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, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 =
Egyptian hieroglyphs Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1, ...
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 =
Greek script The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as w ...
augmented by
Glagolitic The Glagolitic script (, , ''glagolitsa'') is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is generally agreed to have been created in the 9th century by Saint Cyril, a monk from Thessalonica. He and his brother Saint Methodius were sent by the Byzan ...
, sisters = , children = Old Permic script , unicode = , iso15924 = Cyrl , iso15924 note =
Cyrs (
Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic literary language. Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with standardizing the language and using it in translating the Bible and othe ...
variant) , sample = Romanian Traditional Cyrillic - Lord's Prayer text.png , caption = 1780s Romanian text (Lord's Prayer), written with the Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a
writing system A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable fo ...
used for various languages across
Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelag ...
. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic,
Uralic The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian lan ...
, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in
Southeastern Europe Southeast Europe or Southeastern Europe (SEE) is a geographical subregion of Europe, consisting primarily of the Balkans. Sovereign states and territories that are included in the region are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia (a ...
,
Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...
, the
Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historica ...
,
Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the fo ...
,
North Asia North Asia or Northern Asia, also referred to as Siberia, is the northern region of Asia, which is defined in geographical terms and is coextensive with the Asian part of Russia, and consists of three Russian regions east of the Ural Mountains ...
, and
East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea ...
.
, around 250 million people in Eurasia use Cyrillic as the official script for their national languages, with
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
accounting for about half of them. With the
accession of Bulgaria to the European Union On 1 January 2007, Bulgaria and Romania became member states of the European Union (EU) in the fifth wave of EU enlargement. Negotiations Romania was the first country of post-communist Europe to have official relations with the European Comm ...
on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...
, following the
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
and Greek alphabets. The Early Cyrillic alphabet was developed during the 9th century AD at the Preslav Literary School in the
First Bulgarian Empire The First Bulgarian Empire ( cu, блъгарьско цѣсарьствиѥ, blagarysko tsesarystviye; bg, Първо българско царство) was a medieval Bulgar- Slavic and later Bulgarian state that existed in Southeastern Eur ...
during the reign of
tsar Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East and South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" in the European medieval sense of the ter ...
Simeon I the Great, probably by disciples of the two
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
brothers
Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius Cyril (born Constantine, 826–869) and Methodius (815–885) were two brothers and Byzantine Christian theologians and missionaries. For their work evangelizing the Slavs, they are known as the "Apostles to the Slavs". They are credited wit ...
, who had previously created the
Glagolitic script The Glagolitic script (, , ''glagolitsa'') is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is generally agreed to have been created in the 9th century by Saint Cyril, a monk from Thessalonica. He and his brother Saint Methodius were sent by the Byza ...
. The script is named in honor of Saint Cyril.


Etymology

Since the script was conceived and popularised by the followers of
Cyril and Methodius Cyril (born Constantine, 826–869) and Methodius (815–885) were two brothers and Byzantine Christian theologians and missionaries. For their work evangelizing the Slavs, they are known as the "Apostles to the Slavs". They are credited w ...
, rather than by Cyril and Methodius themselves, its name denotes homage rather than authorship. The name "Cyrillic" often confuses people who are not familiar with the script's history, because it does not identify a country of origin (in contrast to the "Greek alphabet"). Among the general public, it is often called "the Russian alphabet," because Russian is the most popular and influential alphabet based on the script. Some Bulgarian intellectuals, notably Stefan Tsanev, have expressed concern over this, and have suggested that the Cyrillic script be called the "Bulgarian alphabet" instead, for the sake of historical accuracy. In Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, Czech and Slovak, the Cyrillic alphabet is also known as ''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, "azbuka" refers to Cyrillic and contrasts with "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 In the linguistic study of written languages, a syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) moras which make up words. A symbol in a syllabary, called a syllabogram, typically represents an (optiona ...
, especially the Japanese
kana The term may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were Chinese characters ( kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most ...
, are commonly referred to as 'syllabic azbukas' rather than 'syllabic scripts'.


History

The Cyrillic script was created in the
First Bulgarian Empire The First Bulgarian Empire ( cu, блъгарьско цѣсарьствиѥ, blagarysko tsesarystviye; bg, Първо българско царство) was a medieval Bulgar- Slavic and later Bulgarian state that existed in Southeastern Eur ...
.Paul Cubberley (1996) "The Slavic Alphabets". In Daniels and Bright, eds. ''The World's Writing Systems.'' Oxford University Press. . 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 The First Bulgarian Empire ( cu, блъгарьско цѣсарьствиѥ, blagarysko tsesarystviye; bg, Първо българско царство) was a medieval Bulgar- Slavic and later Bulgarian state that existed in Southeastern Eur ...
and of all
Slavs Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...
:
Unlike the Churchmen in Ohrid, Preslav scholars were much more dependent upon Greek models and quickly abandoned the
Glagolitic script The Glagolitic script (, , ''glagolitsa'') is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is generally agreed to have been created in the 9th century by Saint Cyril, a monk from Thessalonica. He and his brother Saint Methodius were sent by the Byza ...
s in favor of an adaptation of the Greek uncial to the needs of Slavic, which is now known as the Cyrillic alphabet.
A number of prominent Bulgarian writers and scholars worked at the school, including Naum of Preslav until 893;
Constantine of Preslav Constantine of Preslav () was a medieval Bulgarian scholar, writer and translator, one of the most important men of letters working at the Preslav Literary School at the end of the 9th and the beginning of the 10th century. Biographical eviden ...
; Joan Ekzarh (also transcr. John the Exarch); and Chernorizets Hrabar, among others. The school was also a center of translation, mostly of
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
authors. The Cyrillic script is derived from the Greek uncial script letters, augmented by ligatures and consonants from the older Glagolitic alphabet for sounds not found in Greek. Glagolitic and Cyrillic were formalized by the Byzantine Saints Cyril and Methodius and their disciples, such as Saints Naum, Clement, Angelar, and
Sava The Sava (; , ; sr-cyr, Сава, hu, Száva) is a river in Central and Southeast Europe, a right-bank and the longest tributary of the Danube. It flows through Slovenia, Croatia and along its border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, and finally t ...
. They spread and taught Christianity in the whole of Bulgaria.''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. 119The 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."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." Paul Cubberley posits that although Cyril may have codified and expanded Glagolitic, it was his students in the
First Bulgarian Empire The First Bulgarian Empire ( cu, блъгарьско цѣсарьствиѥ, blagarysko tsesarystviye; bg, Първо българско царство) was a medieval Bulgar- Slavic and later Bulgarian state that existed in Southeastern Eur ...
under Tsar Simeon the Great that developed Cyrillic from the Greek letters in the 890s as a more suitable script for church books. Cyrillic spread among other Slavic peoples, as well as among non-Slavic
Vlachs "Vlach" ( or ), also "Wallachian" (and many other variants), is a historical term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate mainly Romanians but also Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Istro-Romanians and other Easte ...
. The earliest datable Cyrillic inscriptions have been found in the area of Preslav, in the medieval city itself and at nearby Patleina Monastery, both in present-day
Shumen Province Shumen Province ( bg, Област Шумен, transliterated ''Oblast Shumen'', former name Shumen okrug) is a province in northeastern Bulgaria named after its main city Shumen. It is divided into 10 municipalities with a total population, ...
, as well as in the Ravna Monastery and in the Varna Monastery. The new script became the basis of
alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...
s used in various languages in
Orthodox Church Orthodox Church may refer to: * Eastern Orthodox Church * Oriental Orthodox Churches * Orthodox Presbyterian Church * Orthodox Presbyterian Church of New Zealand * State church of the Roman Empire * True Orthodox church See also * Orthodox (d ...
-dominated Eastern Europe, both Slavic and non-Slavic languages (such as
Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania ** Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditiona ...
, until the 1860s). For centuries, Cyrillic was also used by Catholic and Muslim Slavs (see Bosnian Cyrillic). Cyrillic and
Glagolitic The Glagolitic script (, , ''glagolitsa'') is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is generally agreed to have been created in the 9th century by Saint Cyril, a monk from Thessalonica. He and his brother Saint Methodius were sent by the Byzan ...
were used for the
Church Slavonic language Church Slavonic (, , literally "Church-Slavonic language"), also known as Church Slavic, New Church Slavonic or New Church Slavic, is the conservative Slavic liturgical language used by the Eastern Orthodox Church in Belarus, Bosnia and Her ...
, especially the
Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic literary language. Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with standardizing the language and using it in translating the Bible and othe ...
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 A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
of the Balkans and Eastern Europe."On the relationship of old Church Slavonic to the written language of early Rus'" Horace G. Lunt; Russian Linguistics, Volume 11, Numbers 2–3 / January, 1987Benjamin W. Fortson. ''Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction'', p. 374 Bosnian Cyrillic, widely known as ''Bosančica'' is an extinct variant of the Cyrillic alphabet that originated in 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 The Humac tablet ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, Хумачка плоча, Хумска плоча, separator=" / ", Humačka ploča, Humska ploča) is an Old Slavic epigraph in Bosnian Cyrillic script in the form of a stone tablet, believed to be variously da ...
(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. Bosnian Cyrillic was used continuously until the 18th century, with sporadic usage even taking place in the 20th century. With the orthographic reform of Saint Evtimiy of Tarnovo and other prominent representatives of the
Tarnovo Literary School The Tarnovo Literary School ( bg, Търновска книжовна школа) of the late 14th and 15th century was a major medieval Bulgarian cultural academy with important contribution to the Medieval Bulgarian literature established in the ...
of the 14th and 15th centuries, such as
Gregory Tsamblak Gregory Tsamblak or Grigorij Camblak ( bg, Григорий Цамблак, sr-Cyr, Григорије Цамблак; c. 1365–1420) was a Bulgarian writer and cleric. He was the pretended Metropolitan of Lithuania between 1413 and 1420. A Bulg ...
and
Constantine of Kostenets Constantine of Kostenets ( bg, Константин Костенечки, Konstantin Kostenechki; born ca. 1380, died after 1431), also known as Constantine the Philosopher ( sr, Константин Филозоф), was a medieval Bulgarian scholar ...
, the school influenced Russian, Serbian, Wallachian and Moldavian medieval culture. This is known in Russia as the second South-Slavic influence. In the early 18th century, the Cyrillic script used in Russia was heavily reformed by
Peter the Great Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...
, who had recently returned from his
Grand Embassy The Grand Embassy (russian: Вели́кое посо́льство, translit=Velíkoye posól'stvo) was a Russian diplomatic mission to Western Europe from 9 March 1697 to 25 August 1698 led by Peter the Great. Description In 1697 and 1698, Pete ...
in
Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
. The new letterforms, called the
Civil script The Russian orthography has been reformed officially and unofficially by changing the Russian alphabet over the course of the history of the Russian language. Several important reforms happened in the 18th–20th centuries. Early changes ...
, 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. 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 Church Slavonic (, , literally "Church-Slavonic language"), also known as Church Slavic, New Church Slavonic or New Church Slavic, is the conservative Slavic liturgical language used by the Eastern Orthodox Church in Belarus, Bosnia and Her ...
in
Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or " canonical ...
and
Eastern Catholic The Eastern Catholic Churches or Oriental Catholic Churches, also called the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches, Eastern Rite Catholicism, or simply the Eastern Churches, are 23 Eastern Christian autonomous (''sui iuris'') particular churches of ...
rites still resembles early Cyrillic. However, over the course of the following millennium, Cyrillic adapted to changes in spoken language, developed regional variations to suit the features of national languages, and was subjected to academic reform and political decrees. A notable example of such linguistic reform can be attributed to Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, who updated the
Serbian Cyrillic alphabet The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet ( sr, / , ) is a variation of the Cyrillic script used to write the Serbian language, updated in 1818 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić. It is one of the two alphabets used to write standard modern Serbian, th ...
by removing certain graphemes no longer represented in the vernacular and introducing graphemes specific to Serbian (i.e. Љ Њ Ђ Ћ Џ Ј), distancing it from Church Slavonic alphabet in use prior to the reform. Today, many languages in the
Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
, 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 Old East Slavic (traditionally also Old Russian; be, старажытнаруская мова; russian: древнерусский язык; uk, давньоруська мова) was a language used during the 9th–15th centuries by East ...
. Its adaptation to local languages produced a number of Cyrillic alphabets, discussed below. Capital and lowercase letters were not distinguished in old manuscripts. Yeri () was originally a ligature of Yer and I ( + = ).
Iotation In Slavic languages, iotation (, ) is a form of palatalization that occurs when a consonant comes into contact with a palatal approximant from the succeeding phoneme. The is represented by iota (ι) in the Cyrillic alphabet and the Greek al ...
was indicated by ligatures formed with the letter І: (not an ancestor of modern Ya, Я, which is derived from ), , (ligature of and ), , . Sometimes different letters were used interchangeably, for example = = , as were typographical variants like = . There were also commonly used ligatures like = . The letters also had numeric values, based not on Cyrillic alphabetical order, but inherited from the letters' Greek ancestors. 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
manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced i ...
s, and changed over time. Few fonts include
glyph A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...
s sufficient to reproduce the alphabet. In accordance with
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...
policy, the standard does not include letterform variations or ligatures found in manuscript sources unless they can be shown to conform to the Unicode definition of a character. The Unicode 5.1 standard, released on 4 April 2008, greatly improves computer support for the early Cyrillic and the modern
Church Slavonic Church Slavonic (, , literally "Church-Slavonic language"), also known as Church Slavic, New Church Slavonic or New Church Slavic, is the conservative Slavic liturgical language used by the Eastern Orthodox Church in Belarus, Bosnia and Her ...
language. In Microsoft Windows, the Segoe UI user interface font is notable for having complete support for the archaic Cyrillic letters since Windows 8.


Currency signs

Some
currency sign A currency symbol or currency sign is a graphic symbol used to denote a currency unit. Usually it is defined by the monetary authority, like the national central bank for the currency concerned. In formatting, the symbol can use various format ...
s have derived from Cyrillic letters: * The Ukrainian hryvnia sign (₴) is from the
cursive Cursive (also known as script, among other names) is any style of penmanship in which characters are written joined in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster, in contrast to block letters. It varies in functionali ...
minuscule Ukrainian Cyrillic letter He (''г''). * The Russian ruble sign (₽) from the majuscule Р. * The
Kyrgyzstani som The som (Kyrgyz: сом; ISO code: KGS; sign: с) is the currency of Kyrgyzstan. Etymology The official name of the Soviet currency in Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, and Uzbek was ''soum'', and this name appeared written on the back of banknotes ...
sign (с) from the majuscule С (es) * The Kazakhstani tenge sign (₸) from Т * The Mongolian tögrög sign (₮) from Т


Letterforms and typography

The development of Cyrillic
typography Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), an ...
passed directly from the
medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
stage to the late
Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including ...
, without a
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...
phase as in
Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
. Late Medieval Cyrillic letters (categorized as vyaz' and still found on many
icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The mos ...
inscriptions today) show a marked tendency to be very tall and narrow, with strokes often shared between adjacent letters.
Peter the Great Peter I ( – ), most commonly known as Peter the Great,) or Pyotr Alekséyevich ( rus, Пётр Алексе́евич, p=ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪˈksʲejɪvʲɪtɕ, , group=pron was a Russian monarch who ruled the Tsardom of Russia from t ...
, Tsar of Russia, mandated the use of westernized letter forms ( ru) in the early 18th century. Over time, these were largely adopted in the other languages that use the script. Thus, unlike the majority of modern Greek fonts that retained their own set of design principles for lower-case letters (such as the placement of
serif In typography, a serif () is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface ...
s, the shapes of stroke ends, and stroke-thickness rules, although Greek capital letters do use Latin design principles), modern Cyrillic fonts are much the same as modern Latin fonts of the same font family. The development of some Cyrillic computer typefaces from Latin ones has also contributed to the visual Latinization of Cyrillic type.


Lowercase forms

Cyrillic
uppercase Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...
and
lowercase Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...
letter forms are not as differentiated as in Latin typography. Upright Cyrillic lowercase letters are essentially small capitals (with exceptions: Cyrillic , , , , , and adopted Western lowercase shapes, lowercase is typically designed under the influence of Latin , lowercase , and are traditional handwritten forms, although a good-quality Cyrillic typeface will still include separate small-caps glyphs. Cyrillic fonts, as well as Latin ones, have
roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...
and italic types (practically all popular modern fonts include parallel sets of Latin and Cyrillic letters, where many glyphs, uppercase as well as lowercase, are shared by both). However, the native font terminology in most Slavic languages (for example, in Russian) does not use the words "roman" and "italic" in this sense. Instead, the nomenclature follows German naming patterns: * Roman type is called ' ("upright type")compare with ' ("regular type") in German * Italic type is called ' ("cursive") or ' ("cursive type")from the German word ', meaning italic typefaces and not cursive writing *
Cursive Cursive (also known as script, among other names) is any style of penmanship in which characters are written joined in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster, in contrast to block letters. It varies in functionali ...
handwriting is ' ("handwritten type")in German: ' or ', both meaning literally 'running type' * A (mechanically) sloped oblique type of
sans-serif In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called " serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than s ...
faces is ' ("sloped" or "slanted type"). * A boldfaced type is called ' ("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 fonts, italic and cursive types 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 fonts: for example, italic Cyrillic is the lowercase counterpart of not of . Note: in some fonts or styles, , i.e. the lowercase italic Cyrillic , may look like Latin , and , i.e. lowercase italic Cyrillic , may look like small-capital italic . In Standard Serbian, as well as in Macedonian, 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 In typography, small caps (short for "small capitals") are characters typeset with glyphs that resemble uppercase letters (capitals) but reduced in height and weight close to the surrounding lowercase letters or text figures. This is technic ...
form. Notes: Depending on fonts available, the Serbian row may appear identical to the Russian row.
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...
approximations are used in the ''
faux Faux may refer to: People *Faux (surname) Places Places in Belgium * Faux, a village in the Belgian commune of Court-Saint-Étienne Places in France * Faux, Ardennes, French commune of the Ardennes department * Faux, Dordogne, French commune of t ...
'' row to ensure it can be rendered properly across all systems. In Bulgarian typography, 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. Sometimes, uppercase letters may have a different shape as well, e.g. more triangular, Д and Л, like Greek delta Δ and lambda Λ. Notes: Depending on fonts available, the Bulgarian row may appear identical to the Russian row.
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...
approximations are used in the ''
faux Faux may refer to: People *Faux (surname) Places Places in Belgium * Faux, a village in the Belgian commune of Court-Saint-Étienne Places in France * Faux, Ardennes, French commune of the Ardennes department * Faux, Dordogne, French commune of t ...
'' 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 OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark ...
Layout (OTL) features to display the Western, Bulgarian or Southern, Serbian/Macedonian forms. Depending on the choices of the font manufacturer, 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.


Cyrillic alphabets

Among others, Cyrillic is the standard script for writing the following languages: *Slavic languages: Belarusian, Bulgarian,
Macedonian Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia. Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to: People Modern * Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North Ma ...
, Russian,
Rusyn Rusyn may refer to: * Rusyn people, an East Slavic people ** Pannonian Rusyn people, a branch of Rusyn people ** Lemkos, a branch of Rusyn (or Ukrainian) people ** Boykos, a branch of Rusyn (or Ukrainian) people * Rusyn language, an East Slavic l ...
,
Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia an ...
( Standard Serbian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin language, Montenegrin), Ukrainian language, Ukrainian *Non-Slavic languages of Russia: Abaza language, Abaza, Adyghe language, Adyghe, Avar language, Avar, Azerbaijani language, Azerbaijani (in Dagestan), Bashkir language, Bashkir, Buryat language, Buryat, Chechen language, Chechen, Chuvash language, Chuvash, Erzya language, Erzya, Ingush language, Ingush, Kabardian language, Kabardian, Kalmyk Oirat, Kalmyk, Karachay-Balkar language, Karachay-Balkar, Kildin Sami language, Kildin Sami, Komi language, Komi, Mari language, Mari, Moksha language, Moksha, Nogai language, Nogai, Ossetian language, Ossetian (in North Ossetia–Alania), Romani orthography#Cyrillic script, Romani, Sakha language, Sakha/Yakut, Tatar language, Tatar, Tuvan language, Tuvan, Udmurt language, Udmurt, Siberian Yupik language, Yuit (Yupik) *Non-Slavic languages in other countries: Abkhaz language, Abkhaz, Aleut language, Aleut (now mostly in church texts), Dungan language, Dungan, Kazakh language, Kazakh (to be replaced by Latin script by 2025), Kyrgyz language, Kyrgyz, Mongolian language, Mongolian (to also be written with traditional Mongolian script by 2025), Tajik language, Tajik, Tlingit alphabet#Cyrillic alphabets, Tlingit (now only in church texts), Turkmen language, Turkmen (officially replaced by Latin script), Uzbek language, Uzbek (also officially replaced by Latin script, but still in wide use), Yupik languages#Writing systems, Yupik (in Alaska) The Cyrillic script has also been used for languages of Alaska, Slavic Europe (except for Western Slavs, Western Slavic and some Southern Slavs, Southern Slavic), the
Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historica ...
, the languages of Idel-Ural, Siberia, and the Russian Far East. The first alphabet derived from Cyrillic was Abur, used for the Komi language. Other Cyrillic alphabets include the Molodtsov alphabet for the Komi language and various alphabets for Caucasian languages.


Usage of Cyrillic versus other scripts


Latin script

A number of languages written in a Cyrillic alphabet have also been written in a Latin alphabet, such as Azerbaijani language, Azerbaijani, Uzbek language, Uzbek, Serbian language, Serbian and
Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania ** Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditiona ...
(in the Republic of Moldova until 1989, 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 alphabet, 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
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
n 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 language, Chechen and Ingush language, Ingush speakers, the law had political ramifications. For example, the separatist Chechen government mandated a Latin script which is still used by many Chechens. Standard Serbian language, Serbian uses Serbian language#Writing system, both the Cyrillic and Latin scripts. Cyrillic is nominally the official script of Serbia's administration according to the Serbian constitution; 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. 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.


Romanization

There are various systems for Romanization of Cyrillic text, including transliteration to convey Cyrillic spelling in Latin letters, and Transcription (linguistics), transcription to convey pronunciation. Standard Cyrillic-to-Latin transliteration systems include: *Scientific transliteration of Cyrillic, Scientific transliteration, used in linguistics, is based on the Gaj's Latin alphabet, Serbo-Croatian Latin alphabet. *The Working Group on Romanization Systems 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 16876-71, GOST 16876, a now defunct Soviet transliteration standard. Replaced by GOST 7.79, which is ISO 9 equivalent. *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, Romanization of Bulgarian, Bulgarian, romanization of Kyrgyz, Kyrgyz, romanization of Russian, Russian, romanization of Macedonian, Macedonian and romanization of Ukrainian, Ukrainian.


Cyrillization

Representing other writing systems with Cyrillic letters is called Cyrillization.


Summary table


Computer encoding


Unicode

As of Unicode version 15.0, Cyrillic letters, including national and historical alphabets, are encoded across several Unicode block, blocks: *Cyrillic (Unicode block), Cyrillic
U+0400–U+04FF
*Cyrillic Supplement
U+0500–U+052F
*Cyrillic Extended-A
U+2DE0–U+2DFF
*Cyrillic Extended-B
U+A640–U+A69F
*Cyrillic Extended-C
U+1C80–U+1C8F
*Cyrillic Extended-D
U+1E030–U+1E08F
*Phonetic Extensions
U+1D2B, U+1D78
*Combining Half Marks
U+FE2E–U+FE2F
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 Й, Ў, Ё, Ї, Ѓ, Ќ (as well as many letters of non-Slavic alphabets); *two most frequent combinations orthographically required to distinguish homonyms in Bulgarian and Macedonian: Ѐ, Ѝ; *a few Old and New Church Slavonic combinations: Ѷ, Ѿ, Ѽ. To indicate stressed or long vowels, combining diacritical marks can be used after the respective letter (for example, : е́ у́ э́ etc.). Some languages, including Church Slavonic language, Church Slavonic, are still not fully supported. 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 language, Abkhaz, Aleut language, Aleut, Chuvash language, Chuvash, Kurdish language, Kurdish, and Moksha language, Moksha.


Other

Punctuation for Cyrillic text is similar to that used in European Latin-alphabet languages. Other character encoding systems for Cyrillic: *CP8668-bit Cyrillic character encoding established by Microsoft for use in MS-DOS also known as GOST-alternative. Cyrillic characters go in their native order, with a "window" for pseudographic characters. *ISO/IEC 8859-58-bit Cyrillic character encoding established by International Organization for Standardization *KOI8-R8-bit native Russian character encoding. Invented in the USSR for use on Soviet clones of American IBM and DEC computers. The Cyrillic characters go in the order of their Latin counterparts, which allowed the text to remain readable after transmission via a 7-bit line that removed the most significant bit from each bytethe result became a very rough, but readable, Latin transliteration of Cyrillic. Standard encoding of early 1990s for Unix systems and the first Russian Internet encoding. *KOI8-UKOI8-R with addition of Ukrainian letters. *MIK Code page, MIK8-bit native Bulgarian character encoding for use in Microsoft DOS. *Windows-12518-bit Cyrillic character encoding established by Microsoft for use in Microsoft Windows. The simplest 8-bit Cyrillic encoding32 capital chars in native order at 0xc0–0xdf, 32 usual chars at 0xe0–0xff, with rarely used "YO" characters somewhere else. No pseudographics. Former standard encoding in some Linux distributions for Belarusian and Bulgarian, but currently displaced by UTF-8. *GOST-main. *GB 2312Principally simplified Chinese encodings, but there are also the basic 33 Russian Cyrillic letters (in upper- and lower-case). *JIS encoding, JIS and Shift JISPrincipally Japanese encodings, but there are also the basic 33 Russian Cyrillic letters (in upper- and lower-case).


Keyboard layouts

Each language has its own standard keyboard layout, adopted from typewriters. With the flexibility of computer input methods, there are also transliterating or phonetic/homophonic keyboard layouts made for typists who are more familiar with other layouts, like the common English QWERTY keyboard. When practical Cyrillic keyboard layouts or fonts are unavailable, computer users sometimes use transliteration or look-alike volapuk encoding, "volapuk" encoding to type in languages that are normally written with the Cyrillic alphabet.


See also

* Cyrillic Alphabet Day * Cyrillic digraphs * Cyrillic script in Unicode * Faux Cyrillic, real or fake Cyrillic letters used to give Latin-alphabet text a Soviet or Russian feel * List of Cyrillic digraphs and trigraphs * Russian Braille * Russian cursive * Russian manual alphabet * Vladislav the Grammarian * Yugoslav Braille * Yugoslav manual alphabet


Internet top-level domains in Cyrillic

* List of Internet top-level domains#Cyrillic script, gTLDs * .мон * .бг * .қаз * .рф * .срб * .укр * .мкд * .бел


Notes


References

*Robert Bringhurst, Bringhurst, Robert (2002). ''The Elements of Typographic Style'' (version 2.5), pp. 262–264. Vancouver, Hartley & Marks. . * *Ivan G. Iliev. Short History of the Cyrillic Alphabet. Plovdiv. 2012
Short History of the Cyrillic Alphabet
* *Nezirović, M. (1992). ''Jevrejsko-španjolska književnost''. Sarajevo: Svjetlost. [cited in Šmid, 2002] *Prostov, Eugene Victor. 1931. "Origins of Russian Printing". ''Library Quarterly'' 1 (January): 255–77. *Šmid, Katja (2002). " ", in ''Verba Hispanica'', vol X. Liubliana: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Liubliana. . *'The Lives of St. Tsurho and St. Strahota', Bohemia, 1495, Vatican Library *Philipp Ammon
''Tractatus slavonicus''.
in: ''Sjani (Thoughts) Georgian Scientific Journal of Literary Theory and Comparative Literature'', N 17, 2016, pp. 248–256


External links



overview and history of Cyrillic charsets.
Transliteration of Non-Roman Scripts
a collection of writing systems and transliteration tables
Cyrillic Alphabets of Slavic Languages
review of Cyrillic charsets in Slavic Languages.
Cyrillic and its Long Journey East – NamepediA Blog
article about the Cyrillic script *
Unicode collation charts
��including Cyrillic letters, sorted by shape {{DEFAULTSORT:Cyrillic alphabet Cyrillic script, Bulgarian inventions Eastern Europe North Asia Central Asia