Transliteration of the Hard Sign "ъ" (tverdyi znak)

The letter "ъ", known as tverdyi znak, or the hard sign, and transliterated as the double prime (″), presents some difficulties in the transliteration of Russian titles written according to the norms of pre-reform orthography. In pre-reform Russian, this letter, known then as “yery”, appeared at the end of all words (including both components of compound words) when following a non-palatal consonant, even though it had no effect on pronunciation, for example: контръ-адмиралъ.

Under AACR2, LCRI 24.2C, the rule was to ignore the final ъ (hard sign) when transliterating.

Under RDA 5.4, which instructs the cataloger to "record titles for works in the language and script in which they appear on the sources from which they are taken", the final "ъ” should no longer be ignored; rather it should be transliterated in full.

Example:

контръ-адмиралъ should be transliterated as kontr″-admiral″

The 1918 Russian orthographic reform eliminated several letters from the alphabet, including the hard sign, which would normally appear at the end of all words after a non-palatal consonant. In modern Russian, the hard sign appears in the interior of words as a separative sign. Its function is to separate a number of prefixes ending in a consonant from a following morpheme that begins with an iotated vowel.

Example:

съезд transliterated as s″ezd

For some time after the orthographic reform took place, ъ was replaced by ‘ (apostrophe), and this still occurs in some Russian emigre publications.

Example:

С'езд transliterated as S’ezd

In Belarusian and Ukrainian the character ’ (transliterated as apostrophe) is used as a punctuation sign. It can function as the hard sign or the soft sign depending on word position and the quality of the preceding consonant. In transliteration, the apostrophe ’ should not be confused with the soft sign ʹ (transliterated as prime).

Examples:

під’їзд transliterated as pid’ïzd (Ukrainian)

з’езд transliterated as z’ezd (Belarusian)

п’ять transliterated as p’i︠a︡tʹ (Ukrainian)

Revised: Aug. 6, 2015