Ъ

The letter **Ъ ъ** (italics *Ъ*, *ъ*) of the Cyrillic script is known as **er golyam** (ер голям– "big er") in the Bulgarian alphabet, as the **hard sign** (Russian: твёрдый знак, romanized: *tvjórdyj znak*, pronounced [ˈtvʲɵrdɨj ˈznak], Rusyn: твердый знак, romanized: *tverdyj znak*) in the modern Russian and Rusyn alphabets (although in Rusyn, ъ could also be known as ір), as the **debelo jer** (дебело їер, "fat er") in pre-reform Serbian orthography, and as ***ayirish belgisi*** in the Uzbek Cyrillic alphabet. The letter is called **back yer** or **back jer** and **yor** or **jor** in the pre-reform Russian orthography, in Old East Slavic, and in Old Church Slavonic.

Originally the yer denoted an ultra-short or reduced mid rounded vowel.[*citation needed*] It is one of two reduced vowels that are collectively known as the yers in Slavic philology.

## Bulgarian

In Bulgarian, the *er goljam* ("ер голям") is the 27th letter of the alphabet. It is used for the phoneme representing the mid back unrounded vowel /ɤ̞/, sometimes also notated as a schwa /ə/. It sounds somewhat like the vowel sound in some pronunciations of English "b***u***t" [bʌ̘t] or the Chinese "*d**e***" (的) [tɤ]. It sounds similar to the Romanian letter "ă" (for example, in "*b**ă**iat*" [bəˈjat̪]) and Estonian letter õ. In unstressed positions (in the same manner as ⟨а⟩), ⟨ъ⟩ is normally pronounced /ɐ/, which sounds like Sanskrit "***a***" (अ), Portuguese "*terr**a***" [ˈtɛʁɐ], or the German ***-er*** in the word "*Kind**er***" [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 former nasal 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 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, its functions being performed by the apostrophe instead. In the Latin Belarusian alphabet (Łacinka), as in Polish, 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 alphabets of Slovakia and Poland, ъ (also known as ір in Cyrillic or yr in Latin alphabets) is the last letter of the alphabet, unlike the majority of Cyrillic alphabets, which place ъ after щ. In Pannonian Rusyn, ъ is not present.

## Macedonian

Although Macedonian is most 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 argued for using the letter *yer*, much like the Bulgarian orthography does, but Blaže Koneski 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's poem Т'га за југ(Bulgarian: 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 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 [j] continues to be heard separately in the composition. For example:

* сесть [ˈsʲesʲtʲ] *sjestʹ* 'sit down'
* съесть [ˈsjesʲtʲ] *sʺjestʹ* 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), the Arabic ʽayn (e.g. Даръа — Darʽa [ˈdarʕa]), or combined with a consonant to form a Khoisan 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 and Russian orthography).