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A hard sign after a vowel. "Ъ" and "ѣ" as signs of the elite

A hard sign after a vowel. "Ъ" and "ѣ" as signs of the elite

Letter Ъ, ъ (referred to as: solid 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 reform of spelling, 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 iotized e, yu, ё, I in such difficult 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.

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 when 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: flax(plant) - laziness(character quality) 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, even 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.

The Proto-Slavs, for some unknown reason, 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 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 what it was, 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 FILTH,
The SOFT SIGN appeared during the LOSS OF SEVERITY.
Both vowels were syllabic sounds 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 it was necessary to write this silent letter, and in what cases not to write it. 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 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.

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." And 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 era“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 Adviser” (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.

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