What alphabet do we use? Russian Cyrillic

Russian writing has its own history of formation and its own alphabet, which is very different from the same Latin that is used in most European countries. The Russian alphabet is Cyrillic, more precisely, its modern, 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 its history 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 to create 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 fact that the Cyrillic alphabet is an alphabet based on the Greek statutory letter. It is also worth noting that with the help of some letters Cyrillic alphabet numbers were indicated. To do this, a special diacritical mark, titlo, was placed over the combination of letters.

As for the distribution of the Cyrillic alphabet, it came to the Slavs only with. For example, in Bulgaria, the Cyrillic alphabet appeared only in 860, after it had adopted Christianity. At the end of the 9th century, the Cyrillic alphabet penetrated into Serbia, and after another hundred years, into the territory of Kievan Rus.

Along with the alphabet, church literature, translations of the Gospel, the Bible, and prayers began to spread.

In fact, from this it becomes clear what Cyrillic is and where it came from. But has it come down to us in its original form? Far from it. Like many other things, writing has changed and improved along with our language and culture.

Modern Cyrillic has lost some of its designations and letters in the course of various reforms. So such as the title, iso, camora, the letters er and er, yat, yus big and small, izhitsa, fita, psi and xi disappeared. The modern Cyrillic alphabet consists of 33 letters.

In addition, letter numeration 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 monks-enlighteners Cyril and Methodius on the orders of Tsar Michael III. Having adopted a 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 book literature, which for a long time remained the only type of literature that the educated sections of the population of Kievan Rus could enjoy.

In the course of time and under the influence of various reforms, the alphabet changed, improved, superfluous and unnecessary letters, notation. The Cyrillic alphabet that we use today is the result of all the metamorphoses that have taken place over more than a thousand years of existence. Slavic alphabet.

Cyrillic and Glagolitic are ancient Slavic alphabets. The Cyrillic alphabet got its name from the name of its creator, St. Cyril Equal to the Apostles. What is a verb? Where did she come from? And how is it different from Cyrillic?

What is 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. The Glagolitic was considered a later system that arose as a secret script. However, at present, a point of view has been established in science that the Glagolitic alphabet is older than the Cyrillic alphabet. The oldest accurately dated Glagolitic inscription dates back to 893 and is located in the church 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 more than ancient text. There are many palimpsests where the inscription in Glagolitic was scraped off, and Cyrillic was written on top, and never vice versa. In addition, the Glagolitic texts are written in a more archaic language than the Cyrillic ones.

Theories of the origin of the Glagolitic alphabet

It is well known that the saints Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril Glagolitic was created. There is even reason to believe that in ancient Russian the Glagolitic was called "Cyrillic". There are several theories about the origin of the Glagolitic characters. It is believed that these letters were created by Cyril 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 Glagolitic letters coincides with Khutsuri, an ancient Georgian church letter. If this is so, then there is nothing strange in this - it is known that Cyril was well acquainted with oriental 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, the creator of the canonical Latin text Bible, who lived in the 5th century AD. Perhaps the theory is called to life by the fact that Slavic population Croatia sought, with the help of the authority of a revered saint, to protect its alphabet and its language from the forced latinization imposed by the Roman Catholic Church, which, at the Council of the Bishops of Dalmatia and Croatia in 1056, called the Glagolitic alphabet "Gothic writings invented by a certain heretic Methodius." In Croatia, the Glagolitic alphabet is still used in church books to this day.

What are the similarities and differences

On the basis of the Glagolitic alphabet and the Greek alphabet, Cyril's student Kliment Ohridsky, who worked in Bulgaria, created the alphabet, which we today call the Cyrillic alphabet. Between Glagolitic and Cyrillic there is no difference in the number of letters - in original version there are 41 of them in both alphabets - not in their names - all the same "az", "beeches", "lead" ...

The only difference is in the lettering. There are two forms of Glagolitic inscription: the older one is round - known as Bulgarian, and the later one is angular or Croatian.

The numerical value 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 record numbers. In the Glagolitic alphabet, "az" corresponds to one, "beeches" to two, and so on. In Cyrillic, numbers are tied to numerical values corresponding letters of the Greek alphabet. Therefore, “az” is a unit, and “lead” is a deuce. There are other inconsistencies as well.

The author of the medieval Bulgarian treatise “On Writings” Chernorizets Khrabr wrote about the Slavic alphabet, about its advantage over the Greek one and that it had undergone improvement: filthy. If someone says that he did not arrange them well, because they are still finishing them, in response we will say this: the Greeks also completed many times.

Use of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets in Russia

Glagolitic received wide use among the southern Slavic peoples, and in ancient Russia it was used very little - there are only single inscriptions. Already in early XXI century in the Novgorod St. Sophia Cathedral, "graffiti" in a mixture of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets dating back to the 11th century were discovered. Sometimes the Glagolitic alphabet was used in Russia as a secret script, which suggests that even in those days it was little known to anyone.

Here is such a version. Objections are accepted.

The full version of the infographic is under the cut, as well as the answer to the question posed in the title:

Here's a little more on the topic:

May 24 in Russia and a number of other countries celebrated the Day Slavic writing and culture. Remembering the brothers-enlighteners Cyril and Methodius, quite often they declared that it is thanks to them that we have the Cyrillic alphabet.

As a typical example, here is a quote from a newspaper article:

Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius brought Slavic land writing and created the first Slavic alphabet (Cyrillic), which we use to this day.

By the way, the icons of Saints Cyril and Methodius are always depicted with scrolls in their hands. On the scrolls are well-known Cyrillic letters - az, beeches, lead ...

Here we are dealing with a long-standing and widespread misconception, says a senior researcher at the V.V. Vinogradova Irina Levontina: “Indeed, everyone knows that we owe our letter to Cyril and Methodius. However, as is often the case, this is not entirely true. Cyril and Methodius are wonderful monk brothers. It is often written that they translated liturgical books from Greek into Church Slavonic. This is not true, because there was nothing to translate into, they created this language. They are sometimes said to have translated into South Slavic dialects. That's funny. Try to come to some village where there is such a completely unwritten dialect, there is no TV, and not even the Gospel, but a physics or history textbook can be translated into this dialect - nothing will work. They practically created this language. And what we call the Cyrillic alphabet was not invented by Cyril at all. Cyril came up with another alphabet, which was called the "Glagolitic". It was very interesting, unlike anything: it consisted of circles, triangles, crosses. Later, the Glagolitic alphabet was replaced by another letter: what we now call the Cyrillic alphabet - it was created on the basis of the Greek alphabet.

“The dispute about which alphabet is primary, Cyrillic or Glagolitic is almost 200 years old. At present, the opinions of historians are reduced to the fact that the primary Glagolitic alphabet, it was Saint Cyril who created it. But this point of view has many opponents. There are four main hypotheses for the origin of these Slavic alphabets.

The first hypothesis says that the Glagolitic alphabet is older than the Cyrillic alphabet, and arose even before Cyril and Methodius. “This is the oldest Slavic alphabet, it is not known when and by whom it was created. The Cyrillic alphabet, familiar to all of us, was created by St. Cyril, then still Constantine the Philosopher, only in 863, he said. – The second hypothesis states that the Cyrillic alphabet is the oldest. It arose long before the start of the educational mission among the Slavs, as a script that developed historically on the basis of the Greek alphabet, and in 863 St. Cyril created the Glagolitic alphabet. The third hypothesis assumes that Glagolitic is a secret script. Before the beginning of the Slavic mission, the Slavs did not have any alphabet, at least a serviceable one. In 863, Cyril, then still Constantine, nicknamed the Philosopher, created the future Cyrillic alphabet in Constantinople, and went with his brother to preach the Gospel in the Slavic country of Moravia. Then, after the death of the brothers, in the era of persecution of Slavic culture, worship and writing in Moravia, from the 90s of the 9th century, under Pope Stephen V, the followers of Cyril and Methodius were forced to go underground, and for this purpose they came up with the Glagolitic alphabet, as encrypted reproduction of the Cyrillic alphabet. And, finally, the fourth hypothesis expresses the idea, which is directly opposite to the third hypothesis, that in 863 Cyril created the Glagolitic alphabet in Constantinople, and then, in the era of persecution, when the Slavic followers of the brothers were forced to scatter from Moravia and move to Bulgaria, it is not known exactly by whom, maybe their students created the Cyrillic alphabet, based on a more complex Glagolitic alphabet. That is, the Glagolitic alphabet was simplified and adapted to the usual graphics of the Greek alphabet.

The widespread use of the Cyrillic alphabet, according to Vladimir Mikhailovich, has the simplest explanation. The countries in which the Cyrillic alphabet was entrenched were in the sphere of influence of Byzantium. And she used the Greek alphabet, with which the Cyrillic alphabet is seventy percent similar. All letters of the Greek alphabet became part of the Cyrillic alphabet. However, the Glagolitic alphabet has not disappeared. “It remained in use literally until the Second World War,” said Vladimir Mikhailovich. – Before the Second World War in Italy, where Croats lived, Croatian newspapers were published in Glagolitic. The Dolmatian Croats were the guardians of the Glagolitic tradition, apparently striving for cultural and national revival.”

The basis for the Glagolitic script is the subject of much scholarly controversy. “The origins of his writing are seen both in Syriac writing and Greek cursive writing. There are a lot of versions, but they are all hypothetical, since there is no exact analogue, - says Vladimir Mikhailovich. - “It is still obvious that the Glagolitic script artificial origin. This is evidenced by the order of the letters in the alphabet. Letters meant numbers. In the Glagolitic alphabet, everything is strictly systematic: the first nine letters meant units, the next - tens, the next - hundreds.

So who invented the verb? That part of the scientists who speak of its primacy believe that it was invented by Saint Cyril, learned man, a librarian at the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople, and the Cyrillic alphabet was created later, and with its help, after the blessed death of St. Cyril, Cyril's brother Methodius, who became the bishop of Moravia, continued the work of enlightening the Slavic peoples.

It is also interesting to compare Glagolitic and Cyrillic in terms of lettering. In both the first and second cases, the symbolism is very reminiscent of Greek, however, the Glagolitic alphabet still has features characteristic only of the Slavic alphabet. Take, for example, the letter "az". In Glagolitic, it resembles a cross, and in Cyrillic, it completely borrows Greek writing. But this is not the most interesting Old Slavonic alphabet. After all, it is in the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets that each letter represents single word filled with deep philosophical sense that our ancestors put into it.

Although today the letters-words have disappeared from our everyday life, nevertheless they continue to live in Russian proverbs and sayings. For example, the expression “start from the basics” means nothing more than “start from the very beginning”. Although in fact the letter "az" means "I".

>And here's another interesting and for example hint The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -

Cyrillic alphabet- lingu. In the 9th century AD, Saints Cyril and Methodius created two alphabets, Glagolitic and Cyrillic, for writing Old Church Slavonic. Cyrillic, based on the Glagolitic and Greek alphabets, eventually became the system of choice... ... Universal optional 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")], the system of written characters of letters, to paradise displays and fixes 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) denote the corresponding sounds of the language. In one type of A., the so-called. consonant, only consonant sounds are indicated by letters, and vowels are transmitted by diacritics ... ... Peoples and cultures

Alphabet- from the names the first two letters of the Greek A. alpha and beta (modern Greek vita), a set of letters adopted in k. l. writing and located in the installed. okay; the same as the alphabet. In a letter. monuments, the word has been used since the 16th century, in the modern. lit. lang. b.… … Russian humanitarian encyclopedic Dictionary

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