The letter, which we now call simply a "solid sign", appeared in the alphabet created by Cyril and Methodius. In those days, there were no computers or even typewriters. The texts were written by hand. Often the words merged into a single whole. That is why, according to one of the versions, at first the main function of a solid sign was the separation of words among themselves.
Linguists believe that another reason for the appearance of "Kommersant" is the peculiarities of the Old Church Slavonic language. The fact is that before the spelling of a word completely corresponded to its pronunciation. For example, today the words "mushroom" and "flu" are pronounced the same way, but spelled differently. And in the old days, such phenomena simply did not exist in nature.
Moreover, according to the old rules, a word simply could not end with a consonant. It was an axiom of spelling that required no proof. Like the modern rules of the Russian language, which cannot be explained, they just need to be remembered.
In addition, at first, a solid sign denoted the belonging of a word to the masculine gender. Moreover, it could be both a noun and a verb: lob, put.
98 years ago, the Russian spelling underwent significant changes: the letters "fit" (Ѳ), "and decimal" (I) were deleted from the alphabet, and the now fashionable "yat" (ѣ). Also, the proletarian reform changed the rules for using the hard sign or, as it was called under the emperor, "ep": the unpronounceable letter no longer needed to be put at the end of words ending in a consonant: there was no sense. However, as history has shown, there have been and still are entrepreneurs who disagreed with innovations.
According to SPARK-Interfax, more than 50 Russian companies used the word "yat" in their names, and another 219 organizations - a solid sign. In the overwhelming majority of cases, "ъ" and "ѣ" are used in trade (both retail and wholesale), a little less often in the names of construction and law firms. According to experts, brands in the old fashion are an attempt to artificially instill history and traditions in the company.
Beer restaurant "Durdin", restaurant "Cafe Pushkin", bakeries "Khlѣb nasuschny", vodka "Ѣ", newspaper "Kommersant", club of mixed martial arts "R.О.Д.Ъ", St. -Petersburg restaurant "Restaurant". And there are dozens of such examples.
The BQB company, which was engaged in the development of the Yat vodka brand (the company's logo looks like the now unused letter "ѣ"), notes on its official website that Nicholas I refused during his reign (the first half of the 19th century. - Approx. Life) to abolish the unpronounceable letter, arguing that it - "a mark of distinction between literate and illiterate gentlemen." And therefore, as the agency says, the advertised alcohol is "a product for literate gentlemen who understand a lot about real Russian vodka."
And the head of the club of mixed martial arts "R.O.D.B." Ivan Ivanov said that with a firm mark in the name of the organization, he wanted to emphasize that everyone who comes to study will go to the end and achieve their goals.
When we came up with the name, we decided to rely on the most important root in the Russian language - "genus". It is with him that the most precious thing is connected with a person: parents, homeland, for example. This is something you can fight for, for which you can become better. We also wanted to show the firmness of our intentions and those who will come to us, so we also added "ъ", - says Ivanov.
Elena Galinskaya, professor of the Russian language department of the philological faculty of Moscow State University, in turn said that the letter "ѣ" was abolished, because over time it became clear that it duplicates the "e" in its sound.
Once upon a time, the sounds were different, but over time, both letters sounded like "e". The only difference was in the letter. Children in gymnasiums had to memorize a list of words (rhymes) in which the letter "yat" was used. Therefore, we can say that only very literate people could use "ѣ", - says Galinskaya. - A solid sign in the 11th century was considered a vowel (that is, in the word "bread" after the sound "p" there was something similar to a short "s". - Approx. Life), then it became clear that you need to get rid of redundancy in spelling.
According to the professor, entrepreneurs who use "yat" or a hard mark at the end in the names of companies are dudes.
It's also good if used correctly. For example, the bakery near "Park Kultury" used to (now it was removed) called itself "Khl ѣb vital "(chain of bakeries Le Pain Quotidien. - Approx. Life), but this is not true. If you use "yat", then you must fully follow the old spelling rules. According to them, it was necessary to write "Daily Khlѣb" correctly.
Le Pain Quotidien bakery could not be received promptly for comment.
As explained by a source in the market, the outdated letter in the name is used in order to attract the attention of an adult audience (over 40 years old).
These people often perceive "yat" or even a hard mark at the end of a word as a symbol, so to speak, of "soft dissidence." In Soviet times, "yat" was often used by those who did not want to put up with the power of the proletarians. After all, a whole era has passed with the old spelling rules, - says the interlocutor. - We also tried to bring ourselves closer to the entrepreneurs of the 19th century: Grigory Eliseev, Savva Morozov. What if our brand is the same old? We appealed to consumers' over-memory. Still, not everything in tsarist Russia knew how to use "yat" correctly, this is really a letter for intelligent people.
Life, in turn, asked readers what associations the letter "yat" and the hard sign after the consonant cause. It turned out that some Russians immediately present texts in Church Slavonic, while others react negatively to "ѣ" at all, calling this naming bad taste.
It is worth noting that the fashion for the old spelling has reached social networks. For example, on "VKontakte" there are groups "Pre-Revolutionary Adviser" (more than 50 thousand people subscribed to it) and "Ub “Shelter in the mother tongue”. My house and my fortune "(more than 3 thousand subscribers). And a number of members of the first public (it is open to everyone) not only read the posts of admins, written in the old style, but in the same manner and comment on the entries:"Indeed, gentlemen, this young lady is a wonderful siren. Other judges would lay down half of the world for her legs ","This is both smѣkh, and grѣkh. ”And judging by the high calmness that Russians try to communicate on a public page (without any sarcasm), some find such groups amusing (here is a“ new language ”, and therefore one can recall the“ death effect ”), others, perhaps, really feel themselves to be part of a special intellectual stratum.
Member of the Guild of Marketers Nicholas Corot stressed that the letter itself cannot bring anything to the business, it should be an organic addition to the brand legend.
A deliberate manifestation of archaism (that is, antiquity. - Approx. Life) in the form of letters lost from the alphabet is not associated with monarchical tendencies in business or some kind of nostalgia. It is a visual sign of the connection between the times. A pseudo legend is being created that says that the brand has survived the Soviet era, that it follows traditions, explains Corot. - Also, the use of "yat" or a solid sign can be a full-fledged address to the imperial trend. And he is.
At the same time, the marketer noted that there is nothing special about the choice of "ъ" and "ѣ". Sooner or later, disappearing letters will be used by entrepreneurs.
A good example is the letter "ё". It is no longer printed anywhere with dots. Outwardly, today it is exactly the same as "e", and therefore it may soon disappear. Therefore, already today there are brands that deliberately expose "e" with dots. Indeed, on the one hand, this letter has a certain slang component (rapper), on the other - lexical, including non-normative subtexts.
Natalya Bulanova, the head of the PR-agency Nota Bene, stressed that no one in the name of their company is "yat" or a hard sign at the end "from the ceiling".
The brand must match. This is a direct reference to old Russian traditions. It doesn't matter how old the company is (even three years, for example). She wants to show the consumer that she can be trusted, says Bulanova. - And the Russian buyer is not tired of it. This is not to say that such a phenomenon is common. Such a "trick" with the birth of a legend works because few people will bother and search the Internet for how old the company is, whether it has a history. Purely visually, this makes you believe in quality when it comes to a small purchase (sausage, for example). If a person buys a car or an apartment, then, of course, he will not believe in any fairy tales.
The famous linguist of Soviet times Lev Uspensky calls it the most expensive letter in the world. In his work on the origin of words, you can see how he relates to her. According to him - "she absolutely does nothing, does not help anything, does not express anything." A pertinent question arises - how did the letter b appear in the Russian language, and what role did the creators assign to it?
The history of the appearance of the letter b
The authorship of the first Russian alphabet is attributed to Cyril and Mifody. The so-called Cyrillic alphabet, which was based on the Greek language, appeared in 863 after the birth of Christ. In their alphabet - a solid sign was at number 29 and sounded like ER. (before the reform of 1917-1918 - the 27th in a row). The letter b was a short semi-vowel sound without pronunciation. It was placed at the end of a word after a strong consonant.
What, then, is the meaning of this letter? There are two digestible variations on this explanation.
The first option concerned the Old Slavonic letter itself. Since there were simply no spaces familiar to us at that time, it was she who helped to competently divide the string into words. As an example: "to God chosen by God".
The second explanation is associated with the Church Slavonic pronunciation of words. It was ER who did not muffle the voiced consonant when reading the word, as we observe in modern Russian.
We pronounce the words flu and mushroom different in meaning in the same way - (flu). There was no such sound phonetics in the Old Church Slavonic language. All words were written and pronounced. For example: slave, friend, bread. This was due to the fact that the division of syllables in the Old Church Slavonic language was subject to one law, which sounded like this:
“In the Old Church Slavonic language, the ending of a word cannot have consonants. Otherwise, the syllable will be closed. Which cannot be according to this law. "
In view of the above, it was decided to attribute EPb (b) at the end of words where there are consonants. So it turns out: Gastronom, Traktir, Lombard or Address.
In addition to the above two reasons, there is also a third. It turns out that the letter b was used to denote the masculine gender. For example, in nouns: Alexander, magician, lob. They also inserted it into verbs, for example: put, sel, (past tense male).
Over time, the letter b performed the function of a word separator less and less. But the “useless” Kommersant at the end of the words still held its ground. According to the aforementioned linguist L.V. Uspensky. this little "squiggle" could occupy up to 4% of the entire text. And this is millions and millions of pages annually.
Reforms of the 18th century
Those who believe that the control shot in the "head" of the evil letter Kommersant was made by the Bolsheviks and thereby cleared the Russian language of church prejudices is a little mistaken. The Bolsheviks in the seventeenth year simply "finished off" her. It all started much earlier!
Peter himself thought about the reform of the language, especially about the Russian writing. An experimenter in life, Peter has long dreamed of breathing new life into the "decrepit" Old Church Slavonic language. Unfortunately, his plans only remained plans. But the fact that he moved this issue off the ground is his merit.
The reforms that Peter began from 1708 to 1710 primarily affected the church script. Filigree "squiggles" of church letters were replaced by civil ones. Letters such as "Omega", "Psi" or "Yusy" have gone into oblivion. The familiar letters E and Y appeared.
The Russian Academy of Sciences began to think about the rationality of using some letters. So the idea of excluding "Izhitsa" from the alphabet among the academicians arose already in 1735. And in one of the printing editions of the same academy, a few years later, an article was published without the notorious letter b at the end.
Control shot for the letter b
In 1917, there were two shots - one on the cruiser "Aurora", the other at the Academy of Sciences. Someone thinks that the reform of the Russian writing is a merit exclusively of the Bolsheviks. But historical documents confirm that tsarist Russia also moved forward on this issue.
In the first years of the 20th century, the Moscow and Kazan linguists were already talking about the reform of the Russian language. 1904 was the first step in this direction. A special commission was created at the Academy of Sciences to simplify the Russian language. One of the questions on the commission was the notorious letter Kommersant. Then the Russian alphabet lost "Fit" and "Yat". New spelling rules were introduced in 1912, but, unfortunately, they never passed the censorship.
Thunder struck on December 23, 1917 (01/05/18). On this day, the People's Commissar of Education Lunacharsky A.V. signed a decree on the transition to a new spelling. The letter b - as a symbol of resistance to the Bolsheviks, let out its last breath.
To speed up the funeral of everything connected with the "tsarist regime" on November 4, 1918, the Bolsheviks issued a decree on the removal of the matrix and letters of the letter b from printing houses. As a result, a spelling miscarriage of the Bolsheviks appeared - an apostrophe. The separator function was now played by a comma (sub'em, s'ezd).
One era has ended - another has begun. Who would have thought that the small letter b would become so large and important in the confrontation between two worlds, white and red, old and new, before and after the shot!
But the letter b remained. It remained just like the 28th letter of the alphabet. In modern Russian, it plays a different role. But this is a completely different story.
LETTER Kommersant: PRESENT AND PAST
Yuzhannikov Vladislav
5 A class, MBOU "Secondary School No. 31 "
Alena Aleksandrovna Kanifatova
scientific advisor, teacher of the Russian language and literature,Novokuznetsk
There are 33 letters in the Russian alphabet. Most of these letters have their own sound designation, and sometimes not one, but two. So, for example, in the word CONFERENCE both in the second and in the third syllables there is the letter E, but in the second syllable in a weak position without stress, we pronounce the vowel sound I, and in the third syllable, by stress, the sound E. A special place among all letters is occupied by the soft and solid signs, since they do not give sounds. These letters have their own special roles in words. So we know that the letter b (soft sign) serves to denote the softness of a consonant sound (salt, coat), and also performs a separate function (blizzard, ants). Unlike this letter, the role of a solid sign is small. It serves as a separation. The only letters in front of which a solid sign can be located are E, Yo, Yu and Z (split e hatsya, sj e mka, raz I remove, lift Yu bnik). However, recently in Russia attempts have been made to use this letter for other purposes.
More and more often, on the streets of our city, we come across signs of the names of any institutions, at the end of which a solid sign flaunts. For example, real estate agencies "Variant", "Address", the store "Lombard", coffee "Petr", the magazine "Gatronom", taxi "Yamshchik", etc.
In this regard, the problem of this work is to find out: why in modern proper names the letter b appears at the end of the names, what is the history of this letter.
The purpose of this study: trace the use of the letter b in modern names from the point of view of its validity and significance.
In order to acquaint children with letters, in modern alphabet books, for each letter, to make it easier for the child, not only a drawing, but also a small poem is offered. What can you write about a solid sign? Let's look through several of these books.
1. We know that there is an entrance and an exit,
There is an ascent, and there is an entrance,
We can't do without them,
Very important ... (hard sign)
2. Announces to Kommersant:
The beast is my enemy and the bird is my enemy!
I'd better hide in the entrance,
And nobody will eat me!
3. I can't find it in any way
There is a solid sign in the zoo.
I do not know these animals.
Help me friends!
In Danish K.'s poem about a solid sign, my attention was drawn to the stanza:
I used to be an important person
When the king was held in high esteem,
He's almost in everyone's word
Visited and served.
The question arises: what service did the hard sign perform earlier.
Referring to various sources, I found three main functions of this letter in the Old Russian language.
So, in the first Russian alphabet, created by the enlighteners, brothers Cyril and Methodius, the letter b (hard sign) was called EP and was the 29th letter denoting an ultra-short vowel sound that is not pronounced. However, in writing, the use of this unpronounceable letter was not useless: it helped to break the string correctly - into words (before switching to the use of spaces): For example: to God elected to the Tsar.
But it should be noted that this hypothesis does not in any way justify the appearance of this letter in modern names. Since, according to my observation, this sign is found in proper names, consisting of only one word ("Admiral", "Traktir", "Gastronom"). In addition, as already mentioned, this letter played the role of an ultra-short vowel sound. In Russian, the syllable is a vowel sound, therefore there are as many syllables in a word as there are vowels: aria(3 syllables), Lighthouse(2 syllables), flight(1 syllable). Syllables are open (ending in a vowel sound) and closed (ending in a consonant sound). For example, in the word ko-ro-na, all syllables are open, and in the word ar-buz, both syllables are closed.
A characteristic feature of syllable-making in the Old Russian language was that it obeyed the law of an open syllable, as a result of which all syllables were open, that is, they ended in a vowel sound. The law of an open syllable determined the fact that in the Old Russian language there could not be consonants at the end of a word, since in this case the syllable would be closed. Therefore, at the end of words ending in consonants they wrote b (ep).
Let us trace this on the studied material. "Traktir", coffee "Admiral", store "Lombard", coffee "Petr", magazine "Gastronom", taxi "Yamshchik", real estate agencies "Variant" and "Address" ... Indeed, in all cases this letter is written at the end of the word , after a consonant sound, the transformation of the modern closed syllable into an open one occurs.
The famous Russian linguist Lev Vasilievich Uspensky (1900-1978) in his book "The Word about Words" calls the hard sign "the most expensive letter in the world." Since, in his opinion, "he did not help anything, did not express anything, absolutely did nothing." And in some texts this sign was used more often than other vowels. Let us trace this in an excerpt from the Old Russian chronicle "The Tale of Bygone Years".
In total, there are 144 words in this text, which account for 31 ep, in fact, this sign is written in every fourth word, and in some words it occurs twice. For example: vbprashal, entered, volkhkhvov.
The Soviet government also noticed the senseless use of this sign, which greatly increased the text and, accordingly, the cost of printing. Therefore, according to the Decree "On the introduction of a new spelling" (1918), the letter b (ep) was excluded from the Russian alphabet. There was no longer anything to mean and "dividing ep" in the middle of the words. They came up with a replacement for him: in its place they began to put an apostrophe (superscript comma) or quotation marks after the previous letter. In August 1928, the government recognized the use of an apostrophe in the middle of a word instead of the letter "hard sign" as unusual for Russian grammar. In modern Russian spelling, b (hard sign) is used only as a separator between a consonant and a vowel. It is most often used at the junction of a prefix and a root (announcement, entrance), as well as in some borrowed words (adjutant, injection) and in two adjacent complete (not abbreviated!) Stems in complex words (three-tiered).
It should be noted that in the Old Russian language, in addition to two functions (space and syllable formation), the letter b (ep) had a third function - the indicator of the masculine gender. It was written after the consonants at the end of nouns (Oleg, kudesnik, lob), in the masculine past tense verb (put, died), as well as in short masculine adjectives (lob gol, prince beautiful). When he disappeared from this position, the masculine gender began to be defined by the graphic zero as opposed to the feminine (book - table).
Does b (hard sign) fulfill this function in modern names? "Traktir", coffee "Admiral", store "Lombard", coffee "Petr", magazine "Gastronom", taxi "Yamshchik", real estate agencies "Variant" and "Address" ... Indeed, all these are masculine nouns.
Therefore, based on the material studied, the appearance of the letter b (solid sign) in the modern names of various institutions can be justified from the point of view of the history of this letter. First, as an ultra-short vowel sound that transforms a closed syllable into an open one. Secondly, in all these words, a solid sign is also an indicator of the masculine gender, according to the laws of the Old Russian language.
But did the entrepreneurs know these facts, who added this letter to the names of their companies? I addressed this question to entrepreneurs and employees of these institutions. A total of 14 people were interviewed. Of these, only 3 people know that it was once a vowel, 12 people know that this letter was written at the end of masculine nouns. When asked what they were guided by, adding b (hard sign) after hard consonants, they unanimously answered that these are commercial tricks that serve to create a certain image of a product or institution, which is intended to emphasize the good quality of an enterprise, using a stable idea: “pre-revolutionary (old) "=" Good ".
There are also a number of stores in our city, in the name of which there may be a solid sign at the end of the word: "Cosmos", "Sapphire", "Stimul", "Comfort", "Zenith", "Visit", "Phoenix", "Topaz" ... I hope that in the future, if entrepreneurs want to add the letter b (a hard sign) to the names of their firms and institutions, this will not be just a tribute to fashion or a commercial move, but a historically justified decision.
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