Soft sign

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Look up Ь, ь in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Cyrillic letter Soft Sign
Image:Cyrillic letter Soft Sign.png
Cyrillic alphabet
А Б В Г Ґ Ѓ Д
Ђ Е Ё Є Ж З Ѕ
И І Ї Й Ј К Ќ
Л Љ М Н Њ О П
Р С Т Ћ У Ў Ф
Х Ц Ч Џ Ш Щ Ъ
Ы Ь Э Ю Я    
Non-Slavic Letters
Ӑ Ә Ӕ Ҕ Ӗ Ғ Ӏ
Ӂ Җ Ӝ Ҙ Ӟ Ӡ Ӣ
Ӥ Ҡ Қ Ҟ Ҝ Ң Ҥ
Ө Ӧ Ҧ Ҫ Ҷ Ҹ Ӵ
Ҽ Ҿ Ҩ Ҳ Һ Ҭ Ҵ
Ӳ Ӯ Ү Ұ Ӱ    
Archaic letters
Ҁ Ѹ Ѡ Ѿ Ѻ Ѣ ІА
Ѥ Ѧ Ѫ Ѩ Ѭ Ѯ Ѱ
Ѳ Ѵ Ѷ

The soft sign (Ь, ь) is a symbol in the Cyrillic alphabet. It indicates softening, or palatalization, of the preceding consonant. The soft sign is not strictly considered a letter, but a modifier symbol. No words start with it, and under normal orthographic rules it has no uppercase form. However, Cyrillic type fonts do normally provide an uppercase form for setting type in all caps. In Bulgarian the letter is always used to soften consonants before 'o' and is always written together with <o> - ьо.

Bulgarian: Ер малък, Russian: мягкий знак [ˈmʲaxkɪj znak], Ukrainian: м’який знак [mjaˈkɪj ˈznak], Belarusian: мяккі знак [mʲakkʲi znak]. The Old Slavonic name is yeri (Ерь).

See also: yer, hard sign, iotation