To correctly write texts in the old orthography, you need to know not only which letter to write from the letters denoting the same sound - and or i, f or ѳ, e or ѣ - and be able to place eps at the ends of words; but also to know a bunch of other things. For example, to distinguish the words “her” and “her”, “they” and “he”; end of th ( expensive, one, whom) and -ago/-iago ( separate, samago, bluego); know when to end with an e ( voiced and deaf), and when - I ( lowercase and uppercase).

But nevertheless, Lebedev was right that it is most difficult to learn when it is written ѣ (yat).

The correct use of the letter yat was available only to those who knew all such words by heart. Of course, there were all sorts of rules. For example: if you put the desired word in the plural with an emphasis on e and get e, then you don’t need to write it (oar - oars, broom - brooms).

Knowing all the words by heart, perhaps, is impossible. Generally speaking, even a dictionary at hand will not save: the words there go in their initial form, and the letter e or ѣ can appear in a word only in some tricky forms: the end - at the end. Even if the spelling is in the root, and the same-root word was found in the dictionary, do not forget that there are roots in which the spelling is not stable: dress, but clothes. In addition, the word can be written through e or ѣ, depending on the meaning: there and ѣ is, blue and blue.

To write a word correctly, you often need to understand its morphology.

I tried to compile a kind of "checklist", which will allow you to fairly quickly check a significant part of the spellings for e and ѣ, without referring to the dictionary.

Noun declension

The easiest thing to remember is that in the endings of indirect cases of nouns, the last letter is always written ѣ: table - about table.

If we approach the issue formally, then ѣ is written:

1. In the endings of the prepositional case of nouns of the first declension: stump - about the stump, custom - about the custom, field - about the field.
2. In the endings of the dative and prepositional cases of nouns of the second declension: fish - fish - about fish.

Note that "vocative" is not oblique; e is written in its endings: father - father, Iesus - Iesus.

In case endings of words, the so-called. the fourth declension (in -mya) ѣ is not written: time - time-eni, seed - seed-eni. Here the spelling does not fall on the last letter.

Noun suffixes

In noun suffixes, ѣ is never written:

witness-tel-b, zhn-ets-b, barrel-enok, fire-ek-b, letter-ets-o, uncle-enk-a, time-echk-o, hut-enk-a

You need to be careful with this rule: not every suffix that occurs in a noun is noun suffix:

Your Holiness

On the other hand, this rule applies not only to nouns, because adjectives can also have these suffixes:

delight-tel-ny, Mash-enk-in

Adjectives

Adjective suffixes in which e is written: -ev- (cherry), -enny, -enniy (vital, morning), -evat- (reddish), -en-sky (presnensky).

Adjectives in augmentative, diminutive and caressing forms end in -echonek, -eshenek, -ohonek, -oshenek, -evaty, -enkiy; in these parts ѣ is not written: small - malekhonek, wet - wet.

Adjectives in the comparative degree end in ѣе, ѣй, and in the superlative - in the most, most, most, most:

white - whiter - whitest

If one sound e is heard at the end of the comparative degree, then e is written: Words like more, me, used instead of full forms more, less, are excluded.

Adjectives in -ov, -ev, -yn, -in (and the same with the letter o instead of ъ) end in the prepositional case of the singular masculine and neuter in ѣ when they are used in the meaning of proper names: Ivanov - about Ivanov, Tsaritsyno - in Tsaritsyn.

Pronouns

Ѣ is written in the endings of personal pronouns I, you, myself in the dative and prepositional cases:

me, you, myself
about me, about you, about myself

Also ѣ is written in pronouns:

• everything (and when declining: everyone, everything, everyone ...);
• all, all - only in the instrumental case: all (in the feminine form, “all”, even in the instrumental case, it is written e: all);
• tѣ (and when declining: tѣh, tѣm ...);
• oni (plural of she is);
• that, that - in the instrumental case: tѣm;
• who, what, nobody, nothing - only in the instrumental case: who, what, nobody, nothing (unlike the genitive and dative cases: what, what, nothing, nothing);
• someone, something, some, some, a few.

Pay attention to the first and second line in this list: “all” is “all”, and “all” is “all” (more on e - a little lower).

In the pronoun "whose" in all forms, e is written.

Verbs, participles

Before the end of the indefinite mood, ѣ is written: to see, to hang. Exceptions: rub, shove, measure, stretch.

Verbs with this ѣ retain it in all forms derived from the stem of the indefinite mood, including other parts of speech:

see, saw, seen, seen, vision

If such ѣ from the indefinite form is preserved in the 1st person of the present or future tense, then it is also preserved in the remaining persons of the singular and the plural, as well as in the imperative mood:

warm - warm,
warm, warm, warm

If the preceding consonant d or t in the past participle is replaced by zh or h, then the suffix н is added with the vowel e:

offend - offended, twirl - twirled

In the forms of the verb to be written e: I am; you are; he, she, it is; we are; you are (they, he are).

In the verb ѣst (in the sense of eating food) it is written ѣ: I ѣm; you eat; he, she, it is; we eat; you eat; they, they eat. The word ѣda is also written with ѣ.

It can be seen here that in the verb ending -te of the second person plural, e is written: you read, share, dress. The same is in the imperative mood: read, share, dress.

Participles of the middle gender have the ending -her: reading-her, dividing-her, dressing-her-sya; reading it, sharing it, dressing it. In the passive form, the ending -th appears: read-th, read-th.

numerals

Ѣ is written in feminine numerals: two, both, one. At the same time, the letter ѣ is preserved when words are changed by cases: both, one. Also: twelve, two hundred.

Ѣ and ё

In general, if when changing a word, where e was heard, ё is heard, ѣ is not written - Lebedev mentioned this rule in his paragraph. There are many exceptions to this rule:

nests, stars, bear, saddle, bent, sweep, vdzhka, veshka, found, blossomed, yawn, put on, imprinted.

I note, at the same time, that the old rules regarding the letter ё were stricter than modern ones, and sounded like this: “Where [yo] is heard, one should write e.” In the case of the words “all” and “all”, there was not even any discrepancy: in the word where e is heard, the letter ѣ was written.

True, in the book of 1901 that fell into my hands, the letter e was nevertheless printed in proper names: Goethe, Koerner.

Other vowel changes

In addition to checking for the occurrence of ё in other forms of the word, there are other checks.

It is written e if, when changing the word:

• the sound drops out / appears: father - father, merchant - merchant, take - take;
• the sound is reduced to b: sick - sick, animal - animal;
• the sound is reduced to th: loan - loan, taiga - taiga;
• the sound turns into and: shine - shine, die - die.

It is written ѣ if, when the word changes, the sound turns into a: climb - climb, sit - sit down;

The alternation of e and ѣ is observed in the following cases: dress - clothes, put on - hope, adverb - saying.

Consonants followed by e

After the consonants g, k, x, w, h, w, u in the roots words are written e: tin, wool. The exception is the word fuck.

findings

If you systematize all the rules about the letter ѣ, then they cease to seem quite unbearably complex. Some of these rules, for example, about prepositional endings of nouns or degrees of comparison of adjectives, are extremely simple, and are remembered from the first time.

This allows you not to wonder about the correct spelling in a significant part of the cases.

By the way, it is not harmful to know that “yat” is a masculine word, that is, yat is he, not she.

What is the old (pre-reform, pre-revolutionary) spelling?

This is the orthography of the Russian language, which was in use from the time of Peter the Great until the spelling reform of 1917-1918. Over these 200 years, of course, it has also changed, and we will talk about the spelling of the late XIX - early XX century - in the state in which the last reform found it.

How does the old spelling differ from the modern one?

In the Russian alphabet before the reform of 1917-1918 there were more letters than now. In addition to the 33 current letters, the alphabet had i (“and decimal”, reads like “and”), ѣ (yat, read like “e”, in italics it looks like ѣ ), ѳ (fita, read as “f”) and ѵ (zhitsa, read as “and”). In addition, the letter “b” (ep, hard sign) was much more widely used. Most of the differences between pre-reform spelling and current spelling have to do with the use of these letters, but there are a number of others, such as the use of different endings in some cases and numbers.

How to use ъ (ep, hard sign)?

This is the easiest rule. In pre-reform spelling, a solid sign (aka er) is written at the end of any word ending in a consonant: table, telephone, St. Petersburg. This also applies to words with hissing consonants at the end: ball, already married unbearable. The exception is words ending in "and short": th considered a vowel. In those words where we now write a soft sign at the end, it is also needed in pre-reform orthography: deer, mouse, sitting.

How to use i ("and decimal")?

It's also very simple. It should be written in place of the current and, if immediately after it comes another vowel (including - according to pre-revolutionary rules - th): line, other, arrived, blue. The only word where the spelling і does not follow this rule, peace meaning "earth, universe". Thus, in pre-reform spelling, there was an opposition of words peace(no war) and peace(the Universe), which disappeared along with the abolition of "and the decimal".

How to use ѳ (phyta)?

The letter "fita" was used in a limited list of words of Greek origin (and this list was reduced over time) in place of the current f- in those places where the letter "theta" (θ) was in Greek: Athens, aka-hist, Timothy, Thomas, rhyme etc. Here is a list of words with phyta:

Proper names: Agaѳya, ANAMIM, AѳANASII, Aѳina, Varѳoloy, Goliaѳ, Evhamiy, Marsa, Mathey, Meachodiy, Naѳanail, Parhenon, Pihagor, Ru, Savaoѳ, Timoi, Eserir, ѳdoydor, ѳmikolor, , Theodosius (Theodosius), Theodosius, Theodot (Theedot), Theophanes (but Fofan), Theophilus, Thera-pont, Thomas, Tominichna.

Geographic names: Aѳin, Aѳon, Viyania, Viyzda, Viinia, Vileem, Viѳsaida, Geaxine, Golgoѳa, Karѳgen, Korinѳ, Mara-ѳon, Parѳiyya, Parhenon, Eѳiopіya, ѳaavor, ѳeodosiya, ѳsesaloniki, ѳsesaloniki, ѳseselniki, ѳseselniki.

Peoples (and city dwellers): Corinthians, Parthians, Scythians, Ethiopians, Thebans.

Common nouns: anathema, akathist, apotheosis, apothegma, arithmetic, dithyramb, ethimons, catholic(but catholic), pulpit, kathisma, kithara, leviathan, logarithm, marathon, mythology, mythology, monothelitism, orthography, orthoepia, pathos(passion , but Paphos - Island), rhyme, ethereal, fimiam, hita.

When to write ѵ (izhitsu)?

Almost never. Izhitsa was preserved only in the word world(myrrh - church oil) and in some other church terms: ѵpodiakon, ѵposta etc. This letter is also of Greek origin, corresponds to the Greek letter "upsilon".

What do you need to know about endings?

Adjectives in the masculine and neuter gender that have endings in the nominative case singular -th, -th, in the genitive case end in -ago, -yago.

“And the beaver sits, its eyes goggle at everyone. Doesn't understand anything. Uncle Fyodor gave him milk boiled"("Uncle Fyodor, dog and cat").

“Here it [the balloon] flew over the last floor great at home, and someone leaned out of the window and waved after him, and he was even taller and a little sideways, taller than antennas and pigeons, and became quite small ... ”(“Deniska’s Tales”).

Feminine and neuter plural adjectives end in -ya, -iya(but not th,-s, like now). feminine third person pronoun she is in the genitive case has the form her, as opposed to the accusative her(this hour is everywhere her).

"So what? Sharik says. - It is not necessary to buy a big cow. You buy a small one. There is takiya special cows for cats. Goats are called "(" Uncle Fedor, dog and cat ").

“And I am sending you money - one hundred rubles. If you have left superfluous, send it back ”(“ Uncle Fyodor, dog and cat ”).

“At that time, my mother had a vacation, and we were visiting her relatives, in one large collective farm "(Deniska's Tales").

What do you need to know about attachments?

In prefixes ending in a consonant h (from-, in-, times-), it is saved before the next with: tell, rise, fade. In consoles without- and through-/through- final h always saved: useless, useless.

The most difficult thing: how to write yat?

The rules for using the letter “yat” are, alas, not so easy to describe. It was yat that created a large number of problems for pre-revolutionary gymnasium students, who had to memorize long lists of words with this letter (much like today's schoolchildren learn "dictionary words"). The mnemonic poem "White Poor Pale Devil" is widely known, although it was not the only one of its kind. The thing is that spellings with yat basically obeyed the etymological principle: in an earlier period of the history of the Russian language, the letter “yat” corresponded to a separate sound (middle between [i] and [e]), which later in most dialects merged in pronunciation with the sound [e]. The difference in writing persisted for several more centuries, until, during the reform of 1917-1918, the yat was universally replaced by the letter “e” (with some exceptions, which are discussed below).

White, pale, poor devil
Hungry ran away into the forest.
Leshim through the forest he ran,
I dined with horseradish
And for that bitter dinner
I made a vow to put on trouble.

Look, brother, what a cage and a cage,
Sieve, grid, grid,
Vzha and iron to remove -
That's how it should be written.

Our eyelids and eyelashes
Protect the eyes of the pupils,
Eyelids squint for a whole century
At night, every person ...

The wind broke the branches,
The German tied brooms,
Hung right at the exchange,
I sold it for two hryvnias in Vienna.

Dnieper and Dniester, as everyone knows,
Two rivers in close proximity,
Divides the area of ​​​​their Bug,
Cuts from north to south.

Who is angry and savage there?
Strongly complain so dare?
We must peacefully resolve the dispute
And to convince each other...

Bird's nests of sin to dawn,
It's a sin to waste bread in vain,
Laugh at the crippled sin,
To scoff at the crippled ...

What should the current lover of pre-reform spelling do, who wants to comprehend all the intricacies of spelling yat? Is it necessary to follow in the footsteps of the gymnasts of the Russian Empire and memorize poems about the poor demon? Fortunately, things are not so hopeless. There are a number of patterns that together cover a significant part of the cases of writing yat - accordingly, their observance will help to avoid the most common mistakes. Let's consider these patterns in more detail: first, we describe the cases where the yat cannot be, and then the spelling where the yat should be.

First of all, yat is not written in place of that e, which alternates with zero sound (that is, with a missing vowel): lion(not * lev), cf. lion; ash(not * clear), cf. clear etc.

Secondly, yat is not written in place e, which now alternates with yo, as well as in place of the yo: Spring(not * spring), cf. spring; honey, cf. honey; exceptions: star(cf. stars), nest(cf. nests) and some others.

Thirdly, yat is not written in full-vowel combinations -here-, -barely- and in incomplete vowel combinations -re- and -le- between consonants: wood, bereg, shroud, time, tree, attract(exception: captivity). Also, as a rule, yat is not written in conjunction -er- before a consonant: top, first, keep etc.

Fourth, yat is not written in the roots of words of clearly foreign (non-Slavic) origin, including proper names: newspaper, telephone, anecdote, address, method etc.

As for spellings, where the yat should be, let's name two basic rules.

The first, most general rule: if the word is now written e in front of a hard consonant and it does not alternate with zero sound or with yo, with a very high probability in place of this e in pre-reform orthography, you need to write yat. Examples: body, nut, rare, foam, place, forest, copper, business, go, food and many others. It is important to take into account the limitations mentioned above related to full agreement, dissent, borrowed words, etc.

Second rule: yat is written in place of the present e in most grammatical morphemes:

- in case endings of indirect cases of nouns and pronouns: on the table, to my sister, in my hand, to me, to you, to myself, with what, with whom, everything, everyone, everyone(indirect cases - everything except the nominative and accusative, in these two cases yat is not written: drowned in the sea- prepositional let's go to the sea- accusative);

- in superlative and comparative suffixes of adjectives and adverbs -e (-y) and -ѣish-: faster, stronger, faster, stronger;

- in the basic suffix of verbs in -ѣt and nouns derived from them: have, sit, look, had, sat, watched, name, redness etc. (in nouns in -enie, formed from other verbs, you need to write e: doubt- cf. doubt; reading - cf. read);

- at the end of most prepositions and adverbs: together, except, near, after, lightly, everywhere, where, outside;

- in attachment no-, which has the value of uncertainty: someone, something, some, some, somewhat, sometime(once upon a time). In this case, the negative prefix and the particle are written with "e": nowhere, not for anything, not with anyone, once(no time).

Finally, there are two cases where the yat at the end must be written in place of the current one and: he and alone- “they” and “alone” in relation to feminine nouns, and in the case of alone- and in indirect cases: one, one, one.

“Well then. Let him be a poodle. Pet dogs are also needed, though he and useless" ("Uncle Fyodor, dog and cat").

“Look what your Sharik suits us. Now I'll have to buy a new table. It's good that I cleared all the dishes from the table. We would be left without plates! Съ alone forks ("Uncle Fedor, dog and cat").

Besides, in a difficult struggle with the rules for using yat, knowledge of other Slavic languages ​​\u200b\u200bcan help. So, very often in place of yat in the corresponding Polish word, ia will be written (wiatr - wind, miasto - place), and in Ukrainian - i (dіlo - business, place - place).

As we said above, following these rules will save you from mistakes in most cases. However, given that there are many nuances, exceptions, exceptions to exceptions in the rules for using yat, it never hurts to check the spelling in the reference book if you doubt it. The authoritative pre-revolutionary reference book is "Russian Spelling" by Yakov Grot, a convenient modern online dictionary - www.dorev.ru.

Isn't there something faster?

There is. Here is the Slavenica website, where you can automatically translate most words into the old spelling.

Guest (10:24:35 05/03/2013):
What is the spelling of the letter "fita"?

lover of Russian literature and lawyer-criminologist (15:18:34 30/10/2013):
Hmmm ... If schoolchildren are taught in this way, then for sure ... we will slide "to nowhere", that is, in modern terms, "to nowhere." In the Russian language, initially all signs carried an important semantic and speech load. Take, for example, the same example with the word "world": thanks to the vowels, already on paper and without explanation, you can distinguish what kind of world we are talking about: about a private "world" - peace, a universal "peace" - "universal", i.e. the world of people, society or the "world" of a cult - about incense, to which now you have to add either "o" or "r" to make it "understandable")) Philology without logic, like any science - is out-of-thinking. In Russian, "IZ" means "obsolete". For example, "outcast" is "alien", i.e. "not ours" (the Jews have nothing to do with it))

lover of Russian literature and lawyer-criminologist (15:47:53 30/10/2013):
Regarding the letter "fita" - pay attention to the spelling of the transcription in English - there "fita" is still written and "read" and pronounced the same way)) When will philologists realize that all the languages ​​of the world originated from one - one that they themselves have not yet learned to understand, and even interpret to others like this ...

??? (20:35:26 01/09/2014):
And yet, if the letters now excluded from the alphabet remained in it, half of today's USE honors students would not have passed it: so many spelling rules cannot fit in the head of an ordinary person.

Margosha (19:41:17 03/12/2014):
completely agree with the lover of Russian literature. a couple more reforms and you and I will only mumble and poke and our convolutions will straighten out so as not to load us

YanaR (15:30:28 03/19/2015):
"Sit down from the IMAGE of the technical language and you will be able to manage this people" ... Yat-image showing the connection between the earthly and heavenly, Izhitsa-Image of divine movement (Mvra - in temples, for example, was written through Izhitsa), Feta - the image of the natural, higher component in all worlds, Reveal, Navi, rule and glory, and not every word carries it ... So, children, stay children with your eyes closed ..

Catherine (11:56:17 16/07/2015):
I would like to contact the author of the article. Your message is that the letters yat, fita, er and izhitsa are not needed. It seems to me that this is not entirely true. For example, "yat" and "E" in the roots of similar-sounding words make it possible to distinguish their meanings. If children still spelled these words differently, they would have a finer sense of the language and a deeper understanding of it. "Er" is not an extra letter, by no means. It denoted a semi-vowel sound, o-short. In church singing, this is still widely used in practice: when we add this semivowel at the ends of words when we sing, it is easier for listeners to understand the text. In addition, in English, the duration of vowels still matters: [i] -, [a] -, [u] -.

Strunnikov Mikhail Evgenievich (08:08:31 23/10/2015):
It is precisely to perverts of every kind and every orientation that the ideas of such a "revival" come to the head. They cannot use modern spelling, but give them "ery-yat, ery-yus." Shushera!

Denis (11:23:44 21/11/2015):
Many do not know why the letters in the Russian alphabet go in this sequence. Secrets of the Russian alphabet... In the first line: - I know God, I speak kindly, so I exist. In the second line: - Life is abundant on Earth when the universal truth is in the community from God. In the third line: - For all thinking people, only He (God) pronounces peace. In the fourth line: - The word, approved from above, calls to confidently hold on to the foundations of the wisdom of goodness to complete the path, to come into harmony for a new beginning. In the fifth line: - The protection of the borders of our earth and growth ensure God's protection and our unity. In the sixth line: - The harmonious development and growth potential of my family and me, as a part of it, depends on the Supreme source and the history of the family. In the seventh line: - The meaning of life is in the desire to perfect the spirit and soul until it fully matures into a perfect personality in eternity. Vertically 1 column: - My life is like a thought clothed in sound, striving for harmony, the smallest particle of reason in the universe. Column 2: - God creates a solid border around people and directs them to self-improvement. 3rd column: - Knowledge of the Earth and reflection on it call for peace in the spirit of our kind (people). 4th column: - Telling the truth is our tradition, our protection, part of our soul. (What is the power of brother? - In Truth!) 5 column: - The blessing of the Universe is that God the Creator confidently and firmly creates the growth of everything, for the complete maturation of the seed. Column 6: - The essence of the existence of human society in peace, peace, balance, harmony, unity from the Supreme Source to the perfect soul. 7 column: - The existing heavenly Source brings to our world both the beginning of everything and the growth of everything, and the experience of people in time. Diagonal from top to bottom and from left to right: - I think a lot and the basis of my creativity is the supreme Source always.

Random guest (22:52:33 04/19/2016):
With such a hostile attitude towards everything that was before the revolution, our society will "go far", how! The letters that our ancestors used to write are the property of our language! How can you call them unnecessary and somehow "not so" ??? I can't understand at all!!! Our language was so complex that it causes only respect for its speakers!!! The Slavs, by the way, felt the sounds very subtly, Cyril and Methodius knowingly came up with several letters for some, at first glance, the same sounds. The old Slavs had a difference in speech. The simplest example for a modern person is that half of foreigners do not understand the difference between "sh" and "u". You look - what a beautiful spelling was with "yat", and decimal, etc.! And "b" after consonants at the end of words made our language unique! P.S. I think that only ignorant people can treat their language, the property of their people and their ancestors in this way! Ashamed!

Mikhail (08:25:59 09/16/2016):
They would study the history of the language and its modifications in Russian, give all the rules - even if it is cut down without forcing this memorization, those who are interested in themselves would go deeper and it is fashionable to organize such electives. Where are these teachers? From that Russian language who likes to learn?

Anna (19:34:15 11/14/2016):
Lord! Language is a living system that is constantly in motion. It is only natural that reforms take place. It enriches languages, makes them easier to understand. Our language is already complicated, and you, Mikhail, not understanding the specifics of teaching the Russian language at school, are trying to impose your a priori wrong opinion (from the point of view of linguistics): in no case should you "cut down" anything (especially the history of the language, historical grammar, Old Church Slavonic, etc.)! Otherwise, it will only scare away the children! Yes, some illustrations are acceptable (as small minute examples), but not a story about the system for the formation of certain grammar principles (the lesson will not be enough to explain at least one of them!). But after all, we all know how to teach and heal. That's what you should be ashamed of! And also to the question of the uniqueness of the language and human ignorance. Mainly, Random Guest, the ignorance of native speakers is manifested in their careless attitude towards it (which is massively observed here in the comments), and not in any way in the rational reform and simplification of a complex system. Without natural changes, the language will begin to "fail" and gradually "die", as it will become an inconvenient tool for communication. Many who have studied English and French will agree that the spelling system of these languages ​​needs to be changed, otherwise it turns out that we write "Manchester" and read "Liverpool". It's a shame for "specialists of a wide profile", who in all areas will find where to insert their five kopecks.

Anastasia Yurievna (13:26:46 12/02/2017):
Language is a difficult science. The letters removed from the alphabet are needed so that the children would feel the language of their people. Now half of the words practically do not matter, and the letters Izhitsa, er should return to the alphabet. And in general, I think we need to start writing Cyrillic again as it was before.

Strunnikov Mikhail Evgenievich (09:10:21 03/17/2017):
For complete happiness, it is not enough to write these textbooks in pre-Petrine Cyrillic.

Svarog (21:50:11 20/03/2017):
Random Guest! No offense. I wanted to correct you. Cyril and Methodius did not come up with anything. They cut Bukovica from 49 beeches and left us 44, and then 43. So let's not praise them!

Strunnikov Mikhail Evgenievich (08:42:18 10/04/2017):
They, apparently, were afraid that the "pagan" Svarog (isn't Zevsych according to the priest?) On forty-nine letters, he will earn a hernia. He could handle thirty-three. For the same purpose, the Wrights and Bleriot cut off one wing of the plane, which the "svarogs" bungled: otherwise, poor thing, he would get lost in the wings, like in three pines ... You can continue further, but why? Svarog Perunych will punish.

Dmitry (11:34:27 17/02/2019):
let's return of course, we will redo all the equipment - computers, etc. We are lagging behind the whole world in development (not in the brain) technologically. I read the article, it was interesting before, of course ... on this I think that whoever needs it, let them express their thoughts as they like! A matter of taste! and learn different alphabets.

Dmitry (11:41:10 17/02/2019):
In the direction of poets, rhymers, etc. These letters are like additional bonuses ... it's easier to convey a thought .. no barriers will interfere with real talent and these bonuses are not needed. From the "three" letters will write.

On October 10, 1918, a decree of the Council of People's Commissars and a resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the National Economy "On the withdrawal from circulation of the common letters of the Russian language" (i decimal, fita and yat) were adopted.

On October 10, 1918, a reform took place in Russia, as a result of which a new spelling was officially introduced, the website of the Presidential Library reports. The reform was discussed and prepared long before its practical implementation. So, in 1904, the spelling subcommittee at the Imperial Academy of Sciences, headed by A.A. Shakhmatov, issued a “Preliminary Communication”, and in 1911, at a special meeting of the organization, after the approval of the work of the commission, a resolution was passed: to develop in detail the main parts of the reform. The corresponding decree was published in 1912.

Since that time, single editions appeared, printed according to the new spelling. The reform was officially announced on (11) May 24, 1917 in the form of “Resolutions of the meeting on the issue of simplifying Russian spelling”, and (17) on May 30, on the basis of these materials, the Ministry of Public Education of the Provisional Government ordered the trustees of the districts to immediately reform Russian spelling; another circular came out (22 June) on 5 July.

However, the reform then began only at school, which was confirmed by a decree of the Soviet People's Commissariat of Education dated December 23, 1917, January 5, 1918. For the press and paperwork, only the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of October 10, 1918, published in Izvestia on October 13, became mandatory.

In accordance with the reform, the letters yat, fita, i (“and decimal”); instead of them should be used, respectively, e, f, and; the solid sign (ъ) at the end of words and parts of compound words was excluded, but remained as a separating sign (rise, adjutant).

A number of other changes were introduced regarding the rules for writing prefixes on z / s, as well as some endings. The reform did not say anything about the fate of the letter Izhitsa, which was rare and out of practical use even before 1917; in practice, after the reform, it also completely disappeared from the alphabet.

As a result, the reform reduced the number of spelling rules that had no support in pronunciation, for example, the difference in gender in the plural or the need to memorize a long list of words written with “yat” (moreover, there were disputes among linguists regarding the composition of this list, and various spelling guides contradicted in places each other).

The reform also led to some savings in writing and typographical typesetting, excluding Ъ at the end of words (according to the estimates of the writer L.V. Uspensky, the text in the new spelling becomes about 1/30 shorter).

However, most domestic linguists rejected this reform. Some believed that it impoverishes the language, others believed that it was not radical enough. The reform also aroused considerable resistance in society. The first steps towards the practical implementation of spelling changes took place after the revolution, which determined the sharply critical attitude towards it on the part of the political opponents of Bolshevism. That is why the innovations did not affect most of the publications printed in the territories controlled by the whites, and then in exile.

In recent decades, the issue of the spelling of the Russian language has again become relevant, primarily in connection with the revival of Orthodox culture, for which pre-revolutionary spelling has a sacred meaning.

Ѣ - historical Cyrillic letter or white swan of the Russian alphabet

Ѣ ѣ (yat) - as many deservedly call it: the “white swan” of the Russian alphabet and the “most Russian letter” - one of the most historically interesting letters of the Russian (and not only) language, used in spelling until the reform of 1917-1918. One of the reasons for its abolition was the almost complete correspondence to the pronunciation of the letter “e”, which was already observed at the end of the 19th century, although pronunciation features could be “caught” in some languages ​​at the beginning of the 20th century: Ukrainian, Belarusian, Croatian. Moreover, many of the books printed in Lviv used ѣ in the post-reform period (presumably until the 30s of the XX century). Examples will soon be posted in the "" section.

And the history of the formation of the very appearance of the “yatya”, which still does not have an unambiguous explanation, is also interesting. Among many ancient Cyrillic texts, one can find, for example, its representation in the form of an inverted “T”, a modified alpha “A” and sometimes even a merged outline of two letters “Gb”, which is more in line with the capital form of a yat. Here we should immediately make a reservation that the rules for using the letter ѣ (yat) in pre-reform Russian orthography were quite complicated. It was almost impossible to understand some of them for an ordinary person (this was especially true when using ѣ in roots), and therefore, it was proposed to simply memorize a list of such words, and to facilitate this, they even came up with mnemonic verses (one of the options is presented right), who used to memorize the same way as we now memorize the multiplication table. Previously, there was even a saying: “learn to yat” (which was a nightmare for all schoolchildren), which, with the departure of the letter, unfortunately, has lost its original meaning these days and is almost never used. A list of all the rules for using ѣ in Russian can be found on Wikipedia, where this topic is most fully disclosed. If you plunge into the history of the “repression” of the letter ѣ, then it should be pointed out that it quite successfully survived the “Petrine reform of the alphabet” of 1708 (according to some reports, at that time in Russia there was still a clear difference in pronunciation between “ѣ” and “e”), although already in the 18th century, M.V. Lomonosov points to their almost complete identity, and already in 1885, in his “Russian Spelling”, J.K. Grot says that their pronunciation already there is absolutely no difference. At one time, N.I. Grech acted as the defender of the “yat”, pointing out to Nicholas I (who was beginning to think about the abolition of ѣ) that the use of this letter in writing distinguishes the literate from the illiterate. If you wish, you can “google” about how the Provisional Government’s circulars regarding spelling reform were implemented - you will learn a lot of interesting things ... Especially how “objectionable letters” were removed from printing houses.

And now is the time to talk about the peculiarities of typography when writing "yatya" in pre-revolutionary publications and the problems associated with its current display on the Web, but before that, completing the historical part of the material, we will supplement it with encyclopedic data.

As a reliable reference, we give the interpretation of the letter Ѣ according to "" in 1901, edited by S.N. Yuzhakov with the preservation of the original spelling:

So, about the features of displaying "yatya" in the Web. The situation is, to put it mildly, sad... The catastrophically small number of fonts that contain letters and symbols of the old Cyrillic alphabet (and not only) force us to be content with what we have, and this is very upsetting. Unfortunately, webmasters have no choice but to use the fonts listed below in their projects, otherwise the user will simply not see some pre-reform Cyrillic characters.*

We will present examples of the display of "yatya", some of the most common "safe" fonts. As you have already noticed, we prefer to type pre-reform texts using the Times New Roman font, since it most accurately (among others) reproduces the typography of the old Cyrillic alphabet and contains the richest character set.

Under Windows OS, the following fonts provide the correct display of Yat: Arial, Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Consolas, Constantia, Corbel, Courier New, Garamond Premier Pro, Microsoft Sans Serif, Minion Pro, Palatino Linotype, Segoe UI, Tahoma, Times New Roman. Most likely, this list is far from complete, we would be grateful for information about other fonts that support historical Cyrillic.

Below are the most interesting examples of the inscription of the letter ѣ (Yat), using some of the developments of the site www.irmologion.ru, which deals with the promotion, revival and development of Church Slavonic fonts based on the typeface of synodal editions of bygone centuries:

When you hover over the image, information about the font used to draw the yat will be displayed. The fonts are ideal for accurate reproduction of both old Church Slavonic publications and for stylizing any texts “under the pre-reform antiquity”.

The presentation of the letter ѣ in the form of an initial (or, in a more familiar sense, a capital letter) deserves special attention. Recall that the initial serves as the first letter of a chapter (section or article) and, as a rule, is performed in a manner different from other letters, very often decorated with various ornaments, plant and animal motifs, which sets a peculiar mood for the perception of the entire text on the page. Please do not confuse the initial with . Unfortunately, yat is very rare as an initial, due to too few words starting with ѣ, which can be counted on the fingers. Therefore, we will be very grateful for the provision of scans of any pre-revolutionary publications, where the yat is made using any type of ornamentation - this will serve as an excellent addition to this material.

* Recommendations for webmasters on using fonts for typing texts containing old Cyrillic: a user viewing your page will be able to see old Cyrillic characters only if he has the font installed that you use when typing - this should not be forgotten . As we indicated above, there is a list of "safe" fonts installed on the system by default along with the OS. Try to use them - this will guarantee and correct display of such texts.

If you set out to accurately reproduce the typography of pre-revolutionary publications, be prepared for the fact that even using the whole arsenal of ways to connect third-party fonts to the site, many of the visitors will not be able to see it. First of all, this is due to the peculiarity of displaying characters by different browsers. We note right away that we dismiss Flash and the substitution of symbols with pictures as not progressive and too laborious.

Ѳ Ѱ Ѧ Ѥ Ѩ - open this page in different browsers…

Of all that we have tried, we recommend using the @font-face CSS rule, having previously prepared a custom font of your choice, but this method does not guarantee correct display in all browsers, for example, Opera before version 10.0 sometimes behaves very capriciously . It's important to use the "font-family" property here as well, like listing the fonts in order of importance - start with the most exotic, end with one of the "safe" ones that is best for replacement, don't forget to list the font type at the end of the list. The "yatya" code for displaying it in HTML can be found in .

From the cana of publications with original versions of the styles, the yat can be sent to ours - this will be of great help in the development of the project.