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A hard vowel sign. Letter ъ: present and past

A hard vowel sign. Letter ъ: present and past

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. 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 is offered, but also a short poem. What can you write about 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 at all

There is a solid sign at the zoo.

I don't know these animals.

Help me, friends!

In the poem by Danish K. 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 studied material, 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, it will not be just a tribute to fashion or a commercial move, but a historically based decision.

Bibliography:

  1. 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.
  2. Gorbanevsky M.V. In the world of names and titles. - M.: Knowledge, 1983. - 192 p.
  3. Russian language. Theoretical description. Tutorial for students of the specialty “Russian language and literature” Kuibyshev, 2012: pp. 35-38
  4. Uspensky L.. A word about words. Essays on language, Children's literature, 1971 http://royallib.ru
  5. [Electronic resource]. Access mode: URL: http://www.grafomanam.
  6. [Electronic resource]. Access mode: URL: http://ja-rastu.ru/poeme/azbuka/
  7. [Electronic resource]. Access mode: URL: http://ru.wikipedia
  8. [Electronic resource]. Access mode: URL:

No matter how they try to convince students that the knowledge they acquired during their school years will be needed in the future, unfortunately, this is not the case. However, some of the things they teach in school will actually be useful in life. adult life. For example, the ability to write correctly. To master it, you need to know the basic grammatical laws of the Russian language. Among them are the rules governing the use of separating signs ъ and ь.

Hard sign: history and its role in the word

The twenty-eighth letter of the Russian alphabet, despite the fact that it does not represent sounds, performs an important function in words. Therefore, before consideringrules governing the use of ъ and ь signs are worthlearn a little about its history and role in the word.

The hard sign existed in Slavic languages ​​almost from the very moment of their formation. It started out as a short vowel sound until it evolved into an unpronounceable letter used to divide words into syllables and also replace spaces.

IN late XIX V. it was noted that the frequent use of ъ in texts (4% of the total volume) is inappropriate, especially in telegraphy, cursive writing and typography. In this regard, attempts have been made more than once to limit the use of a hard sign.

After the revolution of 1917, this letter was completely abolished for almost ten years. In those years, an apostrophe was used as a separator in words.However, in 1928 it was excluded from the Russian language (but remained in Ukrainian and Belarusian), and its dividing function was taken over by a solid sign, which it performs to this day.

In what cases is ъ put in words?

As for the use of a solid sign, there are several rules for placing it before e, yu, ё, i:

  • After prefixes that end with a consonant: connector, pre-anniversary.
  • In terms that came from other languages, with the prefixes ab-, ad-, diz-, in-, inter-, con-, ob- and sub-: adjuvant, disjunction.
  • After counter-, pan-, super, trans- and field-: pan-Europeanism, superyacht.
  • In compound words starting with two-, three-, four-: two-core, three-tier, quadrilingual.

There are several exceptions, when ъ does not stand at the junction of a prefix and a root, but inside the word itself. These nouns include: courier and flaw.

When they don't put it

In addition to the rules governing the use of ъ and ь signs, it is worth remembering cases when they do not need to be used:

  • A hard sign is not used in words with a prefix ending in a consonant when it is followed by the vowels a, o, i, u, e, s: cloudless, curbed.
  • This sign is not used in complex abbreviated terms: inyaz, glavyuvelirtorg.
  • It is also not used in lexemes written with a hyphen: half a diocese, half an apple.

When considering the rules governing the use of ъ and ь signs that perform a separating function in a word, it is worth remembering that the lexemes “interior” and “clerk” are written using a soft sign. This spelling is no exception, since in the word “interior” inter is not a prefix, but part of the root. And in “deacon” the prefix is ​​not sub-, but po-, but -deacon is the root.

What functions does a soft sign perform?

As for ь, in ancient times it meant a short vowel [and], but gradually, like ъ, it lost its sound.

At the same time, he retained the ability [and] to impart softness to the preceding consonant sound.

Unlike the hard word, it can perform 3 functions.

  • Dividing.
  • Informs about the softness of the preceding sound.
  • Used to indicate certain grammatical forms.

Rules for using a soft sign

Studying the laws of the Russian languageregulating the use of ъ and ь signs, it is worth learning a few rules:

  • A soft sign that performs a dividing function is never placed after a prefix (this is the destiny of a hard sign). Parts of words in which the dividing ь is written are the root, suffix and ending to e, ё, yu, i: monkey, interior. This rule applies to both Russian vocabulary and borrowed terms from other languages.
  • The separator ь is placed in some words before the letter combination it: champignon, medallion, broth and million.

In the case where ь informs about the softness of the preceding sound, and does not perform a dividing function, its production is determined by the following rules:

  • In the middle of a word ь indicates the softness of the letter l if it precedes another consonant other than l: finger, prayer. Also, the soft sign does not “wedge” into letter combinations: nch, nsch, nn, rshch, chk, chn, rch, schn ( drummer, candle).
  • In the middle of a word, this sign is placed between the soft and hard consonants: please, very much.
  • In the middle of a word, ь can stand between two soft consonants. Provided that when the form of the word changes, the first remains soft, and the second becomes hard: request - in a request, letter - in a letter.
  • In some cases, this symbol is located at the end of a word after consonants. At the same time, it helps to establish the meaning of the token: linen(plant) - laziness(quality of character), con(place for bets in the game) - horse(animal).

As a marker for individual grammatical forms, this sign is used in the following cases:

  • In adjectives arising from the names of months (except January): February, September.
  • At the end of numerals from 5 to 30, as well as in their middle, if they denote tens from 50 to 80 and hundreds from 500 to 900: six, seventy, eight hundred.
  • In the imperative mood of verbs (except lie down - lie down): take it out, take it out, throw it in, throw it in.
  • In the infinitive (initial form of the verb): maintain, raise.
  • In all cases of the word “eight” and in the instrumental case it is plural. numbers of individual numerals and nouns: six, lashes.

The use of ь and ъ signs after hissing w, h, shch, sh

Following these letters soft sign possible under the following conditions:

  • At the end of most adverbs and particles, except: I can't bear to get married and in pretext between.
  • In the infinitive: preserve, bake.
  • In the imperative mood of verbs: anoint, comfort.
  • In the second person endings of singular verbs of the future and present tenses: sell it, destroy it.
  • At the end of the nominative case of nouns. gender, in III declension: daughter, power. For comparison in m. gender - cry, broadsword.

In some cases, ь is not used after these letters:

  • In nouns of the 2nd declension: executioner, dummy.
  • In short forms of adjectives: fresh, burning.
  • In the genitive case of plural nouns: puddles, clouds

A hard sign after zh, sh, ch, sch at the end of a word or root is not placed, since its “place” is always after the prefix before e, e, yu, i.

Using ь and ъ signs: exercises

Having familiarized yourself with all the cases of setting soft and hard signs, you should move on to the exercises. To avoid confusion, we have collected together most of the above rules governing the use of ь and ъ signs. The table below will serve as a hint for completing the tasks.

In this exercise you need to choose which letter should be placed in the words.

This task concerns the use of a soft sign following sibilant letters. You should open the brackets in it and put a soft sign where necessary.

In the last exercise you need to write down the proposed words in 2 columns. In the first - those that are used with ь, in the second - those that are without it.

Since both hard and soft signs are “silent” letters, they play an important role in the Russian language. You can make many mistakes in your writing if you do not know the laws of grammar governing the use of ъ and ь signs. You will have to learn more than one rule so as not to confuse which sign should be used in a particular situation. However, it is worth it, especially in the case of a soft sign, since often only its presence helps determine lexical meaning words.

A long time ago, back at the Proto-Slavic stage, our ancestors had a language in which all vowels were divided into two varieties:
1) LONG
And
2) SHORT.
There was no other variety. Any vowel sound could be either long or short. Since the phonetics of those times is usually depicted in Latin symbols, I will now show full list all the vowels of that time and I will only note that the line above the phonetic sign means longitude, and the absence of a line means shortness.
So:
ā – a,
ō – o,
ē–e,
ū – u,
ī – i.
There were also diphthongs: aj, oj, ej, au, ou, eu, but we are not talking about them now.
The sounds [a] and [o] were actually not distinguishable by ear, and therefore I could write the first two pairs as one pair, but the whole point is that the long sounds from these two pairs have now become the Russian sound [a], and short sounds - with the Russian sound [o]. However, this is not important, but this is the only way - by the way, it had to be.
We are now interested in the last two pairs. And this is what happened to them.

For some unknown reason, the Proto-Slavs were struck by the following idea: to commit an act called LOSS OF INDEPENDENCE. This is a phenomenon when a person, in particular, becomes too lazy to spend effort on rounding his lips into a tube and pronouncing the sound [u]. He decides to spend less energy on this matter and not overwork his speech organs. And within the framework of this phenomenon the following processes appeared:
ū > ы,
u > ъ.
The > sign means "goes to".
Because the Western Europe- this is only a distant outskirts of the Slavic world, then all our processes there took place in exactly the same way, but always with a delay. They are trailing behind us. This is the process we are now seeing among the Scandinavians. What happened to us 4,000 years ago is only happening to them now.
But let me explain in more detail what these two lines mean:
ū > ы,
u > ъ.
The first line means the following: we pull out the vowel and long sound [ū] with all our might and at the same time stretch our lips into a tube. But then we continue to draw out the same vowel sound, but we no longer tense our lips, and the narrow stream of exhaled air becomes wider. And then we get the Russian sound [y], but only long, and not like it is now.
But that was the first line. Now let's take the second one. We pronounce the short sound [u] by stretching our lips into a tube. And as part of the process of losing flatness, we stop straining and expand this tube. Everything is the same as in the first case, but only there was a long sound, and now it’s a short one. And this is how we get the vowel sound, designated as follows: [ъ]. This is not a solid sign! This is a normal vowel sound (similar to the sound [s], but only more abrupt), which could be stressed, which formed syllables! The fact that several thousand years later it ceased to be pronounced in some cases is a completely different question. And I'll talk about this later.
In the meantime, I’ll tell you about another process: the pair ī – i.
The following natural changes occurred within this couple:
ī > and,
i > b.
What does this mean? This means that the sound [i] remains the same, we just stopped using it, because the Slavs abandoned long vowels in principle. But we decided to pronounce the short sound with less effort than before, and this is a different process. It's called LOSS OF DIVIDITY. As a result of this process, the short vowel sound [i] began to be pronounced with less stress than before. When we diligently pronounce the vowel [i], we stretch our lips into a smile. The loss of sharpness meant that the smile was canceled and the lips no longer stretched. And thus a sound was obtained, intermediate between the sound [i] and the sound [e]. We can observe such a sound in modern Germanic languages.
And thus:
A SOLID SIGN appeared during the LOSS OF INDEPENDENCE,
The SOFT SIGN appeared during the LOSS OF SEVERITY.
Both vowel sounds were syllabic and could be stressed. I will give examples from the Old Russian language:
LЪБЪ, genitive case: LЪBA. This is FOREHEAD - FOREHEAD.
СЪНЪ, genitive case: СЪНА. This is a DREAM - a DREAM.
МЪХЪ, genitive case: МЪХА. This is MOX - MHA.
STUNCH, genitive case: STUNK. This is STUM - STUM (instead of STUM).
LEN, genitive case: LEN. This is FLAX - FLAX.
And so on. If I write MЪХЪ, it means that it was TWO SYLLABLES, and the stress fell on the first of them, and when transferred it was written like this: MЪ-ХЪ.
And then this phenomenon happened: THE FALL OF THE REDUCED. This is what it meant: for some time the sounds [ъ] and [ь] began to be pronounced very briefly. Jerky. And then the Slavs decided not to pronounce them at all, or to pronounce them, but not abruptly, but as full vowel sounds.
Where it was possible to discard the vowel sound [ъ] without affecting pronunciation, it was discarded. That is, he simply disappeared without a trace. For example, at the end of a word. It was a HOUSE, but it became a HOUSE. Where it could not be thrown away painlessly, there it was replaced with the vowel sound [o]. For example, in the word МЪХЪ - the first “hard sign” is replaced by pure O, and the second is thrown away. And so - everywhere and always.
We treated the sound [b] in a similar way. Where it could not be thrown away painlessly, it was replaced by the vowel sound [e], and where it could be thrown away, it was thrown away, but not without a trace, but leaving behind softness. For example: there was the word PEN, which had two syllables, and the stress fell on the first of the two, and then it became PEN - one syllable, in which the last letter no longer denotes sound, but serves only as an indicator of softness.
The Bolsheviks were the executioners of the Russian people and acted exclusively in the interests of those peoples who were hostile to the Russian people and wished harm to Russia. But the fact that they have almost completely removed the HARD SIGN from use is a positive phenomenon. Positive, not shameful!
The fact is that a solid sign was originally a product of ignorance and stupidity. This was initially an immoral phenomenon worthy of condemnation.
In fact, when the hard sign stopped being pronounced, the question immediately arose: why write it at all? There are chronicles and some ancient texts where it was not written at all.
The scribes wanted to show off their ingenuity and preserve the ancient tradition, but they could not figure out in what cases this silent letter should be written and in what cases not to write. One might notice that the hard sign was written in the middle of the word where we now see fluent vowels: МЪХЪ - МЪХА. But the concept of fluent vowels still required a high level of literacy and, in general, intellectual effort. Therefore, it was decided this way: to write a hard sign only at the end of a word after consonants. It was an easy rule that wasn't hard to remember. But this rule meant that the tradition was not fully observed, but only in the cases where we wanted. But in my opinion it’s like this: if we have decided to follow the tradition, then let’s write a firm sign in all other cases. And the remaining cases are at least 50 percent of the times this letter is used. If nothing else. And thus the hard sign became a symbol of ostentatious piety, laziness of mind, stubbornness and simply stupidity.
And it had to be removed at the end of the word.
And the soft sign continues to work and live and live. In the words HORSE or GOOSE - how do you remove it at the end of the word? But it doesn’t mean any sound!
There are analogues of the soft sign in other European languages. For example, in Lithuanian or Frisian, but they are depicted there using the Latin alphabet.
The fall of the reduced occurred in the West too, but, as always, with a great delay compared to us. For example, in French.
And in general: the West is following behind - this is my clear conviction. The division of the Indo-Europeans into the Centum and Satem languages ​​is generally a shameful phenomenon that casts a shadow on some of the Indo-Europeans.
The languages ​​of the Satem category were the vanguard of the Indo-Europeans, and the Centum languages ​​were those who trailed behind, but then came to the same thing, but only with a delay.
By the way, the Slavs are satem, and the Germans, Celts and Romans are centum.

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 the 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 a 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.

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