Editing Soft sign (section)

=== Palatalization sign ===
{{main|Palatalization (phonetics)}}
The soft sign is normally written after a [[consonant]] and indicates its ''softening'' (palatalization) (for example [[Ukrainian language|Ukrainian]] бат'''ь'''ко 'father'). Less commonly, the soft sign just has a grammatically determined usage with no phonetic meaning (like {{langx|ru|туш}} 'fanfare' and туш'''ь''' 'India ink', both pronounced {{IPA|/tuʂ/}} but different in [[grammatical gender]] and [[declension]]). In East Slavic languages and some other Slavic languages (such as Bulgarian), there are some consonants that do not have phonetically different palatalized forms but corresponding letters still admit the affixing soft sign.

The [[Serbian Cyrillic alphabet]] has had no soft sign as a distinct letter since the mid-19th century: palatalization is represented by special consonant letters instead of the sign (some of these letters, such as {{angbr|[[lje|Љ]]}} or {{angbr|[[nje|Њ]]}}, were designed as ligatures with the [[grapheme]] of the soft sign). The modern [[Macedonian alphabet]], based on the Serbian Cyrillic variant, has had no soft sign since its creation, in 1944.