jazik),http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2781/1/2011BaptieMPhil-1.pdf , p. 8. is an Eas ...
alphabets of Slovakia and Poland, ъ (also known as ір) is the last letter of the alphabet, unlike the majority of
Cyrillic
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = G ...
alphabets, which place ъ after
щ. In
Pannonian Rusyn
Pannonian Rusyn ( rsk, label=Pannonian Rusyn, руски язик, translit=ruski jazik), also historically referred to as Yugoslav Rusyn, is a variety of the Rusyn language, spoken by the Pannonian Rusyns, primarily in the regions of Vojvodina ...
, ъ is not present.
Macedonian
Although
Macedonian is closely related to Bulgarian, its writing system does not use the ''yer''. During the creation of the modern Macedonian orthography in the late 1944 and the first half of 1945, the ''yer'' was one of the subjects of arguments. The problem was that the corresponding vowel exists in many dialects of Macedonian, but it is not systematically present in the west-central dialect, the base on which the Macedonian language standard was being developed.
Among the leaders of the Macedonian alphabet and orthography design team,
Venko Markovski
Venko Markovski (Bulgarian language, Bulgarian and mk, Венко Марковски), born Veniamin Milanov Toshev (March 5, 1915 in Skopje – January 7, 1988 in Sofia) was a Bulgarian and Macedonians (ethnic group), Macedonian writer, poet, Y ...
argued for using the letter ''yer'', much like the Bulgarian orthography does, but
Blaže Koneski
Blaže Koneski ( mk, Блаже Конески; 19 December 1921 – 7 December 1993) was a Macedonian poet, writer, literary translator, and linguistic scholar.
His major contribution was to the codification of standard Macedonian. He is the k ...
was against it. An early version of the alphabet promulgated on December 28, 1944, contained the ''yer'', but in the final version of the alphabet, approved in May 1945, Koneski's point of view prevailed, and no ''yer'' was used.
The absence of ''yer'' leads to an apostrophe often being used in Macedonian to print texts composed in the language varieties that use the corresponding vowel, such as the Bulgarian writer
Konstantin Miladinov
The Miladinov brothers ( bg, Братя Миладинови, ''Bratya Miladinovi'', mk, Браќа Миладиновци, ''Brakja Miladinovci''), Dimitar Miladinov (1810–1862) and Konstantin Miladinov (1830–1862), were Bulgarian poets ...
's poem mk, Т'га за југ, label=none ( bg,
Тъга за юг).
[
]
Russian
Modern Russian: hard sign
In Modern Russian, the letter "ъ" is called the ''hard sign'' (твёрдый знак / ''tvjordyj znak''). It has no phonetic value of its own and is purely an orthographic device. Its function is to separate a number of prefixes ending in consonants from subsequent morphemes that begin with iotated
In Slavic languages, iotation (, ) is a form of palatalization that occurs when a consonant comes into contact with a palatal approximant from the succeeding phoneme. The is represented by iota (ι) in the Cyrillic alphabet and the Greek alphab ...
vowels. In native words, it is therefore only seen in front of the letters "я", "е", "ё", and "ю" (''ja'', ''je'', ''jo'', and ''ju'' in English). The hard sign marks the fact that the sound continues to be heard separately in the composition. For example:
*сесть ''sjest'' 'sit down'
*съесть ''sjest'' perfective form of 'eat'
It therefore functions as a kind of "separation sign" and has been used only sparingly in the aforementioned cases since the spelling reform of 1918. The consonant before the hard sign often becomes somewhat softened ( palatalized) due to the following iotation. As a result, in the twentieth century there were occasional proposals to eliminate the hard sign altogether, and replace it with the soft sign ь, which always marks the softening of a consonant. However, in part because the degree of softening before ъ is not uniform, the proposals were never implemented. The hard sign ъ is written after both native and borrowed prefixes. It is sometimes used before "и" (''i''), non-iotated vowels or even consonants in Russian transcriptions of foreign names to mark an unexpected syllable break, much like an apostrophe in Latin script (e.g. Чанъань — Chang'an
Chang'an (; ) is the traditional name of Xi'an. The site had been settled since Neolithic times, during which the Yangshao culture was established in Banpo, in the city's suburbs. Furthermore, in the northern vicinity of modern Xi'an, Qin Shi ...
), the Arabic ayn (e.g. Даръа — Dara
Dara is a given name used for both males and females, with more than one origin. Dara is found in the Bible's Old Testament Books of Chronicles. Dara רעwas a descendant of Judah (son of Jacob). (The Bible. 1 Chronicles 2:6). Dara (also known ...
), or combined with a consonant to form a Khoisan
Khoisan , or (), according to the contemporary Khoekhoegowab orthography, is a catch-all term for those indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who do not speak one of the Bantu languages, combining the (formerly "Khoikhoi") and the or ( in t ...
click (e.g. Чъхоан — ǂHoan). However, such usage is not uniform and, except for transliteration of Chinese proper names, has not yet been formally codified (see also Russian phonology
This article discusses the phonological system of standard Russian based on the Moscow dialect (unless otherwise noted). For an overview of dialects in the Russian language, see Russian dialects. Most descriptions of Russian describe it as hav ...
and Russian orthography
Russian orthography (russian: правописа́ние, r=pravopisaniye, p=prəvəpʲɪˈsanʲɪjə) is formally considered to encompass spelling ( rus, орфогра́фия, r=orfografiya, p=ɐrfɐˈɡrafʲɪjə) and punctuation ( rus, п ...
).
Final ''yer'' pre-1918
Before 1918
This year is noted for the end of the First World War, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, as well as for the Spanish flu pandemic that killed 50–100 million people worldwide.
Events
Below, the events ...
, a hard sign was normally written at the end of a word when following a non-palatal consonant, even though it had no effect on pronunciation. For example, the word for "male cat" was written "котъ" (''kot) before the reform, and "кот" (''kot'') after it. This old usage of ъ was eliminated by the spelling reform of 1918, implemented by the Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
after the 1917 October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
. Because of the way this reform was implemented, the issue became politicized, leading to a number of printing houses in Petrograd
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
refusing to follow the new rules. To force the printing houses to comply, red sailors of the Baltic Fleet
, image = Great emblem of the Baltic fleet.svg
, image_size = 150
, caption = Baltic Fleet Great ensign
, dates = 18 May 1703 – present
, country =
, allegiance = (1703–1721) (1721–1917) (1917–1922) (1922–1991)(1991–present)
...
confiscated type carrying the "parasite letters".[Слово о словах, Лев Успенский, Лениздат, 1962, p. 156] Printers were forced to use a non-standard apostrophe
The apostrophe ( or ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes:
* The marking of the omission of one o ...
for the separating hard sign, for example:
*pre-reform: съѣздъ (''s'jezd''')
*transitional: с’езд (''s’jezd'')
*post-reform: съезд (''s'jezd'')
In the beginning of the 1920s, the hard sign was gradually restored as the separator. The apostrophe was still used afterward on some typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectivel ...
s that did not include the hard sign, which became the rarest letter in Russian. In Belarusian and Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
, the hard sign was never brought back, and the apostrophe is still in use today.
According to the rough estimation presented in Lev Uspensky's popular
Popularity or social status is the quality of being well liked, admired or well known to a particular group.
Popular may also refer to:
In sociology
* Popular culture
* Popular fiction
* Popular music
* Popular science
* Populace, the total ...
linguistics book ''A Word On Words'' (Слово о словах / ''Slovo o slovah''), which expresses strong support for the reform, the final hard sign made up about 3.5% of printed text and thus wasted paper and ink, which provided the economic grounds to the reform.
Printing houses set up by Russian émigrés abroad kept using the pre-reform orthography for some time, but gradually they adopted the new spelling. Meanwhile, in the USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
, '' Dahl’s Explanatory Dictionary'' was repeatedly (1935, 1955) reprinted in compliance with the old rules of spelling and the pre-reform alphabet.
Today the final ''yer'' is sometimes used in Russian brand
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...
names: the newspaper ''Kommersant
''Kommersant'' (russian: Коммерсантъ, , ''The Businessman'' or Commerce Man, often shortened to Ъ) is a nationally distributed daily newspaper published in Russia mostly devoted to politics and business. The TNS Media and NRS Russia ...
'' (Коммерсантъ) uses the letter to emphasize its continuity with the pre-Soviet newspaper of the same name. Such usage is often inconsistent, as the copywriter
Copywriting is the act or occupation of writing text for the purpose of advertising or other forms of marketing. The product, called copy or sales copy, is written content that aims to increase brand awareness and ultimately persuade a person or ...
s may apply the simple rule of putting the hard sign after a consonant at the end of a word but ignore the other former spelling rules, such as the use of ѣ and і.Артемий Лебедев, Ководство, § 23. Немного о дореволюционной орфографии.
/ref> It is also sometimes encountered in humorous personal writing adding to the text an "old-fashioned flavour" or separately, denoting ''true''.
Languages of the Caucasus and Crimean Tatar
In Cyrillic orthographies for various languages of the Caucasus
The Caucasian languages comprise a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.
Linguistic comparison allows th ...
, along with the soft sign
The soft sign (Ь, ь, italics ) also known as the front yer, front jer, or er malak (lit. "small er") is a letter of the Cyrillic script. In Old Church Slavonic, it represented a short (or "reduced") front vowel. As with its companion, the b ...
and the palochka
The palochka or palotchka () ( rus, палочка, p=ˈpaɫətɕkə, r=palochka, literally "a stick") is a letter in the Cyrillic script. The letter usually has only a capital form, which is also used in lowercase text. The capital form of the ...
, the hard sign is a modifier letter, used extensively in forming digraphs and trigraphs designating sounds alien in Slavic, such as /q/ and ejectives
In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some l ...
. For example, in Ossetian, the hard sign is part of the digraphs гъ /ʁ/, къ /kʼ/, пъ /pʼ/, тъ /tʼ/, хъ /q/, цъ /tsʼ/, чъ /tʃʼ/, as well as the trigraphs къу /kʷʼ/ and хъу /qʷ/. The hard sign is used in the Crimean Tatar language
Crimean Tatar () also called Crimean (), is a Kipchak Turkic language spoken in Crimea and the Crimean Tatar diasporas of Uzbekistan, Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria, as well as small communities in the United States and Canada. It should n ...
for the same purpose.
Tajik
In the Cyrillic version of the Tajik alphabet
The Tajik language has been written in three alphabets over the course of its history: an adaptation of the Perso-Arabic script, an adaptation of the Latin script and an adaptation of the Cyrillic script. Any script used specifically for Tajik ...
, ъ denotes a glottal stop
The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
, usually found in Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
loanwords.
Related letters and other similar characters
*Ы ы : Cyrillic letter Yery
*Ь ь : Cyrillic letter soft sign
*Ӏ ӏ : Cyrillic letter Palochka
*Ҍ ҍ : Cyrillic letter semisoft sign
*Ѣ ѣ : Cyrillic letter ''yat''
*Ƅ ƅ : Latin letter tone 6
*” : Double Quote
Computing codes
References
External links
*{{Wiktionary-inline, Ъ