What letters are not needed in the Russian language? The relationship between Russian phonetics and graphics

Solid and soft signs do not represent any sounds. The hard sign performs a dividing function and is used after prefixes ending in

consonants, as well as before the root of a word starting with e, e, yu or i (pre-anniversary, disheveled, weaning, sarcastic). For example, it helps us distinguish between the words “sat” and “ate.” The soft sign indicates the softness of the previous consonant: bindweed, monkey,

earlier, seven. Sometimes a soft sign helps to distinguish a noun male from feminine: for example, the word “thing” female, and “horsetail” is masculine. In addition, it often contributes to the creation different forms the same verb: meet and meet.

But in the Old Russian language, soft and hard signs (er and er) meant very real sounds. The first meant the short sound “i”, and the second meant the same short “o”. Even before Russia adopted Christianity and the development of writing, the language had full, short and nasal vowels, and they all performed different functions. By the time of the baptism of Rus', nasal vowels had disappeared from the Russian language, but the letters to denote them remained. The former short vowels ь and ъ in some words turned out to be strong positions(for example, under stress, before a cluster of several consonants, in adjacent syllables with other short

vowels or far from stressed syllables with any vowels) and thus turned into the full vowels o or e, and in others into weak positions(at the absolute end of the word,

in adjacent syllables with stressed vowels) and gradually simply disappeared from use. Previously, the hard sign was in the word “connect” instead of “o”, the soft sign in the word “day” instead of “e”. In modern Russian there is such a thing as “fluent vowels”. This is the legacy of Old Russian. This is why texts in Old Russian are so difficult to read.

Do we need hard and soft signs? Hard to tell. IN Czech language, for example, they have long been replaced by diacritics. Language is subject to change, and it is possible that sooner or later ъ and ь will cease to exist as letters of the alphabet.

Have you ever thought that there are letters in the Russian alphabet that could be completely dispensed with? Why are they needed?

b and b

Hard and soft signs do not indicate any sounds. The hard sign performs a dividing function and is used after prefixes ending in

consonants, as well as before the root of a word starting with e, e, yu or i (pre-anniversary, disheveled, weaning, sarcastic). For example, it helps us distinguish between the words “sat” and “ate.” The soft sign indicates the softness of the previous consonant: bindweed, monkey,

earlier, seven. Sometimes a soft sign helps to distinguish a masculine noun from a feminine one: for example, the word “thing” is feminine, and “horsetail” is masculine. In addition, it often contributes to the creation of different forms of the same verb: meet and meet.

But in the Old Russian language, soft and hard signs (er and er) meant very real sounds. The first meant the short sound “i”, and the second meant the same short “o”. Even before Russia adopted Christianity and the development of writing, the language had full, short and nasal vowels, and they all performed different functions. By the time of the baptism of Rus', nasal vowels had disappeared from the Russian language, but the letters to denote them remained. The former short vowels ь and ъ in some words found themselves in strong positions (for example, under stress, before a cluster of several consonants, in adjacent syllables with other short

vowels or far from stressed syllables with any vowels) and thus turned into full vowels o or e, and in others - in weak positions (at the absolute end of a word,

in adjacent syllables with stressed vowels) and gradually simply disappeared from use. Previously, the hard sign was in the word “connect” instead of “o”, the soft sign in the word “day” instead of “e”. In modern Russian there is such a thing as “fluent vowels”. This is the legacy of Old Russian. This is why texts in Old Russian are so difficult to read.

Do we need hard and soft signs? Hard to tell. In the Czech language, for example, they have long been replaced by diacritics. Language is subject to change, and it is possible that sooner or later ъ and ь will cease to exist as letters of the alphabet.

Vowels e, e, yu, i

If these letters appear after a soft or hard sign, at the beginning of a word or after a vowel, then they break up into two sounds:

For example, the word “yolka” is pronounced “yolka”.

If these vowels come after consonants, they are pronounced as follows:

e – e or i

I - and or and

For example, the word “meat” is pronounced “mistso”.

There was especially a lot of controversy about the letter e. After all, according to Soviet tradition, it was usually written as “e”. Thus, some words and surnames of foreign origin began to be pronounced incorrectly. For example, the surname Richelieu actually sounds like Richelieu, Roerich - Roerich.

The situation with the letters “ts” and shch is also interesting. The first consonant is pronounced as the combination ts, the second - as sch. Why then are these letters needed?..

But the consonants k, p, l, s, t, f, w are just a softened form of the consonants g, b, p, z, v, zh.

Theoretically, it would be possible to remove letters from the Russian alphabet that can be replaced with others. But this is not as easy as it seems at first glance. “Extra” letters appeared in the Russian language for a reason, but for convenience - to reduce the number of letters when writing words or to show the difference in pronunciation. However, the language changes over time, and both new ways of pronunciation and new letters may appear in it, while the old ones will die out.

Hard and soft signs do not indicate any sounds. The hard sign performs a dividing function and is used after prefixes ending in

consonants, as well as before the root of a word starting with e, e, yu or i (pre-anniversary, disheveled, weaning, sarcastic). For example, it helps us distinguish between the words “sat” and “ate.” The soft sign indicates the softness of the previous consonant: bindweed, monkey,

earlier, seven. Sometimes a soft sign helps to distinguish a masculine noun from a feminine one: for example, the word “thing” is feminine, and “horsetail” is masculine. In addition, it often contributes to the creation of different forms of the same verb: meet and meet.

But in the Old Russian language, soft and hard signs (er and er) meant very real sounds. The first meant the short sound “i”, and the second meant the same short “o”. Even before Russia adopted Christianity and the development of writing, the language had full, short and nasal vowels, and they all performed different functions. By the time of the baptism of Rus', nasal vowels had disappeared from the Russian language, but the letters to denote them remained. The former short vowels ь and ъ in some words found themselves in strong positions (for example, under stress, before a cluster of several consonants, in adjacent syllables with other short

vowels or far from stressed syllables with any vowels) and thus turned into full vowels o or e, and in others - in weak positions (at the absolute end of a word,

in adjacent syllables with stressed vowels) and gradually simply disappeared from use. Previously, the hard sign was in the word “connect” instead of “o”, the soft sign in the word “day” instead of “e”. In modern Russian there is such a thing as “fluent vowels”. This is the legacy of Old Russian. This is why texts in Old Russian are so difficult to read.

Do we need hard and soft signs? Hard to tell. In the Czech language, for example, they have long been replaced by diacritics. Language is subject to change, and it is possible that sooner or later ъ and ь will cease to exist as letters of the alphabet.

Hard and soft signs do not indicate any sounds. The hard sign performs a dividing function and is used after prefixes ending in

consonants, as well as before the root of a word starting with e, e, yu or i (pre-anniversary, disheveled, weaning, sarcastic). For example, it helps us distinguish between the words “sat” and “ate.” The soft sign indicates the softness of the previous consonant: bindweed, monkey,

earlier, seven. Sometimes a soft sign helps to distinguish a masculine noun from a feminine one: for example, the word “thing” is feminine, and “horsetail” is masculine. In addition, it often contributes to the creation of different forms of the same verb: meet and meet.

But in the Old Russian language, soft and hard signs (er and er) meant very real sounds. The first meant the short sound “i”, and the second meant the same short “o”. Even before Russia adopted Christianity and the development of writing, the language had full, short and nasal vowels, and they all performed different functions. By the time of the baptism of Rus', nasal vowels had disappeared from the Russian language, but the letters to denote them remained. The former short vowels ь and ъ in some words found themselves in strong positions (for example, under stress, before a cluster of several consonants, in adjacent syllables with other short

vowels or far from stressed syllables with any vowels) and thus turned into full vowels o or e, and in others - in weak positions (at the absolute end of a word,

in adjacent syllables with stressed vowels) and gradually simply disappeared from use. Previously, the hard sign was in the word “connect” instead of “o”, the soft sign in the word “day” instead of “e”. In modern Russian there is such a thing as “fluent vowels”. This is the legacy of Old Russian. This is why texts in Old Russian are so difficult to read.

Do we need hard and soft signs? Hard to tell. In the Czech language, for example, they have long been replaced by diacritics. Language is subject to change, and it is possible that sooner or later ъ and ь will cease to exist as letters of the alphabet.

Hard and soft signs do not indicate any sounds. The hard sign performs a dividing function and is used after prefixes ending in

consonants, as well as before the root of a word starting with e, e, yu or i (pre-anniversary, disheveled, weaning, sarcastic). For example, it helps us distinguish between the words “sat” and “ate.” The soft sign indicates the softness of the previous consonant: bindweed, monkey,

earlier, seven. Sometimes a soft sign helps to distinguish a masculine noun from a feminine one: for example, the word “thing” is feminine, and “horsetail” is masculine. In addition, it often contributes to the creation of different forms of the same verb: meet and meet.

But in the Old Russian language, soft and hard signs (er and er) meant very real sounds. The first meant the short sound “i”, and the second meant the same short “o”. Even before Russia adopted Christianity and the development of writing, the language had full, short and nasal vowels, and they all performed different functions. By the time of the baptism of Rus', nasal vowels had disappeared from the Russian language, but the letters to denote them remained. The former short vowels ь and ъ in some words found themselves in strong positions (for example, under stress, before a cluster of several consonants, in adjacent syllables with other short

vowels or far from stressed syllables with any vowels) and thus turned into full vowels o or e, and in others - in weak positions (at the absolute end of a word,

in adjacent syllables with stressed vowels) and gradually simply disappeared from use. Previously, the hard sign was in the word “connect” instead of “o”, the soft sign in the word “day” instead of “e”. In modern Russian there is such a thing as “fluent vowels”. This is the legacy of Old Russian. This is why texts in Old Russian are so difficult to read.

Do we need hard and soft signs? Hard to tell. In the Czech language, for example, they have long been replaced by diacritics. Language is subject to change, and it is possible that sooner or later ъ and ь will cease to exist as letters of the alphabet.