Interesting facts about Russian letters
1) The letter “E” was proposed for use by Princess Vorontsova-Dashkova (a very advanced lady, president of the Academy of Sciences) in 1783. Thanks to Karamzin, who first used it in 1797, she became famous. Before that, she wrote diphthong “i”. In the current Ukrainian language, the sound “” is transmitted by letter as “”.
2) Most of the words with the letter “F” in Russian are borrowed. Pushkin was proud that in “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” there was only one word with the letter “f” - fleet.
3) The letter “Yat”, abolished by the spelling reform of 1918, initially conveyed a specific sound — something between a “e” and a “and”. As a result, for the most part, in Russian, I began to be pronounced as “e”, and in Ukrainian - as “and,” and later was replaced with the corresponding letters. Accordingly, if you see the Russian word with “e”, and a completely analogous Ukrainian word, with “and” in the root (for example, “bread” and “hlib”), be sure that it was written there before. Nevertheless, even by the end of the 19th century, somewhere in Russia, Yut was pronounced in accordance with its original purpose. Once Alexander III was reproached with a “horse guard” accent: he always pronounced Yat as “e”, which cut his ear to his interlocutors. Words in which “yat” was written, but not “e”, had to be stupidly memorized, which caused a storm of indignation among the then schoolchildren.
4) The letter “fit” was originally pronounced the same way as its analogue in Greek, “theta”, as interdental deaf (as, for example, in the English word think), mainly in words of Greek origin. For example, in the words “Bethlehem” (eng. - Bethlehem), “Golgotha” (eng. - Golgotha) and the name “Theodore” (from Theodor) was written fita. By the 20th century, this sound had already been completely reduced in colloquial speech to “f”, which was replaced by.
5) A solid sign at the end of words ending in a consonant, originally meant a sound close to “o”, which still exists in the Bulgarian language (the word “Bulgaria” is written here as “Bulgaria”). But in the end, just put what is called "out of habit," and was completely redundant. It is estimated that if all the solid signs from the then collected works of Leo Tolstoy were brought together, they would have occupied more than 80 pages. I don’t know about you, but when I read reprint editions of books originally published in old spelling, I always want to read a hard sign at the end of a word as soft (because for us, the present, a hard sign at the end of a word is nonsense which does not exist in nature). Sometimes it turns out very funny :)) In order to disaccustom the people from using a hard sign at the end of words ending in consonants, after the spelling reform, they decided to abandon it completely and replaced it with an apostrophe (for example, they wrote “s'ezd”) for several years.
6) To indicate the sound “and” before the spelling reform, three letters were used: “And,” “I,” and “Izhitsa” (v). The word “peace” meant a state without war, “mir” - the universe, the earth, and the word “peace” (church oil for the sacraments, prepared with special solemnity once every few years) was written with izhitsa. “І” was written, except for the word “mir”, before vowels and “d” (for example, “Idiot”, “Chaikovsky”). It's easier now :) The famous conversation about the ambiguity of the title of the novel by Leo Tolstoy “War and Peace” loses all meaning, you just have to look at the name printed on the pre-revolutionary edition of the novel. It looked like “War and Peace”, i.e. war and nevoyna. And that's all :)
7) In the classical Ukrainian alphabet, there are three letters that are absent in Russian: “і”, denoting the sound “and”; “Ї”, meaning diphthong “yi” (note, when you say, for example, the word “parties” (a genitive case from the word “party”), at the end it is “yi” that is heard); “Є”, meaning “e” sound. The Russian letter “e” in the Ukrainian language means the sound “e”, and the Russian “i” means the sound “s”. Also in the Ukrainian language there is the letter “ґ”, denoting “g hard”, i.e. such as in Russian or English. The Ukrainian “g” is always soft, say, the word “head” is pronounced almost like “halov”.
stolen from falcon-bg.livejournal.com
2) Most of the words with the letter “F” in Russian are borrowed. Pushkin was proud that in “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” there was only one word with the letter “f” - fleet.
3) The letter “Yat”, abolished by the spelling reform of 1918, initially conveyed a specific sound — something between a “e” and a “and”. As a result, for the most part, in Russian, I began to be pronounced as “e”, and in Ukrainian - as “and,” and later was replaced with the corresponding letters. Accordingly, if you see the Russian word with “e”, and a completely analogous Ukrainian word, with “and” in the root (for example, “bread” and “hlib”), be sure that it was written there before. Nevertheless, even by the end of the 19th century, somewhere in Russia, Yut was pronounced in accordance with its original purpose. Once Alexander III was reproached with a “horse guard” accent: he always pronounced Yat as “e”, which cut his ear to his interlocutors. Words in which “yat” was written, but not “e”, had to be stupidly memorized, which caused a storm of indignation among the then schoolchildren.
4) The letter “fit” was originally pronounced the same way as its analogue in Greek, “theta”, as interdental deaf (as, for example, in the English word think), mainly in words of Greek origin. For example, in the words “Bethlehem” (eng. - Bethlehem), “Golgotha” (eng. - Golgotha) and the name “Theodore” (from Theodor) was written fita. By the 20th century, this sound had already been completely reduced in colloquial speech to “f”, which was replaced by.
5) A solid sign at the end of words ending in a consonant, originally meant a sound close to “o”, which still exists in the Bulgarian language (the word “Bulgaria” is written here as “Bulgaria”). But in the end, just put what is called "out of habit," and was completely redundant. It is estimated that if all the solid signs from the then collected works of Leo Tolstoy were brought together, they would have occupied more than 80 pages. I don’t know about you, but when I read reprint editions of books originally published in old spelling, I always want to read a hard sign at the end of a word as soft (because for us, the present, a hard sign at the end of a word is nonsense which does not exist in nature). Sometimes it turns out very funny :)) In order to disaccustom the people from using a hard sign at the end of words ending in consonants, after the spelling reform, they decided to abandon it completely and replaced it with an apostrophe (for example, they wrote “s'ezd”) for several years.
6) To indicate the sound “and” before the spelling reform, three letters were used: “And,” “I,” and “Izhitsa” (v). The word “peace” meant a state without war, “mir” - the universe, the earth, and the word “peace” (church oil for the sacraments, prepared with special solemnity once every few years) was written with izhitsa. “І” was written, except for the word “mir”, before vowels and “d” (for example, “Idiot”, “Chaikovsky”). It's easier now :) The famous conversation about the ambiguity of the title of the novel by Leo Tolstoy “War and Peace” loses all meaning, you just have to look at the name printed on the pre-revolutionary edition of the novel. It looked like “War and Peace”, i.e. war and nevoyna. And that's all :)
7) In the classical Ukrainian alphabet, there are three letters that are absent in Russian: “і”, denoting the sound “and”; “Ї”, meaning diphthong “yi” (note, when you say, for example, the word “parties” (a genitive case from the word “party”), at the end it is “yi” that is heard); “Є”, meaning “e” sound. The Russian letter “e” in the Ukrainian language means the sound “e”, and the Russian “i” means the sound “s”. Also in the Ukrainian language there is the letter “ґ”, denoting “g hard”, i.e. such as in Russian or English. The Ukrainian “g” is always soft, say, the word “head” is pronounced almost like “halov”.
stolen from falcon-bg.livejournal.com
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Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/13774/
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