Yer

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A yer is either of two letters in Cyrillic alphabets, ъ (ѥръ, jerŭ) and ь (ѥрь, jerĭ). The Glagolitic alphabet used, as respective counterparts, the letters (Ⱏ) and (Ⱐ). They originally represented phonemically the "ultra-short" vowels in Slavic languages, including Old Church Slavonic. 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 natural 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. Interslavic, while not a natural language, features vowels corresponding to both the front and back yers in its Latin etymological alphabet, with the big yer "ъ" occasionally being used in Cyrillic writing, though not officially endorsed. 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 Cyrillic script, also spelled jer or er, is known as the hard sign in the modern Russian and Rusyn alphabets and as ер голям (er golyam, "big er") in the Bulgarian alphabet. Pre-reform Russian orthography and texts in Old Russian and in Old Church Slavonic called the letter "back yer" or "yer' " (Russian: еръ). Originally, it denoted an ultra-short or reduced mid rounded vowel. Its companion, the front yer (Ь, ь, italics Ь, ь), now known as the soft sign in modern Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian, as "yer" (Russian: ерь, homophonous with еръ) in Pre-reform Russian, and as ер малък (er malak, "small er") in Bulgarian, originally also represented a reduced vowel, more frontal than the ъ. Today, it marks the palatalization of consonants in all of the Slavic...