"Ъ" redirects here. For the Russian newspaper, see
Kommersant .
The letter Ъ ъ (italics Ъ , ъ ) of the Cyrillic script is known as er goläm (ер голям – "big er") in the Bulgarian alphabet , as the hard sign (Russian : твёрдый знак , romanized : tvördý znak , pronounced [ ˈtvʲɵrdɨj ˈznak] , Rusyn : твердый знак , romanized: tverdyj znak ) in the modern Russian and Rusyn alphabets (although in Rusyn, ъ could also be known as ір), as the debelo jer (дебело їер, "fat er") in pre-reform Serbian orthography,[1] and as ayirish belgisi in the Uzbek Cyrillic alphabet . The letter is called back yer or back jer and yor or jor in the pre-reform Russian orthography , in Old East Slavic , and in Old Church Slavonic .
Quick Facts Cyrillic letter Hard sign, Phonetic usage: ...
Cyrillic letter Hard sign Phonetic usage: [ɤ̞], [ə], [ɐ], [ʔ]
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Hard sign, from Alexandre Benois ' 1904 alphabet book . It shows dub′ (oak ), vjezd′ (entry ) and syr′ (cheese ).
Originally the yer denoted an ultra-short or reduced mid rounded vowel .[ citation needed ] It is one of two reduced vowels that are collectively known as the yers in Slavic philology.