The Russian alphabet has changed several times over the centuries: some letters sank in time, went out of use, others were deleted by the decision of the Academy of Sciences and decrees of the emperors. Even at the beginning of the 20th century, there were more letters in the Russian alphabet than now. Before the reform of 1917–1918, in addition to the 33 current letters, the alphabet had i (“and decimal”), ѣ (yat), ѳ (fita) and ѵ (izhitsa) and others. Read about which letter was considered a sign of distinction between literate and illiterate, and why "fit" was called indecent, read in the material SPB.AIF.RU.

Yat - Ѣ This letter was a real nightmare for schoolchildren for many years, since it was necessary to memorize the difficult rules of its use and a long list of words in which it was written. For this reason, at one time in the course of the gymnasium students of the XIX century was the phrase "learn for good", which meant "learn something difficult well"

Compared to other letters deleted from everyday life, it lasted a long time as part of the Russian alphabet. By the end of the 19th century, its pronunciation practically did not differ from the pronunciation of the vowel E (in most dialects - approx.). Despite this, it could be found in books and documents until 1918, when another spelling reform took place.

For the first time, the Russian poet and philologist of the 18th century Vasily Trediakovsky proposed to abolish this letter. However, Mikhail Lomonosov entered into polemics with him, who believed that "the letters E and Ѣ in common parlance barely have a sensitive difference, which in reading is very clearly divided by the ear and requires weight in E, in Ѣ subtlety."

The publicist Nikolai Grech told Emperor Nicholas I, who also thought about abolishing it, that this letter is "a mark of distinction between literate and illiterate". Nicholas II also stood up to defend himself. By his highest command, he mothballed the draft spelling reform of 1911, developed by the Imperial Academy of Sciences.

But the Provisional Government did not intend to preserve such a literal "rudiment". In the summer of 1917, a spelling reform was announced, which was later supported by the Soviet government. As a result, in 1918 the press and office work were already transferred to a new spelling - without Ѣ.

By the way, yat can still be found in the Church Slavonic language.

The fate of this little-used letter is quite rich. It was removed and returned to the ranks of the alphabet several times. The “granddaughter” of the Greek letter “upsilon” in Russian was used to denote the vowel sound “and”.

The first time it was crossed out as unnecessary by Peter I. In 1708, he introduced a simplified script for the Russian language, depriving it of a number of letters. He boldly replaced Izhitsu with I or B, depending on the pronunciation. True, it was banned for only two years: in 1710 the letter was restored. In 1735, at the same time when the "zelo" disappeared, it was again canceled for the next 23 years. The series of cancellations and restorations continued until the 19th century. By that time, in the alphabet, it was most often in parentheses as rarely used.

During the years of the revolution, Izhitsa could be found in the words "mѵro", "sunod" and "ѵpostas". There are two versions of the final elimination of this letter. According to the first of them, it simply gradually fell out of use in the civil alphabet, along with words and texts on religious topics. According to the second, it was abolished along with the decimal i, yat and fita during the spelling reform of 1917-1918. This version is reflected in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

Omega - Ѡ One of the interesting letters that you will not find now in any alphabet using the civil Cyrillic alphabet.

In terms of its sounding in the Old Church Slavonic language, it did not differ from the usual letter O. Quite early, a tradition was developed to write a combination from at the beginning of a word through the omega, placing the letters on top of each other. It is curious that often the use of one or another of these letters was determined not only by aesthetic considerations, but also by the free space in the line.

As for the Church Slavonic alphabet, there the omega has several forms, which in different ways can correlate with each other and with other letters. There are about 5 forms of omega styles: regular, "wide", "from" ligature, omega with a title, and omega with a great apostrophe. So, according to one of the rules, the "wide" omega is used for words-exclamations "Oh!" and "Ole!" According to another rule, the prepositions about and about and the corresponding prefixes are written through the usual omega.

During the introduction of the civilian script, the omega was excluded, although the corresponding test letters were made by order of Peter I.

Fita - Ѳ Thanks to Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, fita gained a reputation as the most indecent letter of the alphabet. In the poem "Dead Souls" the landowner Nozdrev, in a rage, calls the protagonist, former collegiate adviser Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, a fetyuk (Ѳetyuk). The author explains this by the fact that "etyuk is an offensive word for a man, it comes from Ѳ, a letter that is considered indecent by some."

The fact is that in those years there was a joking proverb "fit and Izhitsa, the rod approaches the buttocks." Her humor consisted in the fact that the letter of Izhitsa with its outline resembles a bunch of rods, and a fita resembles buttocks.

Until the middle of the 17th century, Ѳ was read as f and was used as a variant of the letter F - ferth. Interestingly, the rivalry between fita and ferta has been traced for centuries. So, for example, in the XIII century, in birch bark letters, phita acts as the only means of transmitting the sound f, but in the XIV-XV the situation changes radically and the first place in birch bark writing comes out to be ferth.

The fit and reform of Peter I did not pass. But only in a positive way. First, he canceled the firth, leaving the fit as the only way to express the "f" sound. But three years later - in 1710 - the differences were restored again, as was the competition of letters.

Over time, "fita" was used in a limited list of words of Greek origin - in those places where the letter "theta" (θ) was in Greek: Aѳins, akaѳist, Timoey, Ѳoma, rѳma, etc.

The spelling reform of 1917-1918 dotted the I. During these years, fit was finally abolished with its widespread replacement by F.

Zelo - S The twin of the Latin S - Russian "zelo" - was in use in the Cyrillic alphabet in pre-Petrine time. It is no coincidence that these letters are similar in appearance: they have close Greek roots. The fact is that Latin originated from the well-known sigma (Σ), and the 8th letter of the Old Church Slavonic alphabet was born from the Greek ligature (combination of letters - approx.) Stigma (Ϛ, ϛ). If the Greeks pronounced "st" more often, then the Slavs sounded like "dz".

Throughout history, in the Cyrillic alphabet, "zelo" had several forms. Interestingly, a Ѕ-shaped sign was used to denote the number 6, while a modified version of the letter Z, which looks like a "crossed out Z", was used in spelling words.

The reform touched this letter in the 18th century. The civil script of Peter I indicated that the letter Ѕ should represent the sound "z". For this reason, Z was canceled in 1708. But soon a second version of the font came out. In it, just Z returned to its place, thereby pushing out S. Finally, the "zelo" was canceled in 1735 by the decision of the Academy of Sciences. Nevertheless, the letter remained in Russian business documentation until the middle of the 18th century, disappearing only in the 1760s.

No, not true, it's just very common myth ... Linguists conceived the reform long before October 1917, back in the 19th century. By the way, among the developers of this reform were people with very different views, not only revolutionary.

In the early years of the 20th century, several reform projects were proposed. All of them were considered by the Spelling Commission. But she did not manage to approve anything until 1917.

So the Bolsheviks got the reform already fully developed and prepared, it only remained to implement it, which was done very quickly. That is why the reform has always been presented as a merit of the Soviet regime.

Did they really run through the printers and seize the letters?

This is roughly how it all happened. After the reform was approved, the old symbols disappeared from the printing houses. The revolutionaries carefully made sure that the letters from the past life were no longer left. True, in the revolutionary fervor, at the same time, those letters that were preserved in the new spelling were removed from the printing houses.

So, for example, the letter b (formerly ep) disappeared. But in some words, she was still needed! That is why, in some words, they began to replace Kommersant with an apostrophe (pod'ezd) - there were just not enough signs.

What changed in the end?

There were quite a few changes. First, the reform simplified the Russian alphabet - some letters disappeared from it:Ѣ (yat), Ѳ (fit), І ("And decimal"). The solid mark was retained only as a dividing one. Changed the rule tos / s:now I had to writeWithbefore a voiceless consonant ands- before the call.

Some words began to look differently. For example, before the reform they wrote "the best", and after - "the best", before the "new", and then - "new". And instead of "her" they began to write "her".

By the way, the text of the reform did not say anything about the fate of the letter "Izhitsa", which was used in some words of Greek origin (ѵpostasis). Officially, no one has canceled this letter, but it fell out of use by itself, under the influence of general changes.

It is interesting that steam locomotives of the Izhitsa series were produced up to the beginning of the 30s, and drove them right up to the 50s.

What is written at the end of words, as in the name Kommersant, is often called yat. It is right?

No, this is a mistake. The letter "yat" looked completely different. Like this:Ѣ. Yat wrote where we now write E, for example, in the word "vara (faith)". Pronunciation of lettersE and Ѣ were then different.

An example of the illiterate use of the letter yat. Photo: Nicolay Sidorov / Wikimedia

As part of the Russian alphabet, Ѣ remained until the reform itself in 1918. It became a symbol not only of the old spelling, but of the old system as a whole: it was used by the white intelligentsia. Many émigré publications retained this letter until World War II.

Rossiya newspaper (New York, USA) using pre-reform spelling

By the way, it is interesting that this letter was endangered more than once. They wanted to abolish it back inXVIII century. In particular, V.K. Trediakovsky suggested getting rid of yat, but M.V. Lomonosov objected to him. Later, linguists began to note that the pronunciation of E and Ѣ already has almost no differences and the letter is most likely not needed. However, no decisions were made.

Then Nicholas I returned to the question, but the matter did not go beyond reflections. In 1911, the Imperial Academy of Sciences prepared a spelling reform project, but Nicholas II froze it. The letter "yat" was again saved, and the schoolchildren continued to suffer, memorizing mnemonic verses:

Bѣsy, sѣni, tsѣpi, vѣzha,

Lѣvy, nѣky, prsny, tsѣl.

Dti-st! Cheer up!

Pechenѣg plѣnat umѣl ...

What is more logical in the pre-reform spelling than in the current one?

We asked this question to linguists.

Vladimir Pakhomov

To the chief editor of "Gramota.ru" Vladimir Pakhomov for example, the letters "er" and "er" (the current hard and soft signs) are missing. The fact is that in the pre-reform spelling, any word ending in a consonant (except for Y, which was considered a vowel letter) had a hard or soft sign after this consonant:house, tom, knife, doctor, ball, horse, steppe, night, rye, mouse. The word could end with either a vowel orb or b.

“This was harmony, consistency and consistency,” says Vladimir Pakhomov. - After removedbat the end of words, it collapsed: we began to writehouse, tom, knife, doctor, ball, night, rye, mouse. By this, I in no way want to say thatbat the end of the words were removed in vain. On the contrary: it was worth being consistent and taking away (as linguists have suggested many times)bat the end of words after sibilants too, because it does not carry any phonetic load here. The soft sign would remain only as an indicator of the softness of the consonant (horse, steppe), that is, it would be used in its main function. We would writeknife and rye, ball and night,both consistency and harmony would remain here. "

Alexander Piperski

And to the linguist Alexandru Piperski pre-reform rules that apply to prefixes seem more logicalwithout-, through- and through- ... Now we write "immoral" but "sleepless", that is, some words are stunned, ands changes to With... And before, all these prefixes ended ins.

“It was logical,” explains Alexander Piperski, “because we usually observe the principle of the unity of the morpheme and do not change the spelling due to automatic changes in sound: we write“ sign ”(how to“ put in ”), not“ sign ”(how it sounds ); “To depart” (as “postpone”), not “to arrive” (as it sounds). "

Alexey Shmelev

It seems not entirely logical to him that the decision to get rid of the letter "yat": "Availabilityѣ , of course, made it difficult to memorize vocabulary words, but there were fewer cases when it was not clear to read [e] or [o] (or, speaking in terms of modern letters, “e” or “e”). For example, “all” is “everything” (plural), and “all” is “everything” (compare genus singular)

When I was removed, and the letterewere not made mandatory, as in Belarusian, this created a number of such difficulties:(she) felt and villages (villages)».

In turn, the chairman of the Spelling Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexey Shmelev believes that the parameter of “consistency” is not the main one in assessing the rules of writing: “It is important for newly created writing systems, and for languages ​​with a long written tradition, it is more important not to interrupt it. The break with the old written tradition has already occurred, and most literate Russian speakers are closer to the current spelling; at least it would be good to keep it. "

Difficult to write letters were replaced with civilian script. These are the letters we use now, with minor changes. A new civil alphabet was written.

But in 1918, another language reform was carried out, which changed the pre-revolutionary Russian language and transformed it into a modern one. What was this reform? What was the pre-revolutionary language in Russia? How did it differ from the modern one?

Features of the pre-revolutionary language

The pre-reform alphabet of the Russian language consisted of 35 letters, the modern one - 33.

The alphabet of the pre-revolutionary language included the letters "i" - "i", "fita" - "ѳ", "Izhitsa" - "ѵ", "yat" - "ѣ", but there were no modern "y" and "e".

The letter "Izhitsa" was not officially canceled, the Orthographic Reform Decree did not say anything about it, they did not remember it, since it was practically not used anymore.

Features of the pronunciation of the letters of the pre-reform Russian language

Initially, church names were used: "az", "beeches", "lead", "verb" and so on. From the end of the 18th century, the letters began to be named after the likeness of the Latin ones, and by the end of the 19th century, new names were formed, which completely replaced the previous ones. The new names of the letters practically coincided with the modern ones, but after the consonants in their name there was not "e" but "e", for example, "be", "ve", "ge" and so on, with the exception of the letters "ь" (er), "Y" (ery), "ъ" (erb), "yati", "Izhitsa" and "fity". The letter "and" was called "and octal", and "i" - "and decimal", this corresponded to their numerical value in the Church Slavonic alphabet.

The letters "e", "y" - were not included in the alphabet of the pre-revolutionary language only formally, but they were used in the same way as now. The letter "y" was called "and with a short".

As a result of the reform of the Russian alphabet, “yat”, “fita”, “izhitsa” and “er” (at the end of the word) were excluded from it. What are these letters and why were they removed from the pre-reform alphabet?

"Yat"

The letter is very similar to the symbol that astronomers use to mark the planet Saturn. The letter "ҍ" and "e" were pronounced exactly the same, for example, "wind" and "evening", but in the word "wind" they wrote "yat", and in the word "evening" - "e". This caused enormous difficulties. The letter "yat" was considered the most terrible in the alphabet. Pupils mechanically memorized the rules for "yat"; mistakes in writing this letter were considered the most gross. Since then, the expression "to know for yat" has developed, which meant "very good."

"Izhitsa"

The letter "Izhitsa" in the alphabet of the pre-revolutionary language was very similar to the Roman numeral "five". To our ancestors, it resembled an inverted whip, so in the common people there was an expression "to register an ichitsa", which meant "to give a strong catch up" or "flog". The letter also caused a lot of inconvenience and made life difficult for students, for example, three words:

  • world - in the meaning of "universe";
  • peace - "calmness, silence";
  • myrrh is a fragrant substance.

It would seem that the words are pronounced the same, but they were spelled differently:

  • in the first word they wrote “and with a dot” - world;
  • in the second - "and" - the world;
  • in the third - "izhitsu" - mѵro.

There were many difficulties, many were confused about the rules for writing certain words. Another Pushkin A.S. in 1818 he believed that izhitsa should be abolished, but it was abolished only in 1918.

"Fita"

The modern letter "f" and the pre-revolutionary "fita - ѳ" stood in the alphabet in different places, but pronounced exactly the same. For example, in the pre-revolutionary address directory, people with the surname Fedorov were not placed together, since some were written with the letter "f", and others with "fit". Why is that? V. Trediakovsky in 1748 in his article "Spelling about spelling" explained this by the fact that you shouldn't think about where to write "f" and where "fit" is, it doesn't matter, since not everyone studied Latin and Greek languages, and without knowing these languages ​​it is impossible to know the difference in these letters. So they wrote, to whom it would go to their heads, because all the same, very few people understand how to do it right.

"Er"

This is the so-called hard sign. Currently, it is considered a very useful letter, separating the consonant of the prefix from the vowel (entrance, rise). And before the reform, a solid sign was written after solid consonants at the end of all words, for example, dub, rode, dom. "Er" was called by the people a "parasite", "bum", "bloodsucker". Indeed, the letter that was written at the end of almost every word consumed, according to scientists, 8% of paper and time. For example, L. Uspensky in his book "Word about Words" wrote that in one edition of the book (in the pre-revolutionary language) "War and Peace" Tolstoy L.N. on 2080 pages there were about 115 thousand "ep". If you put them all together and printed in succession, they would take over 70 pages. And if we calculate that it took about 100 working days to type a novel, then about 4 days a typesetter would type only this letter. And how much paper was spent on it? It's hard to say at all. Yer was the most expensive letter in the world.

Pre-revolutionary language in modern Russia

The fashion for the pre-reform Russian language reappeared during the perestroika period and in the early 90s. Then a lot of pre-revolutionary literature was published, and it was published according to the rules of the old spelling. Sites completely typed in the old spelling began to appear on the Internet, articles and publications began to be printed.

It has become fashionable to use elements of the pre-reform spelling of words in advertising and on signs (and with errors).

Very often, "creative" designers of advertising signs followed a simple principle, without thinking about the spelling rules, they simply added the letter "ъ" at the end of the word. So newfangled signs appeared, on which in those days they could write "Izhitsa", for example, for many years the logo "Capital bank of savings" flaunted on all signs and advertising brochures, although the spelling "Capital bank savings" would be correct. And, unfortunately, there are a lot of such examples.

Fashion is back, but literacy is not.

Ѣ , ѣ (title: yat, a masculine word) - a letter of the historical Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet, now used only in the Church Slavonic language.

Letter shape

The origin of the verb form "yatya" has no satisfactory explanation (main versions: a modified capital alpha (Α) or some ligatures), Cyrillic too (usually indicate links with the Cyrillic and, as well as with the cruciform verb form of the letter. In inscriptions (especially of Serbian origin), there is a symmetrical shape of the yat in the form of Δ under an inverted T or under a cross; later the standard form Ѣ was most widespread; sometimes the horizontal striking line received a very long serif on the left, and the segments to the right and up from the intersection were reduced and could disappear altogether ; the ultimate form of this change was the tracing ѣ like a merged Gb, which became in the XIX - centuries. the main one in handwritten and italic fonts, but sometimes it was also found in direct type, especially in headlines, posters, etc. If the L-shaped letter is found in a medieval text, then it may turn out to be both yat and ep (b).

Evolution of the sound content of the letter Ѣ

The question of the sound of yat in the Proto-Slavic language is debatable. Scientists, to a certain extent, are perplexed by the wide range of sounds that I passed into in Slavic languages ​​- from ӓ to i. The father of Slavic comparative linguistics A. Kh. Vostokov found it difficult to determine the exact sound of yat; F.I.Buslaev saw in him a simple long e, but the supporters of this theory turned out to be few in number; FF Fortunatov saw in him a diphthong ie, Pedersen - a wide monophthong ӓ, while other scientists - an open diphthong like ia. ESBE states that Ѣ was pronounced / æ /. Finally, there is an opinion that this sound was pronounced diversely in different dialects and even within one dialect, for example, on the site of the former Indo-European long e and former diphthongs. It is noted, in particular, that the Latin name of the vegetable rapa passed into the Proto-Slavic language and from it into the modern Slavic languages ​​in the form of rѣpa. In a number of the oldest Finnish borrowings from Russian, yat is also transmitted through ӓ, ӓӓ (which, however, may already reflect the peculiarities of the dialect of Novgorod Slovenes). However, in the Old Russian language, apparently, already in ancient times, yat began to be pronounced closed, that is, close to our modern E, which is why it coincided with either E or I (for example, in the Ukrainian language, in Novgorod dialects). In the Moscow dialect, which had become normative, it was pronounced like. A reminder of this is, on the one hand, the transfer of the name of the Austrian capital Wien as Vienna (Vѣna), on the other hand, the European spelling of the word "soviet" as "soviet" E).

  • in Russian and Belarusian [ ] language yat in sound coincided with "e" (rus. bread, bread; belor. bread, bread), however, unlike "e", under stress very rarely passed into "e" (examples of such exceptions are the words stars, tsvѣl and others, see illustration);
  • in Ukrainian - with "i" ( hlib, hlibny);
  • in Bulgarian - c "I" ( slab) or "e" ( rich);
  • in Serbo-Croatian - in different ways, depending on the dialect, which is reflected in the writing ( bread - khљeb - khlib; the first option is the main one in Serbia, the second - in Croatia and Montenegro, the third is not considered literary);
  • in Polish, yat becomes "a" before t, d, n, s, z, ł, r and in "e" in all other cases (also a softening of the preceding consonant): biały: bielić, wiara: wierzyć, źrebię, brzeg, miesiąc, las: leśny, lato: letni, świeca.

However, the letter persisted after this merger:

  • in Serbia, yat (“at”) disappeared with the transition to “vukovitsa” in the first half of the 19th century;
  • in Montenegro, this new alphabet was adopted in 1863;
  • in Russia, it was abolished by the reforms of 1917-1918. ;
  • in Bulgaria yat ("e double") was canceled twice: first in 1921, but after the coup of 1923, the old spelling was returned; and then finally in 1945.

In Ukrainian writing, in the 19th - early 20th centuries, ety was found only in several early variants (in the Maksimovich system it was written etymologically, that is, in almost the same places as in Russian, but it was read as "i"; and in the so-called "Eryzhke", which encodes the Ukrainian pronunciation by means of the letters of the Russian alphabet, after the consonants, denoted a softening "e" ( blue sea, now they write blue sea), and at the beginning of words and after vowels corresponded to the current iotated "ї" or (less often) "є".

Iat had a special application in medieval Bosnian writing (bosancice): there it denoted either the sound [y], or, when placed in front of N and L, the softness of these consonants (in the same function as the Italian G in combinations gn and gl); at the same time, yat was interchangeable with the letter derv (Ћ), which was similar in shape.

The disappearance of Ѣ from Russian pronunciation and writing

Mnemonic verses for easy memorization ѣ

I will zamshu posѣv in mѣrilo,
I'm going to confess.
Mѣd, the iron has poured everything,
Dnѣpr, Dnѣstr to visit.

Prosperity, flourishing, filling,
Vѣs, April, success sѣdlo,
Zrѣt, propѣha, vѣha, rѣdko,
It’s easy to stick to the cup
Крѣпокъ, spѣl orѣхъ evil ...

Bѣsy, sѣni, tsѣpi, vѣzha,
Lѣvy, nѣky, prsny, tsѣl.
Dti-st! Cheer up!
Pechenѣg plѣnat umѣl ...

In the texts of the 17th century, yat is sometimes mixed with E in an unstressed position, but never under stress. The unconditional preservation of the alphabet after the Peter's reform of the alphabet in 1708 indicates that the pronunciation of the letters E and Ѣ was still distinguishable at that time. A contemporary and the same age as Peter, Fyodor Polikarpov writes that Ѣ "makes a voice" "e and others according to their properties." He further notes that the letter was introduced to denote "The thinnest from the letter<буквы>e pronunciation " and what does it mean diphthong ue: "Such an afterbirth is supposed to be, and the i under it is little separated and connected in a titular way: ie"

However, in the 18th century, the pronunciation of yat was rapidly approaching e, and already V.K.Tredyakovsky first proposed to abolish this letter as unnecessary. MV Lomonosov objected to him, pointing out that “the letters E and Ѣ in common parlance hardly have a sensitive difference, which in reading is very clearly shared by the ear and requires<…>in E weights, in Ѣ subtleties. " DI Yazykov, who was born 8 years after the death of Lomonosov, no longer saw any difference in the pronunciation of the two letters. He wrote: "The letter" ѣ ", having lost its real accent, is like an ancient stone lying out of place, about which everyone stumbles and does not carry it aside, then only that it is ancient and was once needed for a building" .

In ordinary consciousness, the reform (and the abolition of yatya, as its most striking point) was firmly connected with the deeds of the Bolsheviks, so that the letter "ѣ" became almost a symbol of the white intelligentsia (in fact, among the supporters of its abolition, who participated in the development of the 1911 draft, there were many representatives of the right-wing academic circles, including Academician A.I.Sobolevsky, a member of the Union of the Russian People). The overwhelming majority of emigre publications (except for Trotskyist, etc.) were printed in the old way until World War II, and a small part of them retains the pre-reform spelling and after it, until the end of the twentieth century (especially in the books of church publishing houses).

According to critics of the reform, the abolition of the letter "yat" did some damage to the legibility of the Russian text:

  • ive was one of the few letters that graphically break the monotony of a line;
  • With the abolition of yatya, many words from different roots with E and Ѣ became homonyms: there is("Eat") and there is(singular h. 3rd person of the verb "to be"), flying(by air) and lѣchu(people), blue and blue, vѣdѣnie and conduct, etc.; in part, these coincidences are compensated by the placement (if necessary) of accents and dots above Ё: all"all" - all"all".

The letter Ѣ today

Russian language

Bulgarian language

After language reforms, instead of Ѣ, various words began to be written I or E. A characteristic feature is the difference between dialects: in Western Bulgaria, in place of Ѣ, E is always pronounced, in Eastern Bulgaria - both E and I. In modern Bulgaria, the letter is also as in Russia, they are sometimes used on various semi-antique signboards, and, as in Russia, they often do it illiterately.

Rules for using the letter ѣ in pre-reform Russian spelling

Mnemonic verses with ѣ

Bly, bldny, bѣdny bѣs
He killed the hungry one.
Lѣshim on lѣsu on bѣgal,
Rѣdkoy s hrѣnom poobѣdal
And for the bitter one obed
Dal obѣt nadal bѣd.

Take it, brother, what a clump and a clump,
Rѣsheto, lattice, sѣtka,
You should eat and eat, -
This is how it should be written.

Our head and shoulders
Protect the eyes of the soles,
Vѣki screw up the whole vѣk
At night, every person ...

I broke the branches,
Nѣmets vѣniki tied,
Svѣsil correctly when promѣnѣ,
For two hryvnia I sold it in Vѣnѣ.

Dnѣpr and Dnѣstr, as everyone knows,
Doors in the companionship of tusnom,
Dulit the region of their Bug,
Rѣzhet from north to south.

Who is there blatantly swearing?
Is it big to be so confused?
We must peacefully dispute
And convince each other ...

Birds' nests are dreadful,
Grѣh it is vain to waste it,
Above the calcified grѣhъ to shrink,
Above, to be published ...

Prof. N.K. Kulman. Russian language technique. - 3rd ed. - SPb. : published by Ya.Bashmakov and Co., 1914. - P. 182.

The letter Ѣ is spelled:

  • in the suffix of comparative and superlative degrees of adjectives and adverbs -ѣе (-y), -Uyshiy: stronger, strong, strong, strongest(but not as a final letter: deeper, it is better, krѣpche, cheaper except for abbreviated forms more, men, must, heavy);
  • in the dative and prepositional cases of the singular nouns: about the tableѣ, (vol) Annѣ, oh morѣ, about happiness(as well as about happiness), but in no case in the nominative and accusative cases ( ide (ё) мъ (whereѣ?) въ morѣ, but ide (ё) мъ (where?) in the sea);
  • in three forms of personal pronouns: mѣ, you, yourself;
  • in instrumental pronouns kѣm, chѣm(but in the prepositional about what), тѣмъ, all(but in the prepositional about everything), as well as in all cases of plural pronouns tѣ and all(writing all means all);
  • in feminine plural he;
  • in numeral two and in derivatives from it: two, twelfth;
  • in all cases of the feminine plural of numerals one and aboutѣ: odѣkh, oneѣm, one, general, volume, general;
  • in prefix nѣ- undefined (not negative) value: someone, something, nѣkiy, a little, when(meaning "no one knows when", and negative once= "No time"), which and so on;
  • in adverbs and prepositions where, extѣ, hello, now, last, chrome, development, omnipresent, lay, mean, until, breakaway, hitherto, settled, indѣ, evil and in their derivatives: the present, brutal, good, from outside etc.;
  • in complex prepositions and adverbs formed from a noun, the case of which required Ѣ: vmѣstѣ, like, far away, doubly etc.;
  • in verbs it is written -t(three exceptions: grind, rub), die and prefixed formations from them): have, want, look, hurt, blush etc.; this yat is preserved during conjugation and word formation: have - I have - imѣl - name - imѣvshiy - name;
    • but in adjective forms like seen or sick written e, since they instead of the verb suffix -ѣ- the suffix of adjectives is favored -en- with fluent e ( visible, sick);
    • in a similar way, formations like clairvoyant, seat(checked by forms with a fluent vowel: clairvoyant, Sydney);
    • in nouns it happens like -ѣніе and -enie, moreover, it is written only if it is formed from a verb into -t (darken - darkened, but darken - darken);
  • in about a hundred separate roots, the list of which had to be remembered (listed in the article "Yat in pre-reform Russian spelling"), for which the schoolchildren used specific verses.

In some cases, more or less general rules were used: for example, they almost never wrote in non-Slavic roots, in the presence of a test word with "ё" ( honey - honey) and as a fluent vowel ( flax - flax).

Comparison with other Slavic languages

There is an easy way to check where to write ѣ without even knowing the rules. If the letter E of the Russian word in translation into Ukrainian changes to I, it means that ѣ was most likely written in the pre-revolutionary spelling. For example: b і li - b ѣ lyy, feces і ka - feces ѣ ka. However, E in a closed syllable could also go into i: kam і ny - kam e nn, n і h - n e whose. In the southern monuments of the Old Russian language, cases of writing ѣ in this position, the so-called "new yat", are recorded.

In Polish spelling, the former yatu corresponds to a combination of letters ia or ie: b iały - b ѣ ly, b ie lić - b ѣ pouring; m ie jsce - m ѣ one hundred, m ia sto - city. For this reason, before the revolution in Polish proper names ie transmitted through ѣ: Sierakowski - Sѣrakovskiy.

In the Czech language, yatu corresponds to a letter.

In the Yekava dialect of the Serbo-Croatian language, yatu corresponds to the combination of letters ije / je: b ije la - b ѣ barking, ml ije ko - milk (ml ѣ to), m je sto - m ѣ one hundred, etc.

Guest (10:24:35 05/03/2013):
What is the spelling of the letter "fita"?

lover of Russian literature and lawyer-criminologist (15:18:34 30/10/2013):
Hmmm ... If schoolchildren are taught in this way, then for sure ... we will slide "to nowhere", that is, in modern language, "to nowhere." In the Russian language, initially, all signs carried an important semantic and speech load. Take at least the same example with the word "peace": thanks to the vowels, already on paper and without explanations, one can discern what kind of world we are talking about: the private "world" - peace, the "universal" world - "universal", i.e. the world of people, society or the "world" cult - about incense, to which now you have to add either "o" or "p" to make it "understandable")) Philology without logic, like any science - from-thinking. In Russian, "IZ" means "obsolete". For example, "outcast" is a "stranger", i.e. "not ours" (Jews have nothing to do with it))

lover of Russian literature and lawyer-criminologist (15:47:53 on 10/30/2013):
For reasons of the letter "fit" - pay attention to the spelling of the transcription in English - there "fit" is written and "read" to this day and is pronounced the same way)) - the one that they themselves have not yet learned to understand, and they also interpret it to others like this ...

??? (20:35:26 01/09/2014):
And yet, if the letters that are now excluded from the alphabet remained in it, half of today's excellent students of the Unified State Exam would not pass it: so many spelling rules cannot fit in the head of an ordinary person.

Margosha (19:41:17 03/12/2014):
completely in agreement with a lover of Russian literature. a couple of reforms and we will only bother and bother and our convolutions will straighten so as not to load us

YanaR (15:30:28 03/19/2015):
"Sit down from the IMAGE technical language and you will be able to rule this people" ... Yat-image showing the connection between the earthly and the heavenly, Izhitsa-Image of divine movement (Mvra - in temples, for example, it was written through Izhitsa), Feta - an image of the natural, higher component in all the worlds, Reveal, Navi, rule and glorify, and not every word carries it ... So Children, stay children with your eyes closed ..

Ekaterina (11:56:17 07/16/2015):
I would like to contact the author of the article. Your message is that the letters Yat, Fita, Ep and Izhitsa are not needed. It seems to me that this is not entirely true. For example, "yat" and "E" in the roots of similar-sounding words allow you to distinguish between their meanings. If children still wrote these words differently, they would have a finer sense of the language and a deeper understanding of it. "Er" is not an extra letter, by no means. It meant a half-vowel sound, o-short. In church singing, this is still widely used in practice: when we add this semi-vowel at the end of words when singing, it is easier for the listeners to understand the text. In addition, in English, the duration of vowel sounds still matters: [i] -, [a] -, [u] -.

Strunnikov Mikhail Evgenievich (08:08:31 23/10/2015):
It is to perverts of every kind and every orientation that ideas of such "revival" come to their heads. They cannot use modern spelling, but give it "ery-yat, ery-yus." Shushera!

Denis (11:23:44 21/11/2015):
Many do not know why the letters in the Russian alphabet are in this order. Secrets of the Russian alphabet ... In the first line: - I know God, I say good, so I exist. In the second line: - Life is abundant on Earth, when the universal truth is from God in the community. In the third line: - For all thinking people, only He (God) utters peace. In the fourth line: - The word, confirmed from above, calls to confidently adhere to the foundations of the wisdom of good to complete the path, to come into harmony for a new beginning. In the fifth line: - Protecting our earth's borders and growing provide God's protection and our unity. In the sixth line: - The harmonious development and growth potential of my clan and me, as a part of it, depends on the Supreme source and the history of the clan. In the seventh line: - The meaning of life is in striving to perfect the spirit and soul until it matures completely into a perfect personality in eternity. Vertically 1 column: - My life, as a thought clothed in sound, striving for harmony, the smallest particle of reason in the universe. Column 2: - God creates a solid border around people and directs them to self-improvement. Column 3: - Knowledge of the Earth and thinking about it call for peace in the spirit of our kind (people). Column 4: - To tell the truth is our tradition, our protection, a part of our soul. (What is the strength of the brother? - In the Truth!) Column 5: - The good of the Universe is that God the Creator confidently and firmly creates the growth of everything, for the full ripening of the seed. Column 6: - The essence of the existence of human society in peace, tranquility, balance, harmony, unity from the Supreme Source to the perfect soul. Column 7: - The existing heavenly Source brings into our world both the beginning of everything and the growth of everything, and the experience of people in time. Diagonal from top to bottom and from left to right: - I think a lot and the basis of my creativity is always the supreme Source.

Random guest (22:52:33 04/19/2016):
With such a hostile attitude towards everything that happened before the revolution, our society will "go far", how come! The letters our ancestors used to write are the property of our language! How can you call them unnecessary and somehow "not so" ??? I can't understand at all !!! Our language was so complex that it only commands respect for its speakers !!! The Slavs, by the way, very subtly felt the sounds, Cyril and Methodius knowingly invented several letters for some, at first glance, identical sounds. The old Slavs had a difference in speech. The simplest example for a modern person is that half of foreigners do not understand the difference between "w" and "u". Look - what a beautiful spelling was with "yat", and decimal, etc.! And the "b" after the consonants at the end of words made our language unique! P.S. I believe that only ignorant people can treat their language in this way, with the property of their people and their ancestors! Ashamed!

Michael (08:25:59 16/09/2016):
They would study the history of the language and its modifications in Russian, give all the rules - even if they are curtailed without being forced to memorize them, for those for whom it would be interesting to deepen themselves and it is fashionable to organize such electives. Where are these teachers? From that Russian language who loves to learn?

Anna (19:34:15 14/11/2016):
Gentlemen! Language is a living system that is constantly in motion. It is only natural that reforms are taking place. This enriches languages, makes them easier to understand. Our language is already complicated, and you, Mikhail, not understanding the specifics of teaching Russian at school, are trying to impose your a priori incorrect opinion (from the point of view of linguistics): in no case should you give anything "cut down" (especially the history of the language, historical grammar, Old Church Slavonic, etc.)! Otherwise, it will only scare the children away! Yes, some illustrations are acceptable (as small minute examples), but not a story about the system of forming certain principles of grammar (to explain at least one of them, the lesson time will not be enough!). But everyone here knows how to teach and heal. This is what you should be ashamed of! And also to the question of the uniqueness of language and human ignorance. Mainly, the Accidental Guest, the ignorance of native speakers is manifested in their careless attitude towards him (which is massively observed here in the comments), and not in the rational reforming and simplification of a complex system. Without natural changes, the language will begin to "wither" and gradually "die", as it will become an inconvenient tool for communication. Many who have studied English, French, will agree that the spelling system of these languages ​​needs transformations, otherwise it turns out that we write "Manchester" and read "Liverpool". I am ashamed of the "generalists" who in all areas will find where to put their five kopecks.

Anastasia Yurievna (13:26:46 12/02/2017):
Language is a difficult science. The letters removed from the alphabet are needed, so that the children would feel the language of their people. Now half of the words are practically irrelevant, and the letters Izhitsa, er, should return to the alphabet. Anyway, I think we need to start writing in Cyrillic again as it was before.

Strunnikov Mikhail Evgenievich (09:10:21 17/03/2017):
For complete happiness, it is not enough to write these textbooks in pre-Petrine Cyrillic.

Svarog (21:50:11 03/20/2017):
Random Guest! No offense. I would like to correct you. Cyril and Methodius did not come up with anything. They cut a Bukovica from 49 beeches and left us 44, and then 43. So let's not praise them!

Strunnikov Mikhail Evgenievich (08:42:18 10/04/2017):
They, you see, were afraid that the "pagan" Svarog (is it Zeusych according to the priest?) On forty-nine letters a hernia will work. He could handle thirty-three. For the same purpose, the Wrights da Bleriot cut off one wing of the plane, which the "svarogi" bungled: otherwise, poor man, he will get lost in the wings, like in three pines ... You can continue further, but why? Svarog Perunych will punish.

Dmitry (11:34:27 17/02/2019):
Let's return, of course, we will remake all the equipment - computers, etc. We are lagging behind the whole world in development (not by the brain) technologically. I read the article, it was interesting before, of course ... on this I think that whoever needs to let them express their thoughts as they please! Matter of taste! and learn different alphabets.

Dmitry (11:41:10 17/02/2019):
In the direction of poets, rhyming writers, etc. These letters are like additional bonuses ... it's easier to convey a thought .. no obstacles will interfere with real talent and these bonuses are not needed. He will write from "three" letters.

A. Kharitonov (09:50:52 01/05/2019):
How, after all, humanity is rapidly degrading! This is very noticeable if we compare the reviews of 2013-17 with the masterpiece of illiteracy and nonsense from Dmitry2019.

subovinnikov Nikita (19:13:31 09/15/2019):

podovinnikov Nikita (19:14:54 09/15/2019):