Yer
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A yer is either of two letters in


In all modern Slavic languages, they either evolved into various "full" vowels or disappeared, in some cases causing the palatalization of adjacent consonants. The only Slavic language that still uses "ъ" as a vowel sign (pronounced /ɤ/) is Bulgarian, but in many cases, it corresponds to an earlier ѫ (big yus), originally pronounced /õ/, used in pre 1945 Bulgarian orthography.
Many languages that use the Cyrillic alphabet have kept one or more of the yers to serve specific orthographic functions.
The back yer (Ъ, ъ, italics Ъ, ъ) of the
Its companion, the front yer (Ь, ь, italics Ь, ь), now known as the
In the modern
Original use
In Old Church Slavonic, the yer was used to indicate the so-called "reduced vowel": ъ = *[ŭ], ь = *[ĭ] in the conventional transcription. They stemmed from the Proto-Balto-Slavic and Proto-Indo-European short */u/ and */i/ (compare Latin angulus and Old Church Slavonic ѫгълъ, ǫgŭlŭ < Early Proto-Slavic *angulu < Proto-Balto-Slavic *ángulas < Proto-Indo-European *h₂éngulos). In all West Slavic languages, the yer either disappeared or changed to /e/ in strong positions, and in South Slavic languages, the strong yer reflexes differ widely, according to dialect.
Historical development
In
To determine whether a yer is strong or weak, one must break the continuous flow of speech into individual words, or prosodic units (phrases with only one stressed syllable, typically including a preposition or other clitic words). The rule for determining weak and strong yers is as follows:
- A terminal yer is weak.
- A yer followed by a non-reduced vowel in the next syllable is weak.
- A yer in the syllable before one with a weak yer is strong.
- A yer in the syllable before one with a strong yer is weak.
In Russian, for example, the yers evolved as follows:
- Strong yers are fully voiced: ь → е (or ë); ъ → о
- Weak yers drop entirely, but the palatalization from a following ь generally remains.
Simply put, in a string of Old Russian syllables, each of which has a reduced vowel, the reduced vowels are, in Modern Russian, alternately given their full voicing or drop: the last yer in the sequence drops. There are some exceptions to the rule, usually considered to be the result of analogy with other words or other inflected forms of the same word, with a different original pattern of reduced vowels. Modern Russian inflection is, therefore, complicated by so-called "transitive" (lit. беглые [ˈbʲeɡlɨjə] "fugitive" or "fleeting") vowels, which appear and disappear in place of a former yer. For example (OR = Old Russian; R = Russian):
- OR сънъ /ˈsŭ.nŭ/ → R сон [son] "sleep" (nominative singular)
- OR съна /sŭˈna/ → R сна [sna] "sleep" (genitive singular)
- OR ѫгълъ /ˈɔ̃.ɡŭ.lŭ/ → R угол [ˈu.ɡəl] "corner" (nominative singular)
- OR ѫгъла /ɔ̃.ɡŭˈla/ → R угла [ʊˈɡla] "corner" (genitive singular)
Sources
- Schenker, Alexander M. (1993). "Proto-Slavonic". In Comrie, Bernard; Corbett, Greville G (eds.). The Slavonic languages. London, New York: Routledge. pp. 60–121. ISBN 0-415-04755-2.
- Sussex, Roland; Cubberley, Paul (2006). The Slavic languages. ISBN 978-0-521-22315-7.