Finding Er Maluk

This is an ode to er maluk (ь), the most beautifully subtle and rare letter — at least in Bulgarian — of the Cyrillic script. As your perception of its beauty is highly dependent on your operating system, web browser, and available fonts, I’ve prepared a pre-rendered sample so that you may gawk at its understated glory:

Er maluk (in the PT Sans font)
Er maluk (in the PT Sans font)

When I was learning to read and write Cyrillic a few years ago I thought this character looked simple and unique. To my dismay, it was explained as “having no sound” and “not being used very often.” Coming from a linguistic background of English, Spanish, and Swahili, I was thinking, “What the hell does that mean?

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