Designations of a hard sign in Russian. "Ъ" and "ѣ" as signs of the elite
LETTER J: PRESENT AND PAST
Yuzhannikov Vladislav
5 A class, MBOU "Secondary School No. 31"
Kanifatova Alena Alexandrovna
scientific supervisor, teacher of Russian language and literature,Novokuznetsk
There are 33 letters in the Russian alphabet. Most of these letters have their own sound designation, and sometimes not one, but two. So, for example, in the word CONFERENCE, the letter E is present in both the second and third syllables, but in the second syllable in a weak position without stress, we pronounce the vowel sound I, and in the third syllable, with stress, the sound E. A special place among all letters is occupied by soft and hard signs, since they do not produce sounds. These letters have their own special roles in words. So we know that the letter b ( soft sign) serves to indicate the softness of a consonant sound (salt, coat), and also performs a separate function (blizzard, ants). In contrast to this letter, the role of the solid sign is assigned a small one. It serves as a separation. The only letters, in front of which a solid sign can be placed are E, Yo, Yu and I (rasЪ e roam, sb e mka, raz I remove, lift Yu bnik). However, Lately In Russia, attempts are being made to use this letter for other purposes.
More and more often on the streets of our city we see signs with the names of some institutions, at the end of which there is a solid sign. For example, real estate agencies “Variant”, “Adres”, store “Lombard”, coffee “Petr”, magazine “Gatronom”, taxi “Yamshchik”, etc.
In this regard, the problem of this work is to find out: why in modern proper names the letter Ъ appears at the end of the names, what is the history of this letter.
The purpose of this study: trace the use of the letter Ъ in modern names from the point of view of its validity and significance.
In order to introduce children to letters, in modern alphabet books, for each letter, to make it easier for the child, not only a drawing, but also a short poem is offered. What can you write about a solid sign? Let's look through a few of these books.
1. We know that there is both an entrance and an exit,
There is a rise, and there is an entrance,
We can't live without them,
Very important... (firm sign)
2. Announces Kommersant:
The beast is my enemy and the bird is my enemy!
I'd rather hide in the entrance
And no one will eat me!
3. I can’t find it in any way
There is a solid sign at the zoo.
I don't know these animals.
Help me, friends!
In Danish K.’s poem about the solid sign, the stanza caught my attention:
Used to be an important person
He was held in high esteem under the king,
He's in almost every word
I visited and served.
The question arises: what service did the solid sign perform previously?
Having turned to various sources, I found three main functions of this letter in the Old Russian language.
Thus, in the first Russian alphabet, created by the enlighteners, the brothers Cyril and Methodius, the letter Ъ (hard sign) was called EP and was the 29th letter, denoting an ultra-short vowel sound that is not pronounced. However, in writing, the use of this unpronounceable letter was quite useful: it helped to correctly break the line into words (before moving on to using spaces): For example: to God's chosen king.
But it should be noted that this hypothesis in no way justifies the appearance of this letter in modern names. Since, according to my observations, this sign is found in proper names consisting of only one word (“Admiral”, “Tavern”, “Gastronom”). In addition, as already mentioned, this letter played the role of an ultra-short vowel sound. In Russian, the vowel sound is the syllable-forming sound, so there are as many syllables in a word as there are vowels: aria(3 syllables), lighthouse(2 syllables), flight(1 syllable). Syllables can be open (end with a vowel) or closed (end with a consonant). For example, in the word ko-ro-na all syllables are open, but in the word ar-buz both syllables are closed.
A characteristic feature of syllable division in the Old Russian language was that it obeyed the law of the open syllable, as a result of which all syllables were open, that is, they ended in a vowel sound. The law of the open syllable determined the fact that in the Old Russian language there could not be consonants at the end of the word, since in this case the syllable would be closed. Therefore, at the end of words ending in consonants they wrote b (er).
Let us trace this on the material under study. “Traktir”, coffee “Admiral”, store “Lombard”, coffee “Peter”, magazine “Gastronom”, taxi “Yamshchik”, real estate agencies “Variant” and “Adres”... Indeed, in all cases this letter is written at the end of the word , after a consonant sound, in this case the modern closed syllable turns into an open one.
The famous Russian linguist Lev Vasilyevich Uspensky (1900-1978) in his book “A Word about Words” calls the hard sign “the most expensive letter in the world.” Since, in his opinion, “he did not help anything, did not express anything, did absolutely nothing.” And in some texts this sign was used more often than other vowels. Let us trace this in an excerpt from the ancient Russian chronicle “The Tale of Bygone Years.”
In total, this text contains 144 words, which account for 31 er; practically, this sign is written in every fourth word, and in some words it appears twice. For example: asked, entered, sorcerer.
The Soviet government also noticed the meaningless use of this sign, which greatly increased the text and, accordingly, printing costs. Therefore, according to the Decree “On the Introduction of a New Spelling” (1918), the letter Ъ (er) was excluded from the Russian alphabet. There is no longer anything to mean for the “dividing er” in the middle of words. They came up with a replacement for it: in its place they began to put an apostrophe (superscript comma) or quotation marks after the preceding letter. In August 1928, the government recognized the use of an apostrophe in the middle of a word instead of the letter “hard sign” as unusual for Russian grammar. In modern Russian spelling, Ъ (hard sign) is used only as a separator between a consonant and a vowel. Most often used at the junction of a prefix and a root (announcement, entrance), as well as in some borrowed words (adjutant, injection) and in two adjacent full (not abbreviated!) stems in difficult words(three-tier).
It should be noted that in the Old Russian language, in addition to two functions (space and syllable formation), the letter Ъ (er) had a third function - a masculine indicator. It was written after consonants at the end of nouns (Oleg, kudesnik, lob), in masculine past tense verbs (put, died), as well as in short masculine adjectives (lob gol, prince beautiful). When he disappeared from this position, the masculine gender began to be defined by a graphic zero in contrast to the feminine (book - table).
Does Ъ (hard sign) perform this function in modern names? “Traktir”, coffee “Admiral”, store “Lombard”, coffee “Peter”, magazine “Gastronom”, taxi “Yamshchik”, real estate agencies “Variant” and “Adres”... Indeed, all these are masculine nouns.
Consequently, based on the material studied, the appearance of the letter Ъ (a hard sign) in the modern names of various institutions can be justified from the point of view of the history of this letter. Firstly, as a super-short vowel sound that converts a closed syllable into an open one. Secondly, in all these words the hard sign is also an indicator of the masculine gender, according to the laws of the Old Russian language.
But did the entrepreneurs who added this letter to the names of their companies know these facts? I addressed this question to entrepreneurs and employees of these institutions. A total of 14 people were interviewed. Of these, only 3 people know that this was once a vowel letter, 12 people know that this letter was written at the end of masculine nouns. When asked what they were guided by when adding Ъ (hard sign) after hard consonants, they unanimously answered that these are commercial ploys that serve to create a certain image of a product or institution, which is intended to emphasize the good quality of the enterprise, using a stable idea: “pre-revolutionary (old) " = "good".
In our city there are a number of stores whose names may have a solid sign at the end of the word: “Cosmos”, “Sapphire”, “Stimul”, “Comfort”, “Zenith”, “Visit”, “Phoenix”, “Topaz” . I hope that in the future, if entrepreneurs want to add the letter Ъ (firm sign) to the names of their companies and institutions, this will not be just a tribute to fashion or a commercial move, but a historically based decision.
Bibliography:
- Gorshkov A.I. All the richness, strength and flexibility of our language. A.S. Pushkin in the history of the Russian language: A book for extracurricular reading for students - M.: Education, 1993. - 176 pp.: ill. - ISBN5-09-003452-4.
- Gorbanevsky M.V. In the world of names and titles. - M.: Knowledge, 1983. - 192 p.
- Russian language. Theoretical description. Tutorial for students of the specialty “Russian language and literature” Kuibyshev, 2012: pp. 35-38
- Uspensky L.. A word about words. Essays on language, Children's literature, 1971 http://royallib.ru
- [Electronic resource]. Access mode: URL: http://www.grafomanam.
- [Electronic resource]. Access mode: URL: http://ja-rastu.ru/poeme/azbuka/
- [Electronic resource]. Access mode: URL: http://ru.wikipedia
- [Electronic resource]. Access mode: URL:
The letter Ъ, ъ (referred to as a hard sign) is the 28th letter of the Russian alphabet (it was the 27th letter before the reform of 1917-1918 and bore the name “er”) and the 27th letter of the Bulgarian alphabet (called er golyam, i.e. “big er”); is absent in other Cyrillic Slavic alphabets: if necessary, its functions are performed by an apostrophe (Russian congress - Bel. z'ezd - Ukrainian. z'izd).
In the Church and Old Church Slavonic alphabets it is called “er” and “ѥръ” respectively; its meaning (as well as the meaning of the names of a number of other Cyrillic letters) is not clear. Usually in the Cyrillic alphabet it is 29th in order and has the form ; The 30th in the Glagolitic alphabet looks like . Has no numerical value.
The origin of the letter in the Glagolitic alphabet is usually interpreted as a modified letter O (); Cyrillic is also associated with O, to which something is drawn on top (such forms are found in the most ancient inscriptions in Cyrillic).
Church and Old Church Slavonic language
Approximately until the very middle of the 12th century. the letter Ъ denoted a reduced (super-short) vowel sound of medium rise. After the fall of the reduced ones occurred, any sound ceased to be designated in all Slavic languages except Bulgarian (in Bulgaria, in specific positions, a similar sound ɤ is still preserved, along with its designation using the letter Ъ: Bulgarian modern alphabet ).
But the use of this unpronounceable letter in writing turned out to be useful: it contributed to the correct division of words into syllables, and lines into words (until they switched to using spaces): to God's chosen king.
In later Church Slavonic writing it is used according to tradition:
Most often after consonants at the ends of words (i.e. a word can only end with a vowel, b, b or j);
As a sign of separation between a consonant and a vowel, located at the boundary of a prefix and a root;
In some words: monkey, after, and also in all kinds of forms of phrases for each other, each other...
In a number of cases (mainly at the ends of prefixes and prepositions) er is replaced by a superscript called “erok”.
Kommersant in Russian
In 1917-1918, even before the reform of Russian spelling, the letter Ъ was used in accordance with the same Church Slavonic rules, but there were no exception words. The dividing Ъ (unlike modern spelling) was placed not only before iotized vowels, but also in a number of other cases, such as rasikatsya, sjekonomichet, dvuharshiny, etc. (including it made it possible to distinguish the words podarochny and gift in writing).
But the dividing Kommersant was very rare (however, as now), and the very useless Kommersant at the ends of words accounted for almost 4% of the total volume of the text and, as L.V. Uspensky calculated, before the spelling reform it required up to 8.5 annually. million additional pages.
The redundancy of the terminal b has been known for a long time; it may not have been used in cursive writing, during the transmission of telegraph messages, and even in a number of books (printing without Kommersant spread in the 1870s, but was soon banned).
During the reform, b, which plays the role of a dividing sign, was preserved; but in order to cope with the publishers of magazines and newspapers who did not want to comply with the decisions of the new government, the decree of the Supreme Council of National Economy of November 4, 1918 ordered the removal of matrices and letters of the letter B from printing desks, which was done.
The result was the spread of the surrogate designation apostrophe (ad’jutant, rise) in the form of a dividing sign; such writing began to be perceived as an element of reform, while in reality, from the positions set out in the decree, it was erroneous. There was a time (late 1920s - early 1930s) when it moved into book publishing, and, for example, in typewriting it has practically survived to this day (in order to save the number of keys, inexpensive typewriters were made without b).
In August 1928, the People's Commissariat for Education recognized the use of an apostrophe in Russian grammar instead of a hard sign in the middle of a word as incorrect.
Ъ in modern Russian spelling is used only as a sign of separation between a consonant and a vowel. It is most often used at the junctions of prefixes and roots (entrance, advert, trans-Yamal, pan-European), including historical prefixes “fused” in modern Russian with the root in a number of borrowings (adjutant, courier, injection); or in the case of 2 combined non-contracted (full!) stems before iotated e, yu, ё, i in such complex words as (“three-tiered”) and means “separate” (iotated) their sound without softening the previous consonant.
Before other vowels, Ъ can only appear in transcriptions of foreign names and names: Junichiro, Chang'an, etc.
The use of Ъ before consonants has also been noted (in the names of Khoisan languages: Kgan-Kune, Khong, etc.), although the correctness of such spellings in Russian orthography is questionable.
It cannot be used in complex words such as party cell, ministry of justice, foreign language.
Spelling variations
In the outline of the letter Ъ, diversity is observed mainly in its size while maintaining its shape: it is in the line completely in the charter, in the half-chart it is both in the line and protrudes with its upper part upward, while covering the previous letter with it, but in width it takes up space less. This “high” form existed until the mid-century. XVIII century main and appeared in the first versions of the civil font.
The tall lowercase letter ъ in a number of variants of the civil font lost its hook, i.e. its form was identified with the Latin lowercase b (at the same time, the lowercase ь had a modern appearance).
In a number of semi-statutory manuscripts and early printed books (for example, in the “Ostrozh Bible” by I. Fedorov) one also comes across the letter Ъ with a serif going down to the bottom on the left (i.e., in the form of connected rъ), although more often a sign of a similar form denoted a letter yat.
On October 10, 1918, a large-scale reform of Russian spelling came into force: letters were removed from the alphabet, including the unpronounceable “ѣ”, which was once considered a sign of literacy. Almost a century later, the presence of “yat” in the company logo has become a mystical sign of authority for many. Life about why the outdated rules of the Russian language turned out to be so attractive to the marketing machine.
98 years ago, Russian spelling underwent significant changes: the letters “fita” (Ѳ), “and decimal” (I) and the now fashionable “yat” (ѣ) were deleted from the alphabet. Also, the proletarian reform changed the rules for using the hard sign or, as it was called under the emperor, “er”: the unpronounceable letter no longer needed to be placed at the end of words ending in a consonant: there was no point. However, as history has shown, entrepreneurs were and still are not in agreement with innovations.
According to SPARK-Interfax, more than 50 Russian companies used the word “yat” in their name and 219 more organizations - a solid sign. In the overwhelming majority of cases, “ъ” and “ѣ” are used in trade (both retail and wholesale), and a little less often in the names of construction and law firms. As experts note, brands in the old style are an attempt to artificially instill history and traditions in a company.
The beer restaurant "Durdin", the restaurant "Cafe Pushkin", the bakery "Daily Bread", vodka "Ѣ", the newspaper "Kommersant", the mixed martial arts club "R.O.D.Ъ", St. - St. Petersburg restaurant "Restaurant". And dozens of such examples can be given.
The BQB company, which was developing the Yat vodka brand (the company logo looks like the now unused letter “ѣ”), notes on its official website that Nicholas I refused during his reign (the first half of the 19th century. - Note Life) to abolish the unpronounceable letter, arguing that it is - "a sign of distinction between literate gentlemen and illiterate ones." Therefore, as the agency states, the advertised alcohol is “a product for literate gentlemen who understand real Russian vodka.”
And the head of the mixed martial arts club "R.O.D.B." Ivan Ivanov said that with a strong sign in the name of the organization he wanted to emphasize that everyone who comes to study will go to the end and achieve their goals.
When we came up with the name, we decided to rely on the most important root in the Russian language - “rod”. It is with him that the most precious thing a person has is connected: parents, homeland, for example. This is something you can fight for, something to become better for. We also wanted to show the firmness of our intentions and those who would come to us, so we also added “ъ,” says Ivanov.
Professor of the Russian Language Department of the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University Elena Galinskaya, in turn, said that the letter “ѣ” was abolished because over time it became clear that it duplicates “e” in its sound.
At one time the sounds were different, but over time both letters sounded like “e”. The only difference was in the writing. Children in gymnasiums had to memorize a list of words (in rhymes) in which the letter “yat” was used. Therefore, we can say that only very literate people could use “ѣ”, says Galinskaya. - The hard sign in the 11th century was considered a vowel letter (that is, in the word “bread” after the sound “p” there was something similar to a short “s.” - Note Life), then it became clear that we needed to get rid of redundancy in spelling.
According to the professor, entrepreneurs who use “yat” or a hard sign at the end in company names are dudes.
It's also good if used correctly. For example, the bakery near "Park Kultury" used to (now removed) called itself "HL "Daily fuck" (bakery chain Le Pain Quotidien. - Note Life), but this is incorrect. If you use “yat”, then you must fully follow the old spelling rules. According to them, it was necessary to write “Daily Bread” correctly.
Le Pain Quotidien bakery could not be reached for immediate comment.
As a market source explained, the outdated letter in the name is used to attract attention adult audience(over 40 years old).
These people often perceive “yat” or even a hard sign at the end of a word as a symbol, so to speak, of “soft dissidence.” IN Soviet time“yat” was often used by those who did not want to put up with the power of the proletarians. After all, a whole era has passed with the old spelling rules, says the interlocutor. - We also tried to bring ourselves closer to the entrepreneurs of the 19th century: Grigory Eliseev, Savva Morozov. What if our brand is just as old? We appealed to consumers' supermemory. Still, not everyone in Tsarist Russia knew how to use “yat” correctly; this is really a letter for intelligent people.
Life, in turn, asked readers about what associations the letter “yat” and the hard sign after a consonant evoke. It turned out that some Russians immediately imagine texts in Church Slavonic, while others react completely negatively to “ѣ”, calling such naming bad taste.
It is worth noting that fashion old spelling got to social networks. For example, on VKontakte there are groups “Pre-revolutionary Soviet” (more than 50 thousand people subscribed to it) and “Ub hedgehog in your native language. My home and my fortress" (more than 3 thousand subscribers). And a number of members of the first public (it is open to everyone) not only read the posts of admins, written in the old style, but in the same manner they comment on the posts: "Really, gentlemen, this young lady is a wonderful siren. Other gentlemen would lay down half the world at her feet."This is both laughter and sin." And judging by the high calm (without any sarcasm) Russians try to communicate on the public page, some find such groups funny (here " new language", and therefore one can recall the “drowning effect”), while others, perhaps, really feel like part of a special intelligent stratum.
Member of the Guild of Marketers Nicholas Corot emphasized that the letter itself cannot bring anything to the business; it must be an organic addition to the brand legend.
A deliberate manifestation of the archaic (that is, antiquity. - Note Life) in the form of letters lost from the alphabet is not associated with monarchical tendencies in business or some kind of nostalgia. This is a visual sign of the connection between times. A pseudo-legend is being created that says that the brand survived the Soviet era, that it follows traditions,” explains Koro. - Also, the use of “yat” or a solid sign can be a full-fledged address to the imperial trend. And he is.
At the same time, the marketer noted that there is nothing special in the choice of “ъ” and “ѣ”. Sooner or later, the disappearing letters will be used by entrepreneurs.
A good example is the letter "e". It is no longer printed anywhere with dots. Outwardly today it is exactly the same as “e”, and therefore it will probably disappear soon. That’s why today there are brands that deliberately display “e” with dots. After all, on the one hand, this letter has a certain slang component (rapper), on the other - lexical, including obscene, connotations.
The head of the PR agency Nota Bene, Natalya Bulanova, emphasized that “out of the blue” no one introduces “yat” or a hard sign at the end into the name of their company.
The brand must match. This is a direct reference to old Russian traditions. And it doesn’t matter how old the company is (even three years, for example). She wants to show the consumer that she can be trusted,” says Bulanova. - And the Russian buyer is not tired of this. This is not to say that this phenomenon occurs all the time. This “trick” with the birth of a legend works because few people will bother and search on the Internet to find out how old the company is and whether it has a history. Purely visually, this makes you believe in quality when it comes to small purchases (sausage, for example). If a person buys a car or an apartment, then, of course, he will not believe in any fairy tales.
The famous Soviet-era linguist Lev Uspensky calls it the most expensive letter in the world. In his work on the origin of words, one can see how he relates to it. In his words, “she absolutely does nothing, helps nothing, expresses nothing.” A pertinent question arises: how did the letter Ъ appear in the Russian language, and what role did its creators assign to it?
The history of the appearance of the letter Ъ
The authorship of the first Russian alphabet is attributed to Cyril and Mythodius. The so-called Cyrillic alphabet, which was based on the Greek language, appeared in 863 after the birth of Christ. In their alphabet, the hard sign was number 29 and sounded like ER. (before the reform of 1917-1918 - 27th in a row). The letter Ъ was a short semi-vowel sound without pronunciation. It was placed at the end of a word after a hard consonant.
What then is the meaning of this letter? There are two tractable versions of this explanation.
The first option concerned the Old Slavonic letter itself. Since the familiar spaces at that time simply did not exist, it was she who helped to correctly divide the line into words. As an example: “to God’s chosen king.”
The second explanation is associated with the Church Slavonic pronunciation of words. It was ER that did not muffle the voiced consonant when reading the word, as we see in modern Russian.
We pronounce the words flu and mushroom, which have different meanings, the same way - (flu). There was no such sound phonetics in the Old Church Slavonic language. All words were both written and pronounced. For example: slave, friend, bread. This was explained by the fact that the division of syllables in the Old Church Slavonic language was subject to one law, which sounded like this:
“In the Old Church Slavonic language, the ending of a word cannot have consonants. Otherwise the syllable will be closed. What cannot happen according to this law.”
In view of the above, we decided to assign ERb (Ъ) at the end of words where there are consonants. So it turns out: Deli, Tavern, Pawnshop or Address.
In addition to the above two reasons, there is also a third. It turns out that the letter Ъ was used to denote the masculine gender. For example, in nouns: Alexander, wizard, forehead. They also inserted it into verbs, for example: put, sat, (past tense masculine).
Over time, the letter Ъ performed the function of a word separator less and less often. But the “useless” Kommersant at the end of the words still held its position. According to the aforementioned linguist L.V. Uspensky. this small “squiggle” could take up up to 4% of the entire text. And these are millions and millions of pages every year.
18th century reforms
Anyone who believes that the Bolsheviks fired a control shot at the “head” of the ill-fated letter Kommersant and thereby cleansed the Russian language of church prejudices is a little mistaken. The Bolsheviks simply “finished off” her in 1917. It all started much earlier!
Peter himself thought about language reform, especially about Russian writing. An experimenter in life, Peter had long dreamed of inhaling new life into the “decrepit” Old Church Slavonic language. Unfortunately, his plans only remained plans. But the fact that he got this issue off the ground is his merit.
The reforms that Peter began from 1708 to 1710 primarily affected the church script. The filigree “squiggles” of church letters were replaced by common civilian ones. Letters such as “Omega”, “Psi” or “Yusy” have disappeared into oblivion. The familiar letters E and Z appeared.
IN Russian Academy Scientists began to think about the rationality of using certain letters. So the idea of excluding “Izhitsy” from the alphabet arose among academicians already in 1735. And in one of the printing publications of the same academy, a few years later an article was published without the notorious letter B at the end.
Control shot for the letter Ъ
In 1917, there were two shots - one on the cruiser Aurora, the other at the Academy of Sciences. Some people believe that the reform of Russian writing is the merit of the Bolsheviks exclusively. But historical documents confirm that in this matter, tsarist Russia also moved forward.
In the first years of the 20th century, Moscow and Kazan linguists were already talking about the reform of the Russian language. 1904 was the first step in this direction. The Academy of Sciences was created special commission, the purpose of which was to simplify the Russian language. One of the questions at the commission was the notorious letter B. Then the Russian alphabet lost “Fita” and “Yat”. New spelling rules were introduced in 1912, but, unfortunately, they were never censored then.
Thunder struck on December 23, 1917 (01/05/18). On this day, People's Commissar of Education Lunacharsky A.V. signed a decree on the transition to a new spelling. The letter Kommersant, as a symbol of resistance to the Bolsheviks, breathed its last.
In order to speed up the funeral of everything that was associated with the “tsarist regime,” on November 4, 1918, the Bolsheviks issued a decree on the removal of the matrix and letters of the letter Kommersant from printing houses. As a result of this, a spelling miscarriage of the Bolsheviks appeared - the apostrophe. The function of the separator was now played by a comma (lifting, moving).
One era has ended and another has begun. Who would have thought that the small letter B would become so big and important in the confrontation between two worlds, white and red, old and new, before the shot and after!
But the letter Ъ remained. It remains simply as the 28th letter of the alphabet. In modern Russian it plays a different role. But that's a completely different story.