Talk:ь

Since there are many Cyrillic alphabets, am I right in assuming this is the 29th letter of the current (post 1918) version of the Russian alphabet? — Hippietrail 05:40, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Use of ер малък in Bulgarian

I have never heard of ер малък being used to modify consonants in Bulgarian, and I do speak Bulgarian, albeit not as a native speaker. In Bulgarian, Ь is used exclusively in front of the letter О to create the jo (yo) sound. The Ь can also never be used at the start of a word; if it's necessary to create the jo sound at the start of a word, an И or Й will be used instead. I'll also note that this letter's usage is extremely rare--it is far and away the least-used letter in the Bulgarian language. Ahelps 06:15, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Ер малък softens Bulgarian consonants (makes them palatalized), but, as you point out, it is only used before the letter о. Thus the sound of л in льос is softened, and is not like the hard л of лост (/lʲɔs/ versus /lɔs/). —Stephen 07:15, 25 March 2008 (UTC)