Definitions

Sorry, no definitions found. Check out and contribute to the discussion of this word!

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word yers.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Does Yers means yours and you !

    July 21, 2011

  • No, it is a term in Slavic linguistics. Specifically, the yers are the reduced vowels, or schwas, of Old Slavic, usually represented using the Cyrillic letters ь (pronounced in Old Slavic something like the "i" in "hit") and ъ (pronounced in Old Slavic something like the "u" in "hut"). In modern Russian, these letters are known as the "soft sign" and "hard sign", respectively; they no longer represent any sound in themselves, although they still retain the power to affect the pronunciation of the letters around them. In Bulgarian, by contrast, the hard yer is still very much alive as a vowel. It is largely because of the yers, by the way – or more specifically because of their loss of phonetic value over a millennium ago – that the Slavic languages have their characteristic consonant clusters, as in the Slovene word vzdržljiv ("durable"), which at one point would have been pronounced with yers: vъzьdъržljiv (/vuziduržljiv/).

    July 21, 2011

  • I heard a crusty Lord say it in a tv interview the other day. "Phone hacking has been going on for yers and something must be done about it."

    July 22, 2011

  • I don't know why anyone would hack for yers, since they are readily obtainable in any Cyrillic font. I think Lord Crusty must be mistaken.

    July 22, 2011