What do Cyrillic letters mean? Modern Cyrillic alphabets of Slavic languages. Distribution in the world
Russian writing has its own history of formation and its own alphabet, which is very different from the same Latin, which is used in most European countries. The Russian alphabet is Cyrillic, or rather its modern one, modified version. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
So, what is Cyrillic? This is the alphabet that underlies some Slavic languages, such as Ukrainian, Russian, Bulgarian, Belarusian, Serbian, Macedonian. As you can see, the definition is quite simple.
The history of the Cyrillic alphabet begins in the 9th century, when the Byzantine Emperor Michael III ordered the creation of a new alphabet for the Slavs in order to convey religious texts to believers.
The honor of creating such an alphabet went to the so-called “Thessalonica brothers” - Cyril and Methodius.
But does this give us an answer to the question, what is the Cyrillic alphabet? Partly yes, but there are still some Interesting Facts. For example, the Cyrillic alphabet is an alphabet based on the Greek statutory letter. It is also worth noting that numbers were denoted using some letters of the Cyrillic alphabet. To do this, a special diacritic mark was placed above the combination of letters - the title.
As for the spread of the Cyrillic alphabet, it came to the Slavs only with For example, in Bulgaria the Cyrillic alphabet appeared only in 860, after it adopted Christianity. At the end of the 9th century, the Cyrillic alphabet penetrated into Serbia, and another hundred years later into the territory of Kievan Rus.
Along with the alphabet, church literature, translations of the Gospels, Bibles, and prayers began to spread.
In fact, from this it becomes clear what the Cyrillic alphabet is and where it came from. But has it reached us in its original form? Not at all. Like many things, writing has changed and improved along with our language and culture.
Modern Cyrillic has lost some of its symbols and letters during various reforms. So the following letters disappeared: titlo, iso, kamora, the letters er and er, yat, yus big and small, izhitsa, fita, psi and xi. The modern Cyrillic alphabet consists of 33 letters.
In addition, the alphabetic number has not been used for a long time; it has been completely replaced. The modern version of the Cyrillic alphabet is much more convenient and practical than the one that was a thousand years ago.
So, what is Cyrillic? Cyrillic is an alphabet created by the enlightenment monks Cyril and Methodius on the orders of Tsar Michael III. Having accepted the new faith, we received at our disposal not only new customs, a new deity and culture, but also an alphabet, a lot of translated church literature, which for a long time remained the only type of literature that the educated layers of the population of Kievan Rus could enjoy.
Over the course of time and under the influence of various reforms, the alphabet changed, improved, and extra and unnecessary letters and symbols disappeared from it. The Cyrillic alphabet that we use today is the result of all the metamorphoses that have occurred over more than a thousand years of the existence of the Slavic alphabet.
Cyrillic alphabet- linguistic In the 9th century AD, Saints Cyril and Methodius created two alphabets, Glagolitic and Cyrillic, to write the Old Church Slavonic language. Cyrillic, based on Glagolitic and Greek alphabets, eventually became the system of choice... ... Universal additional practical Dictionary I. Mostitsky
Cyrillic alphabets Slavic: Belarusian alphabet Bulgarian alphabet Serbian alphabet ... Wikipedia
Cyrillic alphabets ... Wikipedia
Cyrillic alphabets Slavic: Belarusian alphabet Bulgarian alphabet Serbian alphabet ... Wikipedia
ALPHABET- [Greek ἀλφάβητος from the names of the first 2 letters of the Greek. alphabet: “alpha” and “beta” (“vita”)], a system of written letter signs that reflects and records the sound structure of the language and is the basis of writing. A. includes: 1) letters in their basic styles,... ... Orthodox Encyclopedia
Alphabet- (alphabet), a phonological writing system in which graphic signs (letters) indicate the corresponding sounds of the language. In one type of A., so-called. consonantal, letters indicate only consonant sounds, and vowels are expressed as diacritics... ... Peoples and cultures
Alphabet- from the name the first two letters of the Greek. A. alpha and beta (modern Greek vita), a set of letters adopted in the class. writing and located in the installation. ok; the same as the alphabet. In letters in monuments the word has been used since the 16th century, in modern times. lit. language b.... ... Russian humanitarian encyclopedic dictionary
- (Chuvash. chӑvash alphavichӗ) the general name of the alphabets, the letters of which were used to convey elements of sound speech in the writing of the ancient Chuvash and modern Chuvash languages. In the Chuvash writing system, only alphabetic ones were used... ... Wikipedia
Cyrillic and Glagolitic are ancient Slavic alphabet. The Cyrillic alphabet received its name from the name of its creator, Saint Cyril, Equal to the Apostles. What is Glagolitic? Where did she come from? And how is it different from the Cyrillic alphabet?
What's older?
Until recently, it was believed that the Cyrillic alphabet is older and this is the same alphabet that was created by the brothers Cyril and Methodius. Glagolitic was considered a later system that arose as secret writing. However, at present, science has established the point of view that the Glagolitic alphabet is older than the Cyrillic alphabet. The oldest Glagolitic inscription with exact dating dates back to 893 and is located in the temple of the Bulgarian king Simeon in Preslav. There are other ancient texts dating back to the 10th century that were written in the Glagolitic alphabet. The antiquity of Glagolitic inscriptions is indicated by palimpsests - manuscripts written on a used sheet of parchment from which an older text was scraped. There are many palimpsests where the Glagolitic inscription has been scraped off, and Cyrillic is written on top, and never vice versa. In addition, Glagolitic texts are written in a more archaic language than Cyrillic ones.
Theories of the origin of the Glagolitic alphabet
It is known for certain that it was the Glagolitic alphabet that was created by Saint Cyril, Equal to the Apostles. There is even reason to believe that in ancient Russian the Glagolitic alphabet was called “Cyrillic”. There are several theories about the origin of Glagolitic characters. There is an opinion that these letters were created by Kirill on the basis of some ancient “Slavic runes”. Despite the fact that there is not a single serious evidence in favor of this theory, it has its followers.
It is also believed that the appearance of the letters of the Glagolitic alphabet coincides with Khutsuri - the ancient Georgian church letter. If this is so, then there is nothing strange in this - it is known that Cyril was well acquainted with eastern writings.
Until the 19th century, there was a theory in Croatia that the author of the Glagolitic alphabet was not Cyril, but Saint Jerome, a church writer, creator of the canonical Latin text of the Bible, who lived in the 5th century AD. Perhaps the theory was brought to life by the fact that the Slavic population of Croatia sought, with the help of the authority of a revered saint, to protect their alphabet and their language from forced Latinization imposed by the Roman Catholic Church, which at the Council of Bishops of Dalmatia and Croatia in 1056 called the Glagolitic “Gothic scripts invented a certain heretic Methodius." In Croatia, the Glagolitic alphabet is used in church books to this day.
What are the similarities and differences
Based on the Glagolitic alphabet and the Greek alphabet, Cyril's student Kliment Ohridski, who worked in Bulgaria, created the alphabet that we today call the Cyrillic alphabet. There is no difference between the Glagolitic alphabet and the Cyrillic alphabet either in the number of letters - in the original version there are 41 of them in both alphabets - or in their names - all the same “az”, “buki”, “vedi”...
The only difference is in the lettering. There are two forms of Glagolitic script: the older - round - known as Bulgarian, and the more recent - angular or Croatian.
The numerical meaning of the letters does not match either. The fact is that in the Middle Ages, the Slavic peoples, like the Greeks, did not know Arabic numerals and used letters to write numbers. In the Glagolitic alphabet, “az” corresponds to one, “buki” to two, and so on. In Cyrillic alphabet numbers are tied to numerical values corresponding letters of the Greek alphabet. Therefore, “az” is one, and “vedi” is two. There are other discrepancies as well.
The author of the medieval Bulgarian treatise “On Letters”, Chernorizets Khrabr, wrote about the Slavic alphabet, about its advantage over the Greek and the fact that it has undergone improvement: “The same Slavic letters have more holiness and honor that a holy man created them, and the Greek ones - the Hellenes filthy. If anyone says that they have not done well because they are still finishing them, let us say this in response: the Greeks also finished them many times.”
Use of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet in Rus'
The Glagolitic alphabet became widespread among the southern Slavic peoples, but was used very little in ancient Rus' - only isolated inscriptions are found. Already at the beginning of the 21st century, “graffiti” in a mixture of Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet dating back to the 11th century was discovered in the Novgorod St. Sophia Cathedral. Sometimes the Glagolitic alphabet was used in Rus' as a secret script, which suggests that even in those days it was known to few people.
Cyrillic is a concept that has several definitions, mainly related to the writing of the Slavic people. Let's take a closer look at each of the meanings of the term Cyrillic alphabet.
What does the term "Cyrillic" mean?
First of all, the Cyrillic alphabet is the writing system of all Slavic languages - Russian, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, etc. However, the unification of all national Cyrillic alphabet is not entirely correct; we should talk about the varieties of Cyrillic alphabet in relation to each Slavic language.
What Cyrillic is as a writing system has been known since ancient times. The founders of the Cyrillic letter (around 863 AD) are rightfully considered to be Christian preachers from the Greek city of Thessaloniki - the brothers Cyril and Methodius.
Cyrillic is also considered the Old Church Slavonic alphabet. Along with the Glagolitic alphabet, the Cyrillic alphabet is one of the ancient alphabets of the Old Church Slavonic language. The traditional Cyrillic alphabet consists of 43 elements, of which 24 are entirely the Greek alphabet, and the remaining 19 are originally Slavic. Until the beginning of the 18th century, namely before the reform of Peter I, all Cyrillic text was written in capital letters, there were no lowercase ones. Cyrillic letters are also used to write Greek numbers.
Cyrillic is also called the traditional statutory or semi-statutory font in which church books are printed.
Files stored on a computer have a certain encoding. One of which is the so-called “Cyrillic alphabet”. Exist various programs, which help convert a file's encoding format from one to another. You can read more about the Cyrillic alphabet in the password in the article
