Cyrillic script

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Cyrillic script
1850s Romanian text (Lord's Prayer), written with the Cyrillic script
Script type
Time period
Earliest variants exist c. 893[1]c. 940
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Official script

Co-official script in:

6[h] sovereign states and 2* disputed territories
LanguagesSee
Early Cyrillic script
  • Cyrillic script
Child systems
Old Permic script
Sister systems


ISO 15924
Unicode range
Names: Belarusian: кірыліца, Bulgarian: кирилица [ˈkirilit͡sɐ], Macedonian: кирилица [kiˈrilit͡sa], Russian: кириллица [kʲɪˈrʲilʲɪtsə], Serbian: ћирилица, Ukrainian: кирилиця [keˈrɪɫet͡sʲɐ]
 This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and  , see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
Example of the Cyrillic script. Excerpt from the manuscript "Bdinski Zbornik". Written in 1360.[5]

The Cyrillic script (

Southeastern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, North Asia, and East Asia
, and used by many other minority languages.

As of 2019[update], around 250 million people in Eurasia use Cyrillic as the official script for their national languages, with

accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of the European Union, following the Latin and Greek alphabets.[7]

The

Saint Cyril
.

Etymology

Since the script was conceived and popularised by the Slavic followers of Cyril and Methodius, rather than by Cyril and Methodius themselves, its name denotes homage rather than authorship. In contrast to the Greek and Latin alphabets, the name "Cyrillic" identifies neither the place of origin (Bulgaria), nor the original language it was used for (Slavonic).

In Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, and Ukrainian, the translation of the word alphabet is azbuka, derived from the old names of the first two letters of most Cyrillic alphabets (just as the term alphabet came from the first two Greek letters alpha and beta). In Czech and Slovak, which have never used Cyrillic, the word "azbuka" simply refers to the Cyrillic script and contrasts with the term "abeceda", which refers to the local Latin script and is composed of the names of the first letters (A, B, C, and D). In Russian, syllabaries, especially the Japanese kana, are commonly referred to as 'syllabic azbukas' rather than 'syllabic scripts'.

History

View of the cave monastery near the village of Krepcha, Opaka Municipality in Bulgaria. Here is found the oldest Cyrillic inscription, dated 921.[12]
Ivan Fyodorov
in 1574 in Lviv. This page features the Cyrillic alphabet.

The Cyrillic script was created during the First Bulgarian Empire.[13] Modern scholars believe that the Early Cyrillic alphabet was created at the Preslav Literary School, the most important early literary and cultural center of the First Bulgarian Empire and of all Slavs:

Unlike the Churchmen in Ohrid, Preslav scholars were much more dependent upon Greek models and quickly abandoned the Glagolitic scripts in favor of an adaptation of the Greek uncial to the needs of Slavic, which is now known as the Cyrillic alphabet.[10]

A number of prominent Bulgarian writers and scholars worked at the school, including

Simeon the Great that developed Cyrillic from the Greek letters in the 890s as a more suitable script for church books.[13]

Cyrillic spread among other Slavic peoples, as well as among non-Slavic

Preslav, in the medieval city itself and at nearby Patleina Monastery, both in present-day Shumen Province, as well as in the Ravna Monastery and in the Varna Monastery. The new script became the basis of alphabets used in various languages in Orthodox Church-dominated Eastern Europe, both Slavic and non-Slavic languages (such as Romanian, until the 1860s). For centuries, Cyrillic was also used by Catholic and Muslim Slavs (see Bosnian Cyrillic
).

Cyrillic and Glagolitic were used for the

variant. Hence expressions such as "И is the tenth Cyrillic letter" typically refer to the order of the Church Slavonic alphabet; not every Cyrillic alphabet uses every letter available in the script. The Cyrillic script came to dominate Glagolitic in the 12th century.

The literature produced in Old Church Slavonic soon spread north from Bulgaria and became the lingua franca of the Balkans and Eastern Europe.[18][19][20][21][22]

Bosnian Cyrillic, widely known as Bosančica

medieval Bosnia
. Paleographers consider the earliest features of Bosnian Cyrillic script had likely begun to appear between the 10th or 11th century, with the Humac tablet (a tablet written in Bosnian Cyrillic) to be the first such document using this type of script and is believed to date from this period.[25] Bosnian Cyrillic was used continuously until the 18th century, with sporadic usage even taking place in the 20th century.[26]

With the orthographic reform of Saint

Evtimiy of Tarnovo and other prominent representatives of the Tarnovo Literary School of the 14th and 15th centuries, such as Gregory Tsamblak and Constantine of Kostenets, the school influenced Russian, Serbian, Wallachian and Moldavian medieval culture. This is known in Russia as the second South-Slavic
influence.

In 1708–10, the Cyrillic script used in Russia was heavily reformed by

Civil script, became closer to those of the Latin alphabet; several archaic letters were abolished and several new letters were introduced designed by Peter himself. Letters became distinguished between upper and lower case. West European typography culture was also adopted.[27]
The pre-reform letterforms, called 'Полуустав', were notably retained in Church Slavonic and are sometimes used in Russian even today, especially if one wants to give a text a 'Slavic' or 'archaic' feel.

The alphabet used for the modern Church Slavonic language in Eastern Orthodox and

many languages in the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and northern Eurasia
are written in Cyrillic alphabets.

Letters

Cyrillic script spread throughout the East Slavic and some South Slavic territories, being adopted for writing local languages, such as Old East Slavic. Its adaptation to local languages produced a number of Cyrillic alphabets, discussed below.

The early Cyrillic alphabet[28][29]
А Б В Г Д Є Ж
[30]
И І К Л М Н О П Р С Т ОУ[31] Ф
Х Ѡ Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ ЪІ[32] Ь Ѣ
Ѥ
Ю Ѫ Ѭ Ѧ Ѩ Ѯ Ѱ Ѳ Ѵ Ҁ[33]

Capital and lowercase letters were not distinguished in old manuscripts.

A page from the Church Slavonic Grammar of Meletius Smotrytsky (1619)

Yeri (Ы) was originally a

(not an ancestor of modern Ya, Я, which is derived from Ѧ), Ѥ, Ю (ligature of І and ОУ), Ѩ, Ѭ. Sometimes different letters were used interchangeably, for example И = І = Ї, as were typographical variants like О = Ѻ. There were also commonly used ligatures like ѠТ = Ѿ.

The letters also had numeric values, based not on Cyrillic alphabetical order, but inherited from the letters' Greek ancestors.[citation needed]

Cyrillic numerals
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
А В Г Д Є (Е) Ѕ (, ) З () И Ѳ
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
І (Ї) К Л М Н Ѯ (Ч) Ѻ (О) П Ч (Ҁ)
100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
Р С Т Ѵ (Ѵ, Оу, ) Ф Х Ѱ Ѡ (Ѿ, ) Ц (Ѧ)

The early Cyrillic alphabet is difficult to represent on computers. Many of the letterforms differed from those of modern Cyrillic, varied a great deal in

ligatures
found in manuscript sources unless they can be shown to conform to the Unicode definition of a character: this aspect is the responsibility of the typeface designer.

The Unicode 5.1 standard, released on 4 April 2008, greatly improved computer support for the early Cyrillic and the modern

Segoe UI user interface font is notable for having complete support for the archaic Cyrillic letters since Windows 8.[citation needed
]

Slavic Cyrillic letters
А
A
А̀
A with grave
А̂
A with circumflex
А̄
A with macron
Б
Be
В
Ve
Г
Ge (Ghe)
Ґ
Ghe upturn
Д
De
Ђ
Dje
Ѓ
Gje
Е
Ye
Ѐ
Ye with grave
Е̂
Ye with circumflex
Е̄
Ye with macron
Ё
Yo
Є
Ukrainian Ye
Ж
Zhe
З
Ze
З́
Zje
Ѕ
Dze
И
I
І
Dotted I
Ї
Yi
Ѝ
I with grave
И̂
I with circumflex
Ӣ
I with macron
Й
Short I
Ј
Je
К
Ka
Л
El
Љ
Lje
М
Em
Н
En
Њ
Nje
О
O
О̀
O with grave
О̂
O with circumflex
О̄
O with macron
П
Pe
Р
Er
С
Es
С́
Sje
Т
Te
Ћ
Tje
Ќ
Kje
У
U
У̀
U with grave
У̂
U with circumflex
Ӯ
U with macron
Ў
Short U
Ф
Ef
Х
Kha
Ц
Tse
Ч
Che
Џ
Dzhe
Ш
Sha
Щ
Shcha
Ъ
Hard sign (Yer)
Ъ̀
Hard sign with grave
Ы
Yery
Ь
Soft sign (Yeri)
Э
E
Ю
Yu
Ю̀
Yu with grave
Я
Ya
Я̀
Ya with grave
Examples of non-Slavic Cyrillic letters (see List of Cyrillic letters for more)
Ӓ
A with diaeresis
Ӑ
A with
breve
Ә
Schwa
Ӕ
Ae
Ғ
Ghayn
Ҕ
Ge with
middle hook
Ӻ
Ghayn with
hook
Ӷ
Ge with
descender
Ӂ
Zhe with
breve
Ӝ
Zhe with
diaeresis
Ҙ
Dhe
Ӡ
Abkhazian
Dze
Ҡ
Bashkir Qa
Ҟ
Ka with
stroke
Ӊ
En with
tail
Ң
En with
descender
Ӈ
En with
hook
Ҥ
En-ge
Ӧ
O with diaeresis
О̆
O with breve
Ө
Oe
Ҩ
O-hook
Ҏ
Er with
tick
Ҫ
The
Ҭ
Te with
descender
Ӱ
U with
diaeresis
Ӳ
U with
double acute
Ү
Ue
Ұ
Kazakh Short U
Ҳ
Kha with
descender
Ӽ
Kha with
hook
Ӿ
Kha with
stroke
Һ
Shha (He)
Ҵ
Te Tse
Ҷ
Che with
descender
Ӌ
Khakassian
Che
Ҹ
Che with
vertical stroke
Ҽ
Abkhazian
Che
Ҍ
Semisoft
sign
Ӏ
Palochka
Cyrillic letters used in the past

Iotated A
Ѥ
Iotated E
Ѧ
Small yus
Ѫ
Big yus
Ѩ
Iotated small yus
Ѭ
Iotated big yus
Ѯ
Ksi
Ѱ
Psi

Yn
Ѳ
Fita
Ѵ
Izhitsa
Ѷ
Izhitsa okovy
Ҁ
Koppa
ОУ
Uk
Ѡ
Omega
Ѿ
Ot
Ѣ
Yat

Currency signs

Some

currency signs
have derived from Cyrillic letters:

Letterforms and type design

The development of Cyrillic

medieval stage to the late Baroque, without a Renaissance phase as in Western Europe. Late Medieval Cyrillic letters (categorized as vyaz' and still found on many icon
inscriptions today) show a marked tendency to be very tall and narrow, with strokes often shared between adjacent letters.

westernized letter forms (ru) in the early 18th century.[citation needed] Over time, these were largely adopted in the other languages that use the script. Thus, unlike the majority of modern Greek typefaces that retained their own set of design principles for lower-case letters (such as the placement of serifs, the shapes of stroke ends, and stroke-thickness rules, although Greek capital letters do use Latin design principles), modern Cyrillic types are much the same as modern Latin types of the same typeface family. The development of some Cyrillic computer fonts
from Latin ones has also contributed to a visual Latinization of Cyrillic type.

Lowercase forms

Short I, Em, Te, Tse, Be and Ve
in upright (printed) and cursive (handwritten) variants. (Top is set in Georgia type, bottom in Odesa Script.)

Cyrillic

lowercase letter forms are not as differentiated as in Latin typography. Upright Cyrillic lowercase letters are essentially small capitals (with exceptions: Cyrillic ⟨а⟩, ⟨е⟩, ⟨і⟩, ⟨ј⟩, ⟨р⟩, and ⟨у⟩ adopted Western lowercase shapes, lowercase ⟨ф⟩ is typically designed under the influence of Latin ⟨p⟩, lowercase ⟨б⟩, ⟨ђ⟩ and ⟨ћ⟩ are traditional handwritten forms), although a good-quality Cyrillic typeface will still include separate small-caps glyphs.[34]

Cyrillic typefaces, as well as Latin ones, have roman and italic forms (practically all popular modern computer fonts include parallel sets of Latin and Cyrillic letters, where many glyphs, uppercase as well as lowercase, are shared by both). However, the native typeface terminology in most Slavic languages (for example, in Russian) does not use the words "roman" and "italic" in this sense.[i] Instead, the nomenclature follows German naming patterns:[citation needed]

Alternate variants of lowercase (cursive) Cyrillic letters: Б/б, Д/д, Г/г, И/и, П/п, Т/т, Ш/ш.
  Default Russian (Eastern) forms on the left.
  Alternate Bulgarian (Western) upright forms in the middle.
  Alternate Serbian/Macedonian (Southern) italic forms on the right.
See also:
  • Roman type is called pryamoy shrift ("upright type") – compare with Normalschrift ("regular type") in German
  • Italic type is called kursiv ("cursive") or kursivniy shrift ("cursive type") – from the German word Kursive, meaning italic typefaces and not cursive writing
  • Cursive handwriting is rukopisniy shrift ("handwritten type") – in German: Kurrentschrift or Laufschrift, both meaning literally 'running type'
  • A (mechanically) sloped oblique type of sans-serif faces is naklonniy shrift ("sloped" or "slanted type").
  • A boldfaced type is called poluzhirniy shrift ("semi-bold type"), because there existed fully boldfaced shapes that have been out of use since the beginning of the 20th century.

Italic and cursive forms

Similarly to Latin typefaces, italic and cursive forms of many Cyrillic letters (typically lowercase; uppercase only for handwritten or stylish types) are very different from their upright roman types. In certain cases, the correspondence between uppercase and lowercase glyphs does not coincide in Latin and Cyrillic types: for example, italic Cyrillic т is the lowercase counterpart of Т not of М.

Differences between upright and italic Cyrillic letters of the Russian alphabet; italic forms significantly different from their upright analogues, or especially confusing to users of a Latin alphabet, are highlighted; also available as a graphical image.
upright а б в г д е ё ж з и й к л м н о п р с т у ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ы ь э ю я
italic а б в г д е ё ж з и й к л м н о п р с т у ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ы ь э ю я

Note: in some typefaces or styles, д, i.e. the lowercase italic Cyrillic ⟨д⟩, may look like Latin g, and т, i.e. lowercase italic Cyrillic ⟨т⟩, may look like small-capital italic ⟨T⟩.

In Standard Serbian, as well as in Macedonian,[35] some italic and cursive letters are allowed to be different, to more closely resemble the handwritten letters. The regular (upright) shapes are generally standardized in small caps form.[36]

Mandatory (blue) and optional (green) italic lowercase variants, alongside unique letters (red), in South-European orthography
Russian а б в г д е ж з и й к л м н о п р с т у ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ы ь э ю я
Serbian а б в г д ђ е ж з и ј к л љ м н њ о п р с т ћ у ф х ц ч џ ш
faux а δ в ī ɡ ђ е ж з и ј к л љ м н њ о ū р с ш̄ ћ у ф х ц ч џ ш̱

Notes: Depending on fonts available, the Serbian row may appear identical to the Russian row. Unicode approximations are used in the faux row to ensure it can be rendered properly across all systems.

In the Bulgarian alphabet, many lowercase letterforms may more closely resemble the cursive forms on the one hand and Latin glyphs on the other hand, e.g. by having an ascender or descender or by using rounded arcs instead of sharp corners.[37] Sometimes, uppercase letters may have a different shape as well, e.g. more triangular, Д and Л, like Greek delta Δ and lambda Λ.

Differences between Russian and Bulgarian glyphs of upright Cyrillic lowercase letters; Bulgarian glyphs significantly different from their Russian analogues or different from their italic form are highlighted
default а б в г д е ж з и й к л м н о п р с т у ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ь ю я
Bulgarian а б в г д е ж з и й к л м н о п р с т у ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ь ю я
faux а б ϐ ƨ ɡ е жl ȝ u ŭ k ʌ м н o n р с m у ɸ х ч ɯ ɯ̡ ъ ƅ lo я

Notes: Depending on fonts available, the Bulgarian row may appear identical to the Russian row. Unicode approximations are used in the faux row to ensure it can be rendered properly across all systems; in some cases, such as ж with k-like ascender, no such approximation exists.

Accessing variant forms

Computer fonts typically default to the Central/Eastern, Russian letterforms, and require the use of OpenType Layout (OTL) features to display the Western, Bulgarian or Southern, Serbian/Macedonian forms. Depending on the choices made by the (computer) font designer, they may either be automatically activated by the local variant locl feature for text tagged with an appropriate language code, or the author needs to opt-in by activating a stylistic set ss## or character variant cv## feature. These solutions only enjoy partial support and may render with default glyphs in certain software configurations, and the reader may not see the same result as the author intended.[38]

Cyrillic alphabets

Among others, Cyrillic is the standard script for writing the following languages:

Slavic languages:

Non-Slavic languages of Russia:

Non-Slavic languages in other countries:

The Cyrillic script has also been used for languages of Alaska,

Southern Slavic), the Caucasus, the languages of Idel-Ural, Siberia, and the Russian Far East
.

The first alphabet derived from Cyrillic was

Usage of Cyrillic versus other scripts

Cyrillic Script Monument in Antarctica

Latin script

A number of languages written in a Cyrillic alphabet have also been written in a

Republic of Moldova until 1989 and in the Danubian Principalities throughout the 19th century). After the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, some of the former republics officially shifted from Cyrillic to Latin. The transition is complete in most of Moldova (except the breakaway region of Transnistria, where Moldovan Cyrillic is official), Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan. Uzbekistan still uses both systems, and Kazakhstan has officially begun a transition from Cyrillic to Latin (scheduled to be complete by 2025). The Russian government has mandated that Cyrillic must be used for all public communications in all federal subjects of Russia, to promote closer ties across the federation. This act was controversial for speakers of many Slavic languages; for others, such as Chechen and Ingush speakers, the law had political ramifications. For example, the separatist Chechen government mandated a Latin script which is still used by many Chechens.[citation needed
]

Countries with widespread use of the Cyrillic script:
  Sole official script
  Co-official with another script (either because the official language is biscriptal, or the state is bilingual)
  Being replaced with Latin, but is still in official use
  Legacy script for the official language, or large minority use
  Cyrillic is not widely used
Cyrillic Script in Europe

Standard Serbian uses both the Cyrillic and Latin scripts. Cyrillic is nominally the official script of Serbia's administration according to the Serbian constitution;[44] however, the law does not regulate scripts in standard language, or standard language itself by any means. In practice the scripts are equal, with Latin being used more often in a less official capacity.[45]

The

Zhuang alphabet, used between the 1950s and 1980s in portions of the People's Republic of China, used a mixture of Latin, phonetic, numeral-based, and Cyrillic letters. The non-Latin letters, including Cyrillic, were removed from the alphabet in 1982 and replaced with Latin letters that closely resembled the letters they replaced.[46]

Romanization

There are various systems for romanization of Cyrillic text, including transliteration to convey Cyrillic spelling in Latin letters, and transcription to convey pronunciation.

Standard Cyrillic-to-Latin transliteration systems include:

  • Scientific transliteration, used in linguistics, is based on the Serbo-Croatian Latin alphabet.
  • The Working Group on Romanization Systems[47] of the United Nations recommends different systems for specific languages. These are the most commonly used around the world.
  • ISO 9:1995, from the International Organization for Standardization.
  • American Library Association and Library of Congress Romanization tables for Slavic alphabets (
    ALA-LC Romanization
    ), used in North American libraries.
  • BGN/PCGN Romanization
    (1947), United States Board on Geographic Names & Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use).
  • GOST 16876, a now defunct Soviet transliteration standard. Replaced by GOST 7.79-2000, which is based on ISO 9.
  • Various informal romanizations of Cyrillic, which adapt the Cyrillic script to Latin and sometimes Greek glyphs for compatibility with small character sets.

See also Romanization of Belarusian, Bulgarian, Kyrgyz, Russian, Macedonian and Ukrainian.

Cyrillization

Representing other writing systems with Cyrillic letters is called Cyrillization.

Summary table

The Cyrillic script
Ю̂Я̈Я̂Я̨
ԘѤѦѪѨ
ѬѮѰѲѴѶ
Cyrillic alphabets comparison table
Early scripts
Church Slavonic А Б В Г Д (Ѕ) Е Ж Ѕ/З И І К Л М Н О П Р С Т Оу (Ѡ) Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ѣ Ь Ю Ѥ Ѧ Ѩ Ѫ Ѭ Ѯ Ѱ Ѳ Ѵ Ҁ
Most common shared letters
Common А   Б В Г   Д     Е     Ж   З   И       Й К   Л   М   Н     О   П   Р   С   Т   У     Ф Х   Ц   Ч   Ш Щ       Ь     Ю Я
South Slavic languages
Bulgarian А   Б В Г   Д   Дз Е     Ж   З   И       Й К   Л   М   Н     О   П   Р   С   Т   У     Ф Х   Ц   Ч Дж Ш Щ Ъ     Ь     Ю Я
Macedonian А   Б В Г   Д Ѓ Ѕ Е     Ж   З   И   Ј     К   Л Љ М   Н Њ   О   П   Р   С   Т Ќ У     Ф Х   Ц   Ч Џ Ш
Serbian А   Б В Г   Д Ђ   Е     Ж   З   И   Ј     К   Л Љ М   Н Њ   О   П   Р   С   Т Ћ У     Ф Х   Ц   Ч Џ Ш
Montenegrin А   Б В Г   Д Ђ   Е     Ж   З З́ И   Ј     К   Л Љ М   Н Њ   О   П   Р   С С́ Т Ћ У     Ф Х   Ц   Ч Џ Ш
East Slavic languages
Russian А   Б В Г   Д     Е   Ё Ж   З   И     Й К   Л   М   Н     О   П   Р   С   Т   У     Ф Х   Ц   Ч   Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Э   Ю Я                  
Belarusian А   Б В Г Ґ Д Дж Дз Е   Ё Ж   З     І     Й К   Л   М   Н     О   П   Р   С   Т   У Ў   Ф Х   Ц   Ч   Ш   Ы   Ь Э   Ю Я
Ukrainian А   Б В Г Ґ Д     Е Є Йо Ж   З   И І   Ї Й К   Л   М   Н     О   П   Р   С   Т   У     Ф Х   Ц   Ч   Ш Щ     Ь     Ю Я
Rusyn А   Б В Г Ґ Д     Е Є Ё Ж   З   И І   Ї Й К   Л   М   Н     О   П   Р   С   Т   У     Ф Х   Ц   Ч   Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ѣ Ь     Ю Я
Iranian languages
Kurdish А   Б В Г Г' Д     Е Ә Ә' Ж   З   И       Й К К' Л   М   Н     О Ö П П' Р Р' С   Т Т' У     Ф Х Һ Һ'   Ч Ч' Ш Щ       Ь Э       Ԛ Ԝ
Ossetian А Ӕ Б В Г Гъ Д Дж Дз Е   Ё Ж   З   И       Й К Къ Л   М   Н     О   П Пъ Р   С   Т Тъ У     Ф Х Хъ Ц Цъ Ч Чъ Ш Щ Ъ Ы   Ь Э   Ю Я
Tajik А   Б В Г Ғ Д     Е   Ё Ж   З   И   Ӣ   Й К Қ Л   М   Н     О   П   Р   С   Т   У Ӯ   Ф Х Ҳ     Ч Ҷ Ш   Ъ       Э   Ю Я
Romance languages
Moldovan
(Romanian)
А   Б В Г   Д     Е     Ж Ӂ З   И       Й К   Л   М   Н     О   П   Р   С   Т   У     Ф Х   Ц   Ч   Ш     Ы   Ь Э   Ю Я
Uralic languages
Komi-Permyak А   Б В Г   Д     Е   Ё Ж   З   И І     Й К   Л   М   Н     О Ӧ П   Р   С   Т   У     Ф Х   Ц   Ч   Ш Щ Ъ Ы   Ь Э   Ю Я
Meadow Mari А   Б В Г   Д     Е   Ё Ж   З   И       Й К   Л   М   Н Ҥ   О Ӧ П   Р   С   Т   У Ӱ   Ф Х   Ц   Ч   Ш Щ Ъ Ы   Ь Э   Ю Я
Hill Mari А Ӓ Б В Г   Д     Е   Ё Ж   З   И       Й К   Л   М   Н     О Ӧ П   Р   С   Т   У Ӱ   Ф Х   Ц   Ч   Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ӹ Ь Э   Ю Я
Kildin Sami А Ӓ Б В Г   Д     Е   Ё Ж   З   И   Й Ҋ Ј К   Л Ӆ М Ӎ Н Ӊ Ӈ О   П   Р Ҏ С   Т   У     Ф Х Һ Ц   Ч   Ш Щ Ъ Ы Ь Ҍ Э Ӭ Ю Я
Udmurt А   Б В Г   Д     Е   Ё Ж Ӝ З Ӟ И Ӥ Й     К (К̈) Л   М   Н     О Ӧ П   Р   С   Т   У     Ф Х   Ц   Ч Ӵ Ш Щ Ъ Ы   Ь Э   Ю Я
Turkic languages
Azerbaijani А   Б В Г Ғ Д     Е Ә Ё Ж   З Ы И Ј     Й К Ҝ Л   М   Н     О Ө П   Р   С   Т   У   Ү Ф Х Һ Ц   Ч Ҹ Ш Щ Ъ Ы   Ь Э   Ю Я
Bashkir А Ә Б В Г Ғ Д   Ҙ Е   Ё Ж   З   И       Й К Ҡ Л   М   Н Ң   О Ө П   Р   С Ҫ Т   У   Ү Ф Х Һ Ц   Ч   Ш Щ Ъ Ы   Ь Э Ә Ю Я
Chuvash А Ӑ Б В Г   Д     Е Ё Ӗ Ж   З   И       Й К   Л   М   Н     О   П   Р   С Ҫ Т   У Ӳ   Ф Х   Ц   Ч   Ш Щ Ъ Ы   Ь Э   Ю Я
Kazakh А Ә Б В Г Ғ Д     Е   Ё Ж   З   И І     Й К Қ Л   М   Н Ң   О Ө П   Р   С   Т   У Ұ Ү Ф Х Һ Ц   Ч   Ш Щ Ъ Ы   Ь Э   Ю Я
Kyrgyz А   Б   Г   Д     Е   Ё Ж   З   И       Й К   Л   М   Н Ң   О Ө П   Р   С   Т   У   Ү   Х       Ч   Ш     Ы     Э   Ю Я
Tatar А Ә Б В Г   Д     Е   Ё Ж Җ З   И       Й К   Л   М   Н Ң   О Ө П   Р   С   Т   У   Ү Ф Х Һ Ц   Ч   Ш Щ Ъ Ы   Ь Э   Ю Я
Uzbek А   Б В Г Ғ Д     Е   Ё Ж   З   И       Й К Қ Л   М   Н     О   П   Р   С   Т   У Ў   Ф Х Ҳ     Ч   Ш   Ъ       Э   Ю Я
Mongolian languages
Buryat А   Б В Г   Д     Е   Ё Ж   З   И       Й     Л   М   Н     О Ө П   Р   С   Т   У   Ү   Х Һ Ц   Ч   Ш     Ы   Ь Э   Ю Я
Khalkha А   Б В Г   Д     Е   Ё Ж   З   И       Й К   Л   М   Н     О Ө П   Р   С   Т   У   Ү Ф Х   Ц   Ч   Ш Щ Ъ Ы   Ь Э   Ю Я
Kalmyk А Ә Б В Г Һ Д     Е     Ж Җ З   И       Й К   Л   М   Н Ң   О Ө П   Р   С   Т   У   Ү   Х   Ц   Ч   Ш         Ь Э   Ю Я
Caucasian languages
Abkhaz А   Б В Г Ҕ Д Дә Џ Е Ҽ Ҿ Ж Жә З Ӡ Ӡә И     Й К Қ Ҟ Л   М   Н     О Ҩ П Ҧ Р   С   Т Тә Ҭ Ҭә У     Ф Х Ҳ Ҳә Ц Цә Ҵ Ҵә Ч Ҷ Ш Шә Щ   Ы
Sino-Tibetan languages
Dungan А   Б В Г   Д     Е   Ё Ж Җ З   И       Й К   Л   М   Н Ң Ә О   П   Р   С   Т   У Ў Ү Ф Х   Ц   Ч   Ш Щ Ъ Ы   Ь Э   Ю Я
  • Ё in Russian is usually spelled as Е; Ё is typically printed in texts for learners and in dictionaries, and in word pairs which are differentiated only by that letter (всевсё).[48]

Computer encoding

Unicode

As of Unicode version 15.1, Cyrillic letters, including national and historical alphabets, are encoded across several blocks:

The characters in the range U+0400 to U+045F are essentially the characters from

ISO 8859-5
moved upward by 864 positions. The characters in the range U+0460 to U+0489 are historic letters, not used now. The characters in the range U+048A to U+052F are additional letters for various languages that are written with Cyrillic script.

Unicode as a general rule does not include accented Cyrillic letters. A few exceptions include:

  • combinations that are considered as separate letters of respective alphabets, like
    Ќ
    (as well as many letters of non-Slavic alphabets);
  • two most frequent combinations orthographically required to distinguish
    Ѝ
    ;
  • a few Old and New Church Slavonic combinations:
    Ѽ
    .

To indicate stressed or long vowels,

combining diacritical marks
can be used after the respective letter (for example, U+0301 ◌́ COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT: е́ у́ э́ etc.).

Some languages, including

Church Slavonic, are still not fully supported.[citation needed
]

Unicode 5.1, released on 4 April 2008, introduces major changes to the Cyrillic blocks. Revisions to the existing Cyrillic blocks, and the addition of Cyrillic Extended A (2DE0 ... 2DFF) and Cyrillic Extended B (A640 ... A69F), significantly improve support for the early Cyrillic alphabet, Abkhaz, Aleut, Chuvash, Kurdish, and Moksha.[49]

Other

Other character encoding systems for Cyrillic:

Keyboard layouts

Each language has its own standard

volapuk encoding
) to type in languages that are normally written with the Cyrillic alphabet. Potentially, these proxy versions could be transformed programmatically into Cyrillic at a later date.

See also

Internet top-level domains in Cyrillic

Notes

  1. ^ North Macedonia has two official languages, Macedonian, which is written in Cyrillic, and Albanian, written in Latin.
  2. ^ Bosnia and Herzegovina has three official languages, Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian, which are used with both Latin and Cyrillic, except for Croatian which is exclusively in Latin.
  3. ^ Albanian is written in Latin script in Kosovo, but Serbian in Cyrillic.
  4. ^ Kazakh language will be transitioned to a Latin script from 2023 to 2031. Russian, the co-official language in Kazakhstan, will continue to be written in Cyrillic.
  5. ^ Cyrillic is the de facto script used alongside Latin. It is used in business, government, and other official documents. It is also widely spread throughout Uzbekistan.
  6. ^ Cyrillic is used co-officially alongside the Mongolian script.
  7. ^ The Montenegrin language, the official language of Montenegro, is written in Latin and Cyrillic.
  8. ^ Turkmenistan has one official language, Turkmen, which is written in Latin. The daily official newspaper is published in both Turkmen (Türkmenistan)[2] and Russian (Нейтральный Туркменистан).[3]
  9. ^ The Russian name ital'yanskiy shrift (Italian type) refers to a particular typeface family, whereas rimskiy shrift (roman type) is just a synonym for Latin type, Latin alphabet.

Footnotes

  1. ^ Auty, R. Handbook of Old Church Slavonic, Part II: Texts and Glossary. 1977.
  2. ^ "Gazetler | TDNG". metbugat.gov.tm. Archived from the original on 15 April 2021. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
  3. ^ "Gazetler | TDNG". metbugat.gov.tm. Archived from the original on 15 April 2021. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
  4. ^ Oldest alphabet found in Egypt. BBC. 1999-11-15. Retrieved 2015-01-14.
  5. ^ "Bdinski Zbornik[manuscript]". lib.ugent.be. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  6. List of countries by population
  7. ^ Orban, Leonard (24 May 2007). "Cyrillic, the third official alphabet of the EU, was created by a truly multilingual European" (PDF). European Union. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022. Retrieved 3 August 2014.
  8. ^ Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001–05, s.v. "Cyril and Methodius, Saints"; Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica Incorporated, Warren E. Preece – 1972, p. 846, s.v., "Cyril and Methodius, Saints" and "Eastern Orthodoxy, Missions ancient and modern"; Encyclopedia of World Cultures, David H. Levinson, 1991, p. 239, s.v., "Social Science"; Eric M. Meyers, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, p. 151, 1997; Lunt, Slavic Review, June 1964, p. 216; Roman Jakobson, Crucial problems of Cyrillo-Methodian Studies; Leonid Ivan Strakhovsky, A Handbook of Slavic Studies, p. 98; V. Bogdanovich, History of the ancient Serbian literature, Belgrade, 1980, p. 119.
  9. ^ Dvornik, Francis (1956). The Slavs: Their Early History and Civilization. Boston: American Academy of Arts and Sciences. p. 179. The Psalter and the Book of Prophets were adapted or "modernized" with special regard to their use in Bulgarian churches and it was in this school that the Glagolitic script was replaced by the so-called Cyrillic writing, which was more akin to the Greek uncial, simplified matters considerably and is still used by the Orthodox Slavs.
  10. ^ a b Curta (2006), pp. 221–222.
  11. .
  12. ^ "Провежда се международна конференция в гр. Опака за св. Антоний от Крепчанския манастир" [An international conference is being held in the town of Opaka for St. Anthony of the Krepchan Monastery]. 15 October 2021. Another inscription found by Popkonstantinov during the survey of the monastery speaks of the time of its creation. It consists of nine lines and has come down to us much damaged. 59 letters are saved. The first three lines are readable. What is preserved of him reads: "In the year 921, in the month of October, the servant of God Anton died..."
  13. ^ .
  14. ^ Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001–05, s.v. "Cyril and Methodius, Saints"; Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica Incorporated, Warren E. Preece – 1972, p. 846, s.v., "Cyril and Methodius, Saints" and "Eastern Orthodoxy, Missions ancient and modern"; Encyclopedia of World Cultures, David H. Levinson, 1991, p. 239, s.v., "Social Science"; Eric M. Meyers, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, p. 151, 1997; Lunt, Slavic Review, June, 1964, p. 216; Roman Jakobson, Crucial problems of Cyrillo-Methodian Studies; Leonid Ivan Strakhovsky, A Handbook of Slavic Studies, p. 98; V. Bogdanovich, History of the ancient Serbian literature, Belgrade, 1980, p. 119.
  15. ^ The Columbia Encyclopaedia, Sixth Edition. 2001–05, O.Ed. Saints Cyril and Methodius "Cyril and Methodius, Saints) 869 and 884, respectively, "Greek missionaries, brothers, called Apostles to the Slavs and fathers of Slavonic literature."
  16. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica, Major alphabets of the world, Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets, 2008, O.Ed. "The two early Slavic alphabets, the Cyrillic and the Glagolitic, were invented by St. Cyril, or Constantine (c. 827–869), and St. Methodii (c. 825–884). These men from Thessaloniki who became apostles to the southern Slavs, whom they converted to Christianity."
  17. . Constantine (Cyril) and his brother Methodius were the sons of the droungarios Leo and Maria, who may have been a Slav.
  18. .
  19. ^ Schenker, Alexander (1995). The Dawn of Slavic. Yale University Press. pp. 185–186, 189–190.
  20. .
  21. ^ Wien, Lysaght (1983). Old Church Slavonic (Old Bulgarian)-Middle Greek-Modern English dictionary. Verlag Bruder Hollinek.
  22. ^ Benjamin W. Fortson. Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction, p. 374.
  23. ^ Balić, Smail (1978). Die Kultur der Bosniaken, Supplement I: Inventar des bosnischen literarischen Erbes in orientalischen Sprachen. Vienna: Adolf Holzhausens, Vienna. pp. 49–50, 111.
  24. ^ Algar, Hamid (1995). The Literature of the Bosnian Muslims: a Quadrilingual Heritage. Kuala Lumpur: Nadwah Ketakwaan Melalui Kreativiti. pp. 254–268.
  25. Srećko M. Džaja & Ivan Lovrenović in Zagreb's biweekly "Vijenac", later in whole published in Journal of Franciscan theology in Sarajevo, "Bosna franciscana" No.42. 2014. Archived from the original
    on 11 April 2018. Retrieved 6 June 2018.
  26. ^ Iliev, Ivan G. "Short history of the Cyrillic alphabet – Ivan G. Iliev". International Journal of Russian Studies. Retrieved 4 July 2016.
  27. from the original on 8 December 2016. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
  28. ^ А. Н. Стеценко. Хрестоматия по Старославянскому Языку, 1984.
  29. ^ Cubberley, Paul. The Slavic Alphabets, 1996.
  30. ^ Variant form: S.
  31. ^ Variant form: Ꙋ.
  32. ^ Variant form: ЪИ.
  33. ^ Lunt, Horace G. Old Church Slavonic Grammar, Seventh Edition, 2001.
  34. ^ Bringhurst (2002) writes: "in Cyrillic, the difference between normal lower case and small caps is more subtle than it is in the Latin or Greek alphabets" (p. 32) and "in most Cyrillic faces, the lower case is close in color and shape to Latin small caps" (p. 107).
  35. (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022.
  36. .
  37. ^ "Cyrillicsly: Two Cyrillics: a critical history I".
  38. ^ "Cyrillic script variations and the importance of localisation - Fontshare.com". 24 September 2020.
  39. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 30 October 2017.
  40. ^ The Times (20 March 2020). "Mongolia to restore traditional alphabet by 2025". News.MN. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  41. ^ "Alaskan Orthodox texts". All Saints of North America Orthodox Church. Archived from the original on 6 July 2011. Retrieved 20 June 2011.
  42. ^ Iliev, Ivan G. "SHORT History of the Cyrillic ALPHABET". International Journal of Russian Studies. Retrieved 4 February 2023.
  43. ^ "Komi language and alphabet". omniglot.com. Retrieved 6 October 2023.
  44. ^ "Serbian constitution".
  45. ^ "Serbian signs of the times are not in Cyrillic". Christian Science Monitor. 29 May 2008.
  46. S2CID 245301540
    .
  47. ^ "UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems".
  48. ^ Лопатин, В. В., ed. (2009). "Употребление буквы ё в текстах разного назначения" [Rules of Russian orthography and punctuation online. Usage of the letter ё in texts of varied purposes]. Правила русской орфографии и пунктуации онлайн (in Russian). Retrieved 4 September 2023.
  49. ^ "IOS Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022. Retrieved 13 June 2012.

References


Further reading


External links