Re: Yers (was Re: Apologies)

Isaac Penzev scripsit:

> > It's estimated that 3% of all pre-reform Russian text consisted
> > of redundant final hard signs, and in Bulgarian the figure is
> > more like 12%.
>
> But!  Yers are pronounced in Bulgarian as [7]. I'm especially fond of
> the word ["7g75] 'corner'.
That's true, but doesn't apply to final hard signs, which have been
silent for a long time.  Before 1945, *every* Bulgarian word ending in a
consonant had a final hard sign, whether it represented an original short
vowel or not.  In post-1945 orthography, all final silent hard signs were
dropped, and the few non-silent ones that remain (mostly Turkish loans)
are written with accent grave over them.  The word for "(they) are"
is a special case: it's written "sa" even though it is pronounced [s7].

--
John Cowan <jcowan@...> www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.reutershealth.com
Micropayment advocates mistakenly believe that efficient allocation of
resources is the purpose of markets.  Efficiency is a byproduct of market
systems, not their goal.  The reasons markets work are not because users
have embraced efficiency but because markets are the best place to allow
users to maximize their preferences, and very often their preferences are
not for conservation of cheap resources.  --Clay Shirkey

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