Russian / Signs and the ya-yu-yo family
Ьь
The letter “мягкий знак”
/'/
Ь ь sounds like silent: it softens (palatalizes) the consonant right before it.
Where is Ь on the keyboard?
On the phonetic layout it sits where its sound-alike Latin key would be. On real Russian keyboards (ЙЦУКЕН) it lives somewhere else entirely, since Cyrillic keyboards were never designed to match Latin sounds to Latin key positions.
Russian Phonetic
Ё
!1
"2
№3
;4
%5
:6
?7
*8
(9
)0
_-
+=
⌫
Tab
Я
Ш
Е
Р
Т
Ы
У
И
О
П
Ч
Щ
Ъ
Caps
А
С
Д
Ф
Г
Х
Й
К
Л
Ь
Э
⏎
Shift
З
Ж
Ц
В
Б
Н
М
<,
>.
Ю
Shift
Ctrl
⌘
Alt
Alt
⌘
≡
Ctrl
Russian (ЙЦУКЕН)
Ё
!1
"2
№3
;4
%5
:6
?7
*8
(9
)0
_-
+=
⌫
Tab
Й
Ц
У
К
Е
Н
Г
Ш
Щ
З
Х
Ъ
/\
Caps
Ф
Ы
В
А
П
Р
О
Л
Д
Ж
Э
⏎
Shift
Я
Ч
С
М
И
Т
Ь
Б
Ю
,.
Shift
Ctrl
⌘
Alt
Alt
⌘
≡
Ctrl
Words that use Ь ь
- день/den'/day
- очень/ochen'/very
- только/tol'ko/only