Hard sign

"Ъ" redirects here. For the Russian newspaper, seeKommersant.

Not to be confused withNeutral Yer.

The letterЪ ъ(italicsЪ,ъ) of theCyrillic scriptis known aser golyam(ер голям– "big er" ) in theBulgarian Alpha bet,as thehard sign(Russian:твёрдый знак,romanized:tvjordyj znak,pronounced[ˈtvʲɵrdɨjˈznak],Rusyn:твердый знак,romanized:tverdyj znak) in the modernRussianandRusynAlpha bets (although in Rusyn, ъ could also be known as ір), as thedebelo jer(дебело їер, "fat er" ) in pre-reformSerbian orthography,and asayirish belgisiin theUzbekCyrillic Alpha bet.The letter is calledback yerorback jerandyororjorin thepre-reform Russian orthography,inOld East Slavic,and inOld Church Slavonic.

Cyrillic letter Hard sign
Phonetic usage:	[ɤ̞], [ə], [ɐ], [ʔ]
TheCyrillic script
Slavicletters
А А́ А̀ А̂ А̄ Ӓ Б В Г Ґ Д Ђ Ѓ Е Е́ Ѐ Е̂ Е̄ Ё Є Ж З З́ Ѕ И І Ї Ꙇ И́ Ѝ И̂ Ӣ Й Ӥ Ј К Л Љ М Н Њ О О́ О̀ О̂ Ō Ӧ П Р С С́ Т Ћ Ќ У У́ У̀ У̂ Ӯ Ў Ӱ Ф Х Ц Ч Џ Ш Щ Ꙏ Ъ Ъ̀ Ы Ы́ Ь Ѣ Э Э́ Ю Ю́ Ю̀ Я Я́ Я̀
Non-Slavic letters
Ӑ А̊ А̃ Ӓ̄ Ӕ Ә Ә́ Ә̃ Ӛ В̌ Ԝ Г̑ Г̇ Г̣ Г̌ Г̂ Г̆ Г̈ г̊ Ҕ Ғ Ӻ Ғ̌ ғ̊ Ӷ Г̡ Д́ Д̌ Д̈ Д̣ Д̆ Ӗ Е̃ Ё̄ Є̈ Ԑ Ԑ̈ Җ Ӝ Ӂ Ж̣ Ҙ Ӟ З̌ З̣ З̆ Ӡ И̃ Ҋ Қ Ӄ Ҡ Ҟ Ҝ К̣ к̊ қ̊ Ԛ ᴫ Л́ Ӆ Ԯ Ԓ Л̈ Ӎ ᵸ Н́ Ӊ Ң Ԩ Ӈ Ҥ О̆ О̃ Ӧ̄ Ө Ө̄ Ө́ Ө̆ Ӫ Ԥ П̈ Р̌ Ҏ С̌ Ҫ С̣ С̱ Т́ Т̈ Т̌ Т̇ Т̣ Ҭ Ᲊ У̃ Ӳ У̊ Ӱ̄ Ұ Ү Ү́ Х̣ Х̱ Х̮ Х̑ Х̌ Ҳ Ӽ х̊ Ӿ ӿ̊ Һ Һ̈ Ԧ Ц̌ Ц̈ Ҵ Ҷ Ҷ̣ Ӵ Ӌ Ҹ Ч̇ Ч̣ Ҽ Ҿ Ш̣ ꚜ Ы̆ Ы̄ Ӹ ꚝ Ҍ Ҩ Э̆ Э̄ Э̇ Ӭ Ӭ́ Ӭ̄ Ю̆ Ю̈ Ю̄ Я̆ Я̄ Я̈ Ӏ ʼ ˮ
Archaicor unused letters
А̨ Б̀ Б̣ Б̱ В̀ Г̀ Г̧ Г̄ Г̓ Ҕ̀ Ҕ̆ Ԁ Д̓ Д̀ Д̨ Ԃ Ꚁ Ꙣ Е̇ Е̨ Ж̀ Ж̑ Ꙃ Ꙅ Џ̆ Ꚅ Ꚅ̆ Ꙁ З̀ З̑ Ԅ Ԇ Ꚉ Ԫ Ꚃ Ꚕ І̂ І̣ І̨ Ј̵ Ј̃ Ꙉ К̓ К̀ К̆ Ӄ̆ К̑ К̇ К̈ К̄ Ԟ К̂ Л̀ Ԡ Ꙥ Ԉ Л̑ Л̇ Ԕ М̀ М̃ Ꙧ Н̀ Н̄ Н̧ Н̃ Ԋ Ԣ Н̡ Ѻ Ꙩ Ꙫ Ꙭ ꙮ Ꚙ Ꚛ П̓ П̀ П́ Ҧ П̧ П̑ Ҁ Ԛ̆ Р́ Р̀ Р̃ Ԗ С̀ С̈ Ԍ Ҫ̓ Т̓ Т̀ Ԏ Т̑ Ꚋ Т̧ Ꚍ Ꚍ̆ Ѹ Ꙋ У̇ У̨ ꙋ́ Ф̑ Ф̓ Х́ Х̀ Х̆ Х̇ Х̧ Х̾ Х̓ һ̱ Ѡ Ꙍ Ѽ Ѿ Ꙡ Ц̀ Ц́ Ц̓ Ꚏ Ꚏ̆ Ꚑ Ч́ Ч̀ Ч̆ Ч̑ Ч̓ Ԭ Ꚓ Ꚇ Ꚇ̆ Ҽ̆ Ш̀ Ш̆ Ш̑ Щ̆ Ꚗ Ꚗ̆ Ъ̄ Ъ̈ Ъ̈̄ Ꙑ Ы̂ Ы̃ Ѣ́ Ѣ̈ Ѣ̆ Ꙓ Э̨ Э̂ Ꙕ Ю̂ Ꙗ Я̈ Я̂ Я̨ Ԙ Ѥ Ѧ Ꙙ Ѫ Ꙛ Ѩ Ꙝ Ѭ Ѯ Ѱ Ѳ Ѵ Ѷ Ꙟ
List of Cyrillic letters List of Cyrillic multigraphs

Hard sign, fromAlexandre Benois' 1904Alpha bet book.It showsdub′(oak),vjezd′(entry) andsyr′(cheese).

Originally the yer denoted an ultra-short orreducedmidrounded vowel.It is one of two reduced vowels that are collectively known as theyersin Slavic philology.

Bulgarian

InBulgarian,theer goljam( "ер голям") is the 27th letter of the Alpha bet. It is used for the phoneme representing themid back unrounded vowel/ɤ̞/,sometimes also notated as aschwa/ə/.It sounds somewhat like the vowel sound in some pronunciations of English "but "[bʌ̘t]orMandarin"de"( )[tɤ].It sounds similar to theRomanianletter "ă"(for example, in"băiat"[bəˈjat̪]) andEstonianletterõ.In unstressed positions (in the same manner as ⟨а⟩), ⟨ъ⟩ is normally pronounced/ɐ/,which sounds like Sanskrit "a"(अ), Portuguese"terra"[ˈtɛxɐ],or the German-erin the word "Kinder"[ˈkʰɪndɐ].Unlike the schwa sound in English, the Bulgarian/ɤ̞/can appear in unstressed as well as in stressed syllables, for example in "въ́здух"['vɤ̞zdux] 'air' or even at the beginning of words (only in the word"ъ́гъл"['ɤ̞gɐɫ] ‘angle’).

Before the reform of 1945, this sound was written with two letters, "ъ" and "ѫ"(" big yus ", denoting a formernasal vowel). 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 notstressed).

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 Alpha bets ofBelarusianorUkrainian,its functions being performed by theapostropheinstead. In the Latin Belarusian Alpha bet (Łacinka), as inPolish,the hard sign's functions are performed by a followingjrather than theithat would be present after a palatalized consonant.

Rusyn

In theCarpatho-RusynAlpha bets of Slovakia and Poland, ъ (also known as ір in Cyrillic or yr in Latin Alpha bets) is the last letter of the Alpha bet, unlike the majority ofCyrillicAlpha bets, which place ъ afterщ.InPannonian Rusyn,ъ is not present.

Macedonian

AlthoughMacedonianis most closely related to Bulgarian, its writing system does not use theyer.During the creation of the modern Macedonian orthography in the late 1944 and the first half of 1945, theyerwas 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 Alpha bet and orthography design team,Venko Markovskiargued for using the letteryer,much like the Bulgarian orthography does, butBlaže Koneskiwas against it. An early version of the Alpha bet promulgated on December 28, 1944, contained theyer,but in the final version of the Alpha bet, approved in May 1945, Koneski's point of view prevailed, and noyerwas used.

The absence ofyerleads 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 writerKonstantin Miladinov's poemТ'га за југ(Bulgarian:Тъга за юг).

Russian

Modern Russian: hard sign

In Modern Russian, the letter "ъ" is called thehard sign(твёрдый знак /tvjordyj znak). It has no phonetic value of its own and is purely an orthographic device or it doesn't make a sound. Its function is to separate a number of prefixes ending in consonants from subsequentmorphemesthat begin withiotatedvowels. In native words, it is therefore only seen in front of the letters "я", "е", "ё", and "ю" (ja,je,jo,andjuin English). The hard sign marks the fact that the sound[j]continues to be heard separately in the composition. For example:

• сесть[ˈsʲesʲtʲ]sjestʹ'sit down'
• съесть[ˈsjesʲtʲ]sʺjestʹperfective form of 'eat'

It therefore functions as a kind of "separation sign" and has been used only sparingly in the aforementioned cases since thespelling 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), theArabic ʽayn(e.g.Даръа—Darʽa[ˈdarʕa]), or combined with a consonant to form aKhoisanclick(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 alsoRussian phonologyandRussian orthography).

Finalyerpre-1918

Before 1918, 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" (kotʺ) before the reform, and "кот" (kot) after it. This old usage of ъ was eliminated by the spelling reform of 1918, implemented by theBolsheviksafter the 1917October Revolution.Because of the way this reform was implemented, the issue became politicized, leading to a number of printing houses inPetrogradrefusing to follow the new rules. To force the printing houses to comply,red sailorsof theBaltic Fleetconfiscated type carrying the "parasite letters".Printers were forced to use a non-standardapostrophefor 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 sometypewritersthat did not include the hard sign, which became the rarest letter in Russian. InBelarusianandUkrainian,the hard sign was never brought back, and the apostrophe is still in use today.

According to the rough estimation presented in Lev Uspensky'spopularlinguistics bookA Word On Words(Слово о словах /Slovo o slovakh), 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 for the reform.

Printing houses set up by Russianémigrésabroad kept using the pre-reform orthography for some time, but gradually they adopted the new spelling. Meanwhile, in theUSSR,Dahl’s Explanatory Dictionarywas repeatedly (1935, 1955) reprinted in compliance with theold rules of spellingand the pre-reform Alpha bet.

Today the finalyeris sometimes used in Russianbrandnames: the newspaperKommersant(Коммерсантъ) uses the letter to emphasize its continuity with the pre-Soviet newspaper of the same name. Such usage is often inconsistent, as thecopywritersmay 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 ofѣandі.It is also sometimes encountered in humorous personal writing adding to the text an "old-fashioned flavour" or separately denotingtrue.

Statistics

The hard sign is the rarest grapheme of the Russian language. Out of all 200,000 documented words in Russian, only 0.02% contain the letter Ъ. Despite its rare usage in Russian, it is considered one of the most common letters in Bulgarian.

Languages of the Caucasus and Crimean Tatar

In Cyrillic orthographies for variouslanguages of the Caucasus,along with thesoft signand thepalochka,the hard sign is a modifier letter, used extensively in forming digraphs and trigraphs designating sounds alien in Slavic, such as /q/ andejectives.For example, inOssetian,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 theCrimean Tatar languagefor the same purpose. InChechenandIngush,the hard sign can represent a glottal stop in addition to its use to represent the ejective consonants used in these languages.

Tajik

In the Cyrillic version of theTajik Alpha bet,ъ denotes aglottal stop,usually found inArabicloanwords.

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 letteryat
• Ƅ ƅ:Latin letter tone 6
• ”:Double Quote

Computing codes

Character information

Preview	Ъ		ъ		ᲆ
Unicode name	CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER HARD SIGN		CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER HARD SIGN		CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER TALL HARD SIGN
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	1066	U+042A	1098	U+044A	7302	U+1C86
UTF-8	208 170	D0 AA	209 138	D1 8A	225 178 134	E1 B2 86
Numeric character reference	Ъ	Ъ	ъ	ъ	ᲆ	ᲆ
Named character reference	Ъ		ъ
KOI8-RandKOI8-U	255	FF	223	DF
Code page 855	159	9F	158	9E
Code page 866	154	9A	234	EA
Windows-1251	218	DA	250	FA
Macintosh Cyrillic	154	9A	250	FA

External links

• The dictionary definition ofЪat Wiktionary