John Cowan scripsit:

> 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.

Pre-reformed Bulgarian spelling used final soft signs too.

> 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.

Grave is written on all accented vowels (and yer is a vowel) in vocabularies and
textbooks. Yer is written for all /7/ whether they originate from real yers or
from Old Slavic /O~/: _7g7l_ (from _o~gUlU_), _r7ka_ (from _ro~ka).

> The word for "(they) are"
> is a special case: it's written "sa" even though it is pronounced [s7].

Yep. In many forms of verbs (as well as in the definite article) it is spelt _a_
(or _ja_ if after a soft consonant): _gradá_ [gra"d7] 'the city' (Obl.),
_denját_ [de"n_j7t] 'the day', _chetá_ [tSe"t7] 'I read', _v7rvjá_ [v7r"v_j7] 'I
go'.

Apollo Hogan scripsit:

> There is also still used two other signs,
> which I've forgotten the names of, so I'll draw little pictures:

Right. Big yus was written for /7/ originating from OS /O~/ (see above), and
yat - for both [e] and [ja] known today as "promenlivo ja": _zhelézen_ 'iron
(adj.m.)' : _zheljázna_ 'iron (adj.f.)'

-- Yitzik