concept
Hard Sign (Yer)
hard sign
also: ъ, ера, yer
The pre-reform Cyrillic letter ъ (yer), mandatorily written after word-final consonants until Russia's 1918 orthographic reform abolished the practice.
Reading notes
- The Lady with the Little Dog §6 the hard sign
The pre-reform Cyrillic letter that was mandatory after word-final consonants until 1918; dropping it from private letters, as Gurov's wife does, was a small, telling mark of modern or progressive leanings.
- The Sheet §2 the hard sign
The pre-reform Cyrillic letter (yer), required after word-final consonants until the 1918 orthographic reform; the subject's anxious care in forming it satirizes semi-literate clerks' dread of penmanship.
- Something Lived Through §5 hard sign
The pre-reform Cyrillic letter "ъ" (yer), mandatorily appended after word-final consonants; abolished in the 1918 orthographic reform. The narrator's uncharacteristic care in writing it signals his nervous, performative formality.
- A Guide for Those Wishing to Marry. (Secret) §5 the letter Ъ
The "hard sign," mandatory in pre-revolutionary Russian orthography at the end of any word ending in a consonant, and so the standard trap of a weak speller. Kept untranslated so the joke keeps its object.