Early Cyrillic alphabet

The Early Cyrillic alphabet, also called classical Cyrillic or paleo-Cyrillic, is an alphabetic writing system that was developed in Medieval Bulgaria in the Preslav Literary School during the late 9th century. It is used to write the Church Slavonic language, and was historically used for its ancestor, Old Church Slavonic. It was also used for other languages, but between the 18th and 20th centuries was mostly replaced by the modern Cyrillic script, which is used for some Slavic languages (such as Russian), and for East European and Asian languages that have experienced a great amount of Russian cultural influence.

History

The earliest form of manuscript Cyrillic, known as Ustav, was based on Greek uncial script, augmented by ligatures and by letters from the Glagolitic alphabet for phonemes not found in Greek.

The Glagolitic script was created by the Byzantine monk Saint Cyril, possibly with the aid of his brother Saint Methodius, around 863. Most scholars agree that Cyrillic, on the other hand, was created by Cyril's students at the Preslav Literary School in the 890s as a more suitable script for church books, based on uncial Greek but retaining some Glagolitic letters for sounds not present in Greek. At the time, the Preslav Literary School was the most important early literary and cultural center of the First Bulgarian Empire and of all Slavs:

The earliest Cyrillic texts are found in northeastern Bulgaria, in the vicinity of Preslav—the Krepcha inscription, dating back to 921, and a ceramic vase from Preslav, dating back to 931. Moreover, unlike the other literary centre in the First Bulgarian Empire, the Ohrid Literary School, which continued to use the Glagolitic script well into the 12th century, the School at Preslav was using Cyrillic in the early 900s. The systematization of Cyrillic may have been undertaken at the Council of Preslav in 893, when the Old Church Slavonic or Glagolitic Cyrillic liturgy was adopted by the First Bulgarian Empire.

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.

American scholar Horace Lunt has alternatively suggested that Cyrillics emerged in the border regions of Greek proselytization to the Slavs before it was codified and adapted by some systematizer among the Slavs. The oldest Cyrillic manuscripts look very similar to 9th and 10th century Greek uncial manuscripts, and the majority of uncial Cyrillic letters were identical to their Greek uncial counterparts.

The early Cyrillic alphabet was very well suited for the writing of Old Church Slavic, generally following a principle of "one letter for one significant sound", with some arbitrary or phonotactically-based exceptions. Particularly, this principle is violated by certain vowel letters, which represent plus the vowel if they are not preceded by a consonant. It is also violated by a significant failure to distinguish between /ji/ and /jĭ/ orthographically. There was no distinction of capital and lowercase letters, though manuscript letters were rendered larger for emphasis, or in various decorative initial and nameplate forms. Letters served as numerals as well as phonetic signs; the values of the numerals were directly borrowed from their Greek-letter analogues. Letters without Greek equivalents mostly had no numeral values, whereas one letter, koppa, had only a numeric value with no phonetic value.

Since its creation, the Cyrillic script has adapted to changes in spoken language and developed regional variations to suit the features of national languages. It has been the subject of academic reforms and political decrees. Variations of the Cyrillic script are used to write languages throughout Eastern Europe and Asia.

The form of the Russian alphabet underwent a change when Tsar Peter the Great introduced the civil script (Template:Langx, or , ), in contrast to the prevailing church typeface, (Template:Langx) in 1708. (The two forms are sometimes distinguished as paleo-Cyrillic and neo-Cyrillic.) Some letters and breathing marks which were used only for historical reasons were dropped. Medieval letterforms used in typesetting were harmonized with Latin typesetting practices, exchanging medieval forms for Baroque ones, and skipping the western European Renaissance developments. The reform subsequently influenced Cyrillic orthographies for most other languages. Today, the early orthography and typesetting standards remain in use only in Slavonic. A comprehensive repertoire of early Cyrillic characters has been included in the Unicode standard since version 5.1, published April 4, 2008. These characters and their distinctive letterforms are represented in specialized computer fonts for Slavistics.

Alphabet

Image	Unicode	Name (Cyrillic)	Name (translit.)	Name (IPA)	Trans.	IPA	Numeric value	Origin	Meaning of name	Notes
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Azu.svg	А а	Template:Script	azŭ		a		1	Greek alpha Α	I
File:Early Cyrillic letter Buky.svg	Б б	Template:Script	buky		b			Greek beta in Thera form Template:GrGl	letters
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Vedi.svg	В в	Template:Script	vědě		v		2	Greek beta Β	know
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Glagol.svg	Г г	Template:Script	glagoli		g		3	Greek gamma Γ	speak	When marked with a palatalization mark, this letter is pronounced ; this only occurs rarely, and only in borrowings.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Dobro.svg	Д д	Template:Script	dobro		d		4	Greek delta Δ	good
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Est.svg	Є є	Template:Script	estŭ		e		5	Greek epsilon Ε	is	Pronounced when not preceded by a consonant.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Zhivete.svg	Ж ж	Template:Script	živěte		ž, zh			Glagolitic zhivete Ⰶ	live
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Zelo.svg	Ѕ ѕ / Ꙃ ꙃ	Template:Script	dzělo		dz, ʒ, ẑ		6	Greek stigma Ϛ	very	The form ꙃ had the phonetic value and no numeral value, whereas the form ѕ was used only as a numeral and had no phonetic value. In many manuscripts з is used instead, suggesting lenition had taken place.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Zemlia.svg	З з / Ꙁ ꙁ	Template:Script	zemlja		z		7	Greek zeta Ζ	earth	The first form developed into the second.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Izhe.svg	И и	Template:Script	iže		i		8	Greek eta Η	which	Pronounced or when not preceded by a consonant and not the particle ‹i› ("and"); the orthography does not distinguish between and . Speculatively, this letter might have originally been intended to represent and .
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Izhei.svg	І і / Ї ї	Template:Script	i		i, ı, ì		10	Greek iota Ι	and	Pronounced or when not preceded by a consonant and not the particle ‹i› ("and"); the orthography does not distinguish between and . Speculatively, this letter might have originally been intended to represent .
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Kako.svg	К к	Template:Script	kako		k		20	Greek kappa Κ	as	When marked with a palatalization mark, this letter is pronounced ; this only occurs rarely, and only in borrowings.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Ludi.svg	Л л	Template:Script	ljudije		l	; sometimes	30	Greek lambda Λ	people	When marked with a palatalization mark or followed by a palatalizing vowel (ю, ѭ, or ꙗ, and sometimes ѣ), this letter is pronounced ; some manuscripts do not mark palatalization, in which case it must be inferred from context.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Myslete.svg	М м	Template:Script	myslite		m		40	Greek mu Μ	think
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Nash.svg	Н н	Template:Script	našĭ		n	; sometimes	50	Greek nu Ν	ours	When marked with a palatalization mark or followed by a palatalizing vowel (ю, ѭ, or ꙗ, and sometimes ѣ), this letter is pronounced ; some manuscripts do not mark palatalization, in which case it must be inferred from context.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Onu.svg	О о	Template:Script	onŭ		o		70	Greek omicron Ο	he/it
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Pokoi.svg	П п	Template:Script	pokoi		p		80	Greek pi Π	peace/calm
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Rtsi.svg	Р р	Template:Script	rĭci		r	; sometimes	100	Greek rho Ρ	say	When marked with a palatalization mark or followed by a palatalizing vowel (ю or ѭ), this letter is pronounced ; some manuscripts do not mark palatalization, in which case it must be inferred from context. This palatalization was lost rather early in South Slavic speech.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Slovo.svg	С с	Template:Script	slovo		s		200	Greek lunate sigma Ϲ	word/speech
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Tverdo.svg	Т т	Template:Script	tvrĭdo		t		300	Greek tau Τ	hard/surely
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Uk.svg	Оу оу / Ꙋ ꙋ	Template:Script	ukŭ		u		400	Greek omicron-upsilon ΟΥ / Ꙋ	learning	The first form developed into the second, a vertical ligature. A less common alternative form was a digraph with izhitsa: Оѵ оѵ.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Fert.svg	Ф ф	Template:Script	frĭtŭ		f	or possibly	500	Greek phi Φ		This letter was not needed for Slavic but used to transcribe Greek Φ and Latin ph and f. It was probably, but not certainly, pronounced as rather than ; however, in some cases it has been found as a transcription of Greek π.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Kher.svg	Х х	Template:Script	xěrŭ		kh, x, h		600	Greek chi Χ		When marked with a palatalization mark, this letter is pronounced ; this only occurs rarely, and only in borrowings.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Omega.svg	Ѡ ѡ	Template:Script	otŭ		ō, w, o, ô		800	Greek omega ω	from	This letter was rarely used, mostly appearing in the interjection "oh", in the preposition ‹otŭ›, in Greek transcription, and as a decorative capital.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Tsi.svg	Ц ц	Template:Script	ci		c		900	Glagolitic tsi Ⱌ
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Cherv.svg	Ч ч	Template:Script	črĭvĭ		č, ch		90	Glagolitic cherv Ⱍ	worm	This letter replaced koppa as the numeral for 90 after about 1300.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Sha.svg	Ш ш	Template:Script	ša		š, sh			Glagolitic sha Ⱎ
File:Early Cyrillic letter Shta.svg	Щ щ	Template:Script	šta		št, sht			Glagolitic shta Ⱋ		This letter varied in pronunciation from region to region; it may have originally represented the reflexes of . It was sometimes replaced by the digraph шт. Pronounced in Old East Slavic. Later analyzed as a Ш-Т ligature by folk etymology, but neither the Cyrillic nor the Glagolitic glyph originated as such a ligature.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Back-Yer.svg	Ъ ъ	Template:Script	jerŭ		ŭ, ъ	or		Glagolitic yer Ⱏ		After č, š, ž, c, dz, št, and žd, this letter was pronounced identically to ь instead of its normal pronunciation.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Yery.svg	Ꙑ ꙑ / Ъи ъи	Template:Script	jery		y	or or		Ъ + І or Ъ + И ligature.		Ꙑ was the more common form; rarely, a third form, ы, appears.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Yer.svg	Ь ь	Template:Script	jerĭ		ĭ, ь	or		Glagolitic yerj Ⱐ
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Yat.svg	Ѣ ѣ	Template:Script	ětĭ		ě			Glagolitic yat Ⱑ		In western South Slavic dialects of Old Church Slavonic, this letter had a more closed pronunciation, perhaps or . This letter was only written after a consonant; in all other positions, ꙗ was used instead.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Iotated-A.svg	Ꙗ ꙗ	Template:Script	ja		ja			І-А ligature		This letter was probably not present in the original Cyrillic alphabet.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Iotated-E.svg	Ѥ ѥ	Template:Script	je		je			І-Є ligature		This letter was probably not present in the original Cyrillic alphabet.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Yu.svg	Ю ю	Template:Script	ju		ju			І-ОУ ligature, dropping У		There was no sound in early Slavic, so І-ОУ did not need to be distinguished from І-О. After č, š, ž, c, dz, št, and žd, this letter was pronounced , without iotation.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Big-Yus.svg	Ѫ ѫ	Template:Script	ǫsŭ		ǫ, õ			Glagolitic ons Ⱘ		Called юсъ большой (big yus) in Russian.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Iotated-Big-Yus.svg	Ѭ ѭ	Template:Script	jǫsŭ		jǫ, jõ			І-Ѫ ligature		After č, š, ž, c, dz, št, and žd, this letter was pronounced , without iotation. Called юсъ большой йотированный (iotated big yus) in Russian.
File:Early Cyrillic letter Yusu Maliy.svg	Ѧ ѧ	Template:Script	ęsŭ		ę, ẽ		900	Glagolitic ens Ⱔ		Pronounced when not preceded by a consonant. Called юсъ малый (little yus) in Russian.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Iotated-Lesser-Yus.svg	Ѩ ѩ	Template:Script	jęsŭ		ję, jẽ			І-Ѧ ligature		This letter does not exist in the oldest (South Slavic) Cyrillic manuscripts, but only in East Slavic ones. It was probably not present in the original Cyrillic alphabet. Called юсъ малый йотированный (iotated little yus) in Russian.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Ksi.svg	Ѯ ѯ	Template:Script	ksi		ks		60	Greek xi Ξ		These two letters were not needed for Slavic but were used to transcribe Greek and as numerals.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Psi.svg	Ѱ ѱ	Template:Script	psi		ps		700	Greek psi Ψ
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Fita.svg	Ѳ ѳ	Template:Script	fita		θ, th, T, F	, or possibly	9	Greek theta Θ		This letter was not needed for Slavic but was used to transcribe Greek and as a numeral. It seems to have been generally pronounced , as the oldest texts sometimes replace instances of it with т. Normal Old Church Slavonic pronunciation probably did not have a phone .
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Izhitsa.svg	Ѵ ѵ	Template:Script	ižica		ü, v, ỳ	, ,	400	Greek upsilon Υ	small yoke	This letter was used to transcribe Greek upsilon and as a numeral. It also formed part of the digraph оѵ.
File:Early-Cyrillic-letter-Koppa.svg	Ҁ ҁ	Template:Script	kopa		q	no sound value	90	Greek koppa Ϙ		This letter had no phonetic value, and was only used as a numeral. After about 1300, it was replaced as a numeral by črĭvĭ.

File:Cyrillic letter Djerv.svg

Djerv (Template:Script: Ꙉ ꙉ), predecessor to Ћ ћ and Ђ ђ in early Serbian monuments

In addition to the basic letters, there were a number of scribal variations, combining ligatures, and regionalisms used (for example, the additional letter ꙉ, which was used officially by the Serbians), all of which varied over time.

Versions of this initial alphabet where the letters ҁ and ѿ are omitted are also valid, since ҁ did not have a phonetic value nor an official placement in the alphabet with some putting it between п and р to correspond with the placement of the Greek letter ϙ and other putting it right at the end, and ѿ came later as ligature of ѡ and т.

Sometimes the Greek letters that were used in Cyrillic mainly for their numeric value are transcribed with the corresponding Greek letters for accuracy: ѳ = θ, ѯ = ξ, ѵ = υ, ҁ = ϙ, ѱ = ψ, and ѡ = ω.

Numerals, diacritics and punctuation

Each letter had a numeric value also, inherited from the corresponding Greek letter. A titlo over a sequence of letters indicated their use as a number; usually this was accompanied by a dot on either side of the letter. In numerals, the ones place was to the left of the tens place, the reverse of the order used in modern Arabic numerals. Thousands are formed using a special symbol, Template:Script (U+0482), which was attached to the lower left corner of the numeral. Many fonts display this symbol incorrectly as being in line with the letters instead of subscripted below and to the left of them.

Titlos were also used to form abbreviations, especially of nomina sacra; this was done by writing the first and last letter of the abbreviated word along with the word's grammatical endings, then placing a titlo above it. Later manuscripts made increasing use of a different style of abbreviation, in which some of the left-out letters were superscripted above the abbreviation and covered with a pokrytie diacritic.

Several diacritics, adopted from Polytonic Greek orthography, were also used, but were seemingly redundant (these may not appear correctly in all web browsers; they are supposed to be directly above the letter, not off to its upper right):

Template:Script  trema, diaeresis (U+0308)

Template:Script  varia (grave accent), indicating stress on the last syllable (U+0300)

Template:Script  oksia (acute accent), indicating a stressed syllable (Unicode U+0301)

Template:Script  titlo, indicating abbreviations, or letters used as numerals (U+0483)

Template:Script  kamora (circumflex accent), indicating palatalization (U+0484); in later Church Slavonic, it disambiguates plurals from homophonous singulars.

Template:Script  dasia or dasy pneuma, rough breathing mark (U+0485)

Template:Script  psili, zvatel'tse, or psilon pneuma, soft breathing mark (U+0486). Signals a word-initial vowel, at least in later Church Slavonic.

Template:Script  Combined zvatel'tse and varia is called apostrof.

Template:Script  Combined zvatel'tse and oksia is called iso.

Template:Script  Template:Ill or payerok (U+A67D, U+033E), indicating an omitted 'jerŭ' (ъ) after a letter.

Punctuation systems in early Cyrillic manuscripts were primitive: there was no space between words and no upper and lower case, and punctuation marks were used inconsistently in all manuscripts.

Template:Script  ano teleia (U+0387), a middle dot used to separate phrases, words, or parts of words

Template:Script  Full stop, used in the same way

Template:Script  Armenian full stop (U+0589), resembling a colon, used in the same way

Template:Script  Georgian paragraph separator (U+10FB), used to mark off larger divisions

Template:Script  triangular colon (U+2056, added in Unicode 4.1), used to mark off larger divisions

Template:Script  diamond colon (U+2058, added in Unicode 4.1), used to mark off larger divisions

Template:Script  quintuple colon (U+2059, added in Unicode 4.1), used to mark off larger divisions

Template:Script  Greek question mark (U+037E), similar to a semicolon

Some of these marks are also used in Glagolitic script.

Used only in modern texts

Template:Script  comma (U+002C)

Template:Script  full stop (U+002E)

Template:Script  exclamation mark (U+0021)

Gallery

Old Bulgarian examples

• Pictures of Old Bulgarian manuscripts and inscriptions
• Codex Suprasliensis
  Codex Suprasliensis
• Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander
  Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander
• Bulgar translation of Manasses chronicle
  Bulgar translation of Manasses chronicle
• Mostich tomb stone
  Mostich tomb stone

Medieval Greek Uncial manuscripts from which early Cyrillic letter forms take their shapes

• Pictures of uncial lectionaries
• ℓ 1
  ℓ 1
• ℓ 5
  ℓ 5
• ℓ 150
  ℓ 150
• ℓ 152
  ℓ 152
• ℓ 179 Old Testament, Genesis
  ℓ 179 Old Testament, Genesis
• ℓ 183 folio 2
  ℓ 183 folio 2
• ℓ 269
  ℓ 269
• ℓ 296 folio 6 verso
  ℓ 296 folio 6 verso

Early Cyrillic manuscripts

• Pictures of Old Church Slavonic weekly gospels (aprakos)
• Ostromir Gospels
  Ostromir Gospels
• Sava's book
  Sava's book
• Khitrovo Gospels
  Khitrovo Gospels
• Miroslav Gospel
  Miroslav Gospel
• Arkhangelsk Gospel
  Arkhangelsk Gospel
• File:Pogod 18 list 19 ob mt18-15 18-20 mt4-23 4-24.jpg
• Andronikov Gospels
  Andronikov Gospels

See also

• Relationship of Cyrillic and Glagolitic scripts
• Reforms of Russian orthography
• Nationalism in the Middle Ages#Eastern Orthodox Church, Byzantium, Slavs and Greeks

Sources

• Berdnikov, Alexander and Olga Lapko, , EuroTEX '99 Proceedings, September 1999
• Birnbaum, David J., , September 28, 2002
• Cubberley, Paul (1996) "The Slavic Alphabets". In Daniels and Bright, below.
• Daniels, Peter T., and William Bright, eds. (1996). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press. Template:ISBN.
• Everson, Michael and Ralph Cleminson, , September 4, 2003
• Franklin, Simon. 2002. Writing, Society and Culture in Early Rus, c. 950–1300. Cambridge University Press. Template:ISBN.
• Iliev, I. Short History of the Cyrillic Alphabet. Plovdiv. 2012/Иван Г. Илиев. Кратка история на кирилската азбука. Пловдив. 2012. Short History of the Cyrillic Alphabet
• Lev, V., "The history of the Ukrainian script (paleography)", in Ukraine: a concise encyclopædia, volume 1. University of Toronto Press, 1963, 1970, 1982. Template:ISBN
• Simovyc, V., and J. B. Rudnyckyj, "The history of Ukrainian orthography", in Ukraine: a concise encyclopædia, volume 1 (op cit).
• Zamora, J., Help me learn Church Slavonic
• Azbuka, Church Slavonic calligraphy and typography.
• Obshtezhitie.net, Cyrillic and Glagolitic manuscripts and early printed books.

External links

• Old Cyrillic [Стара Славянска Език] text entry application
• Slavonic Computing Initiative
• churchslavonic – Typesetting documents in Church Slavonic language using Unicode
• fonts-churchslavonic – Fonts for typesetting in Church Slavonic language
• Church Slavonic Typography in Unicode (Unicode Technical Note no. 41), 2015-11-04, accessed 2023-01-04.