Буква Ъ в кириллице: история и употребление

Letter of the Cyrillic script

The letter Ъ ъ (italics Ъ, ъ) of the Cyrillic script is known as er goläm (ер голям – "big er") in the Bulgarian alphabet, as the hard sign (твёрдый знак, , ) 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. It is one of two reduced vowels that are collectively known as the yers in Slavic philology.

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 , sometimes also notated as a schwa It sounds somewhat like the vowel sound in some pronunciations of English "but" or Mandarin "de" (的) It sounds similar to the Romanian letter "ă" (for example, in "băiat" ) and Estonian 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 "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⟩.

The letter ъ is not used in the alphabets of Belarusian or 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.

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.

In Cyrillic orthographies for various languages of the Caucasus, along with the soft sign and the palochka, the hard sign is a modifier letter, used extensively in forming digraphs and trigraphs designating sounds alien in Slavic, such as /q/ and ejectives. 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 for the same purpose. In addition, in Chechen, the hard sign can represent a glottal stop.

In the Cyrillic version of the Tajik alphabet, ъ denotes a glottal stop, usually found in Arabic loanwords.