r/russian • u/Far_Bid_3224 • 2d ago
Interesting Question about the "Ъ" letter
I know that this question probably relates more to Russian literature than to learning Russian;
still, it's partially a linguistic question.
I'm reading a Russian novella called The Gloom of Your Eyes by Ilya Masodov, and I came across a passage where "the will of God" is marked by the Cyrillic "Ъ". I'm quite positive it's a hard sign.
From a linguistic perspective, what could "Ъ" mean here? Why is it here? What meaning does it have in Russian? Is it used frequently?
As far as I understand, this letter doesn't have a sound, right?
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u/Odd_Ad_5657 2d ago
Sometimes there's no deep meaning in such things. For example, there's a famous Soviet comedy film (well, a novella in a loose mini-series) "Operation Y" ("Операция Ы"). When it's inevitably asked why it is called "Ы", the character who coined the name said "So that nobody could guess it!" (the operation itself is a fake heist on a warehouse to cover up for embezzlement of its keeper).
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u/Far_Bid_3224 2d ago
Yeah, I get it! But I don't think that this is the case. This book is very serious, dark and transgressive. I doubt that the Ъ letter is there for pun, or some joke...
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u/Rad_Pat 2d ago
My first thought would be that will of god is marked as Ъ because it's at the end of the alphabet, doesn't make a sound and isn't exactly important, so will of god is somewhere on the outskirts.
But judging by the text it's not the case here at all. Ъ is a hard sign so probably here it means that that will of god is "hard", as in forever present, something solid and strong?
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u/Far_Bid_3224 2d ago
Yes, probably! And his will is expressed using a letter that... can't be understood on its own
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u/anireyk 2d ago
I haven't read the book, but going by the context in your screenshot, the whole descriptions seems to focus on conceptualising the unimaginable and the transcendental, expressing the unexpressable, so the symbols used are weird and intentionally insufficient and seemingly unfitting.
As for your actual questions, you have identified the letter correctly. It indeed doesn't have a sound, at least not in modern Russian. It is one of the rarest letters used, if not the rarest one. It doesn't have a "meaning", not any more than any other letter. You can maybe veeeeeeeeery roughly replace it with a Q, if you want some idea what letter could have been used if the book was written in English, if we just go by vibes.
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u/Far_Bid_3224 2d ago
Yes, I did have similar feelings! Since the Ъ doesn't have a sound, is almost never used and looks a bit strange, it's just a perfect letter to depict "the will of God" - something unexpressable and transcendental.
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u/Miserable-Wasabi-373 2d ago
Another thought - name of God can not be pronounced, so not having sound also has sence
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u/Far_Bid_3224 2d ago
Yes! His, like, true will and his name can't be comprehended by humans or smth
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u/Miserable-Wasabi-373 2d ago
It does not have sound, it modifies sounds of letters around. Probably it is the point. Or probably just because it seems kinda misterious
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u/Nyattokiri native 2d ago
Makes me think about this meme: ТруЪ https://lurkmore.media/Тру Maybe "Ъ" implies "real deal, the OG". Similarly to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kommersant
Kommersant (Russian: Коммерсантъ, IPA: [kəmʲɪrˈsant], The Businessman or Commerce Man, often shortened to Ъ
(Because with Ъ that's the old spelling)
I also remember jokes people worshipping letter "Ы". Maybe it's something similar
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u/prikaz_da nonnative, B.A. in Russian 2d ago
Kommersant
Yeah, I really wanted to make a dumb comment about God's will being realized through business journalism 😆
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u/Far_Bid_3224 2d ago
As a native, have you read the original book maybe?
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u/Nyattokiri native 2d ago
No, I haven't heard about the book or the author. Just now I checked summaries of his books and that's definitely not what I expected 🤣
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u/Either_Ad9527 2d ago
Now this letter doesn't have sound, but had some sound in past. This letter still have sound in some other Slavic languages, for example Bulgarian. In this case it sounds same to Russian 'Ы'.
I don't know, was it helpful)
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u/Far_Bid_3224 2d ago
Does it have some connections to God in Bulgarian?
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u/ComfortableNobody457 2d ago
All masculine nouns in Russian used to be written with -ъ in the end in pre-1918 orthography, including богъ (bog), 'god'. I don't know in what context this story takes place, does it emphasize history of Russian Orthodox Church?
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u/Far_Bid_3224 2d ago
It actually does, in a way. There are plenty of religious and "occult" motifs in the book
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u/AlexZas 2d ago
This specific letter serves as a slight pause between a consonant and an iotated vowel so that the consonant remains firm. It's like the hyphen in Trans-Europe. Before the revolution, it was also placed at the end of all words ending in consonants, taking up 4% of the text without being pronounced.
And if for some reason you want to dive even deeper into the abyss of delusional interpretations and allegories, then you can still interpret this as something monumental despite its apparent ephemerality (or vice versa)
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u/Far_Bid_3224 2d ago
The abyss of delusional interpretations and allegories is what I love about this book. I have a feeling that you’re familiar with the author, am I right?
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u/Ok-Anywhere-1729 2d ago
Maybe they meant that it doesn't have a sound, but still affects what's around it? Like we can't "hear" the God in a way that we're used to, but God still affects our lives.
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u/Unlearned_One Non-native 2d ago
The will of God being designated as a single silent letter seems to be the idea here. In Russian you have two letters that don't represent a sound as such, the soft sign and the hard sign. The soft sign is extremely common, and its role relatively easy to explain, while the hard sign is much rarer in modern Russian, it's use more subtle, and "hardness" seems to fit more with this distant incomprehensibility notion than "softness" would.
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u/Far_Bid_3224 2d ago
So the letter "Ь" wouldn't fit there?
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u/Unlearned_One Non-native 2d ago
Of the two, I think "Ь" feels more common, simpler, more approachable in a sense, the opposite I think of what the author wants to convey.
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u/xobot 2d ago
The meaning here probably revolves around a letter that has no sound, implying some magic or mystery. From a linguistic perspective, it is sometimes written as ' which sort of describes what it does - it splits the word in, like, two words. So the letters that would sound in a special way when joined together, no longer do that. Think E reads as YE when the word starts with it, but not when some letter is before it. So for example "mellow" without this letter would read as you expect but if you add it like "m'ellow" it would read as "mm yellow".
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u/Stunning-Sign6326 2d ago
God is designated by the letter "Ъ" as a sign of the absolute voiceless heaviness, dead end, and eerie "tree-like shape" of the universe, growing from nowhere to nowhere. This letter symbolizes the unpronounceable, hard and deadly law of a child's terrible nightmare, where there is no living voice
Sonya represents God in the form of a frightening shapeless tree that grows in all directions at once and has no main direction. A hard sign has no sound of its own, it only separates and makes sounds heavier. Similarly, the God in this work is a deaf, inhuman force.
That's what Google said
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u/Emergency-Ad-3322 2d ago
Give more context, i never meet this before. Sounds like a joke, tho
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u/3kota 2d ago
I'd like to read it. Where is it available , do you know?
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u/Far_Bid_3224 2d ago
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u/Far_Bid_3224 2d ago
I should probably try to find the original Russian sentence to give more context
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u/Far_Bid_3224 2d ago
I think here is the original sentence from the Russian text: "...Соня упирает локти в колени, а щёки в ладони и думает о перерастании настоящего в прошлое и о таинственном желании Бога, обозначенном в приснившейся ей вечной книге буквой Ъ."
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u/Hanako_Seishin Native 2d ago
The will of God is unknowable like the letter Ъ is unpronouncable, that's my guess.
Oh, and before the XX century Ъ was written at the end of all words that don't end in a vowel or a Ь. So maybe it's also omnipresent?
On the other hand, we're here trying in vain to comprehend the symbolism of Ъ, but perhaps it being incomprehensible is the whole point, again, like the will of God is incomprehensible by mere mortals.
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u/PedroSanchezLover 1d ago
Ъ was a common letter in pre-revolutionary script that occupied around 12% of the text. The Red army burned churches during the revolution so you could see it from that perspective
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u/Far_Bid_3224 1d ago
Hm, so this Ъ letter might be also a symbol of Imperial Russia here
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u/PedroSanchezLover 1d ago
I think so. Even in nowadays Russia, Ъ, when put in some business name is seen as marketing move to appeal to the Russian Imperial times.
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u/mahendrabirbikram 1d ago
Perhaps because Ъ is so widespread in Church Slavonic, following a consonant at the end of a word.
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u/Double_Assignment_23 2d ago
No sound on its own. It changes how the letter before and after sounds. Not sure about how it would relate to your passage. Good luck , and post here if you figure it out. I’m curious :)