Djerv (majuscule: Ꙉ, minuscule: ꙉ) is one of the Cyrillic alphabet letters that was used in Old Cyrillic. It was used in many early Serbian monuments to represent the sounds /dʑ/ and /tɕ/ (modern đ/ђ and ć/ћ).[1] It exists in the Cyrillic Extended-B table as U+A648 and U+A649. It is the basis of the modern letters Ћ and Ђ; the former was in fact a direct revival of djerv and was considered the same letter.[1]
Djerv is also commonly used in Serbian Cyrillic, where it was an officially used letter. When it was placed before the letters н and л it was represented for the sounds /ɲ/ and /ʎ/, which are represented by Њ and Љ today, respectively.
Spelling Reforms and forming of the letters Ћ and Ђ
The letter Ђ was formed in 1818 by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić after several proposals of reforming Djerv by Lukijan Mušicki and Gligorije Geršić.[3][4][1] However the letter Ћ (also based on djerv) was first used by Dositej Obradović in a direct reform of djerv.[5][6]