Old Cyrillic alphabet

Old Cyrillic alphabet / Cyrillic (Old Church Slavonic variant)
Script example
Font	alphabet
languages	Old Church Slavonic , Church Slavonic , old versions of many Slavic languages and Romanian
inventor	According to tradition, the monks Cyril and Method
Emergence	from approx. 940
Usage time	940–1708 ?, in the Slavic Orthodox liturgy as well as among the Old Believers to this day
Used in	Bulgaria, Russia (Slavic Orthodox Churches)
Officially in	-
ancestry	Origin  →  Greek alphabet   →  Glagolitic script    →  Old Cyrillic alphabet / Cyrillic (Old Church Slavonic variant)
relative	Latin alphabet Coptic script Armenian alphabet Glagolitic script
Unicode block	U + 0400-U + 04FF U + 0500-U + 052F U + 2DE0-U + 2DFF U + A640-U + A69F
ISO 15924	Cyrs
Our Old Church Slavonic Father

The Old Cyrillic alphabet is a writing system that was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire in the 9th or 10th century to modernize Old Church Slavonic . The modern Cyrillic alphabet continues to be used mainly for Slavic languages , as well as for Asian languages ​​that were under the cultural influence of Russia during the 20th century.

history

The earliest form of a Cyrillic manuscript, also called Ustaw , was based on the Greek uncial script , enriched with ligatures and with letters from the Glagolitic alphabet for consonants that do not exist in Greek. There was no graphical difference between uppercase and lowercase letters, the same font type was simply written in larger letters if necessary.

According to tradition, the two Slavic scripts (Glagolitic and Cyrillic) were developed by two brothers, the monks Method of Salonica and Saint Cyril , who were missionary in Bulgaria around 860 AD. It is assumed that the Glagolitic script is older than the Cyrillic, as there are many monuments from that era on which text in Glagolitic script was scraped off and the paper was rewritten in Cyrillic script, but not the other way around. In Slavic research today it is assumed that St. Cyril invented or developed the Glagolitic script by developing characters based on the Christian symbols cross, circle and triangle. However, there are also indications that the Glagolitic script existed before the introduction of Christianity and was only extended by St. Cyril. The concern was probably to remove non-Greek sounds, possibly on behalf of Boris I , who in 864 declared Orthodox Christianity the official state religion. The Cyrillic script named after him, however, presumably does not go back to St. Cyril. It uses characters that are taken from the Greek script, as well as other characters, including based on the Hebrew script for Slavic sounds that do not exist in Greek.

Since its creation, the Cyrillic alphabet has repeatedly adapted to changes in the spoken language and also developed regional variations in order to graphically reflect the characteristics of the national languages. The writing was repeatedly subjected to academic reforms and also political decrees. Different variations of the Cyrillic alphabet are used to give the languages ​​of Eastern Europe and Northern Asia a graphic typeface.

The first Russian spelling reform took place in 1708 by Tsar Peter I of Russia . The newly introduced font was called Graschdanskischrift (Гражданский шрифт, "civil script"), with the intention of creating a profane writing style, in contrast to the church font Zerkownoslawjanskischrift . Some letters and also pause symbols were removed as they only had a historical meaning. Medieval letter forms, which were still used as characters at that time, were graphically designed in such a way that they had references to Latin types. Thus, the medieval shape of the individual letters was adapted to modern, baroque fonts. With this writing reform the Western European Renaissance language of the letters was skipped. The reform had far-reaching consequences and subsequently influenced the Cyrillic spelling and graphology of the letters in almost all Slavic languages. The original orthography and typesetting standards are only preserved in Church Slavonic .

An understandable repertoire of early Cyrillic characters is contained in the Unicode -5.1 standard, which was published on April 4, 2008. These characters and their distinctive letter forms are represented in specialized computer character sets for Slavic studies .

The alphabet

image	Unicode	Name ( Cyrillic )	Name ( Translit. )	Name ( IPA )	Trans.	IPA	origin	Note
	А а	азъ	azŭ	[azŭ]	a	[a]	Greek alpha Α	"I"
	Б б	боукы	buky	[buky] , [bukŭi]	b	[b]	derived from В below?	"Letters"
	В в	вѣдѣ	vědě	[vædæ]	v	[v]	Greek beta Β	"Knowledge"
	Г г	глаголи	glagoli	[ɡlaɡoli]	G	[ɡ]	Greek gamma Γ	"to do"
	Д д	добро	dobro	[dobro]	d	[d]	Greek Delta Δ	"Well"
	Є є	єсть	estĭ	[ɛstĭ]	e	[ɛ]	Greek epsilon Ε	"Am" or "is" - present tense of the verb "sein"
	Ж ж	живѣтє	živěte	[ʒivætɛ]	ž, zh	[ʒ]	Glagolitic zhivete Ⰶ	"Live"
	Ѕ ѕ / Ꙃ ꙃ	ѕѣло	dzělo	[dzælo]	dz	[dz]	Greek final- Sigma ς	"very"
	З з / Ꙁ ꙁ	земля	zemlja	[zemlja]	z	[z]	Greek zeta Ζ	The second evolved from the first form. "Earth"
	И и	ижє	iže	[iʒɛ]	i	[i]	Greek Eta Η	"whose"
	І і / Ї ї	и / ижеи	i / ižei	[i, iʒɛі]	i, i	[i]	Greek iota Ι	"and"
	Ћ ћ	гѥрв	gerv, gjerv	[d ͡ʒɛrv] , [djɛrv]	đ, dj	[d ͡ʒ] , [dj]	Glagolitic djerv Ⰼ?	Revived for Serbian alphabet . Used in Russian to transcribe Glagolitic texts.
	К к	како	kako	[kako]	k	[k]	Greek kappa Κ	"as"
	Л л	людиѥ	ljudije	[ljudijɛ]	l	[l]	Greek lambda Λ	"People"
	М м	мыслитє	myslite	[myslitɛ] / [mŭislitɛ]	m	[m]	Greek My Μ	"Think"
	Н н	нашь	našĭ	[naʃĭ]	n	[n]	Greek Ny Ν	"our"
	О о	онъ	onŭ	[onŭ]	O	[O]	Greek omicron Ο	"He" or "is"
	П п	покои	pokoi	[pokoj]	p	[p]	Greek pi Π	"Quiet"
	Р р	рьци	rĭci	[rĭtsi]	r	[r]	Greek Rho Ρ	"speak"
	С с	слово	slovo	[slovo]	s	[s]	Greek Sigma Ϲ	"Word" or "Speech"
	Т т	тврьдо	tvrdo	[tvr̥do]	t	[t]	Greek tau Τ	"hard"; "for sure"
	Ѹ ѹ / Ꙋ ꙋ	оукъ	ukŭ	[ukŭ]	u	[u]	Greek Omikron - Ypsilon ΟΥ / Ȣ	The second, a vertical ligature, develops from the first form . "Learn"
	Ф ф	фрьтъ	frtŭ	[fr̤̥tŭ]	f	[f]	Greek Phi Φ
	Х х	хѣръ	xěrŭ	[xærŭ]	x	[x]	Greek Chi Χ
	Ѡ ѡ	отъ	otŭ	[otŭ]	ō, w	[O]	Greek omega ω	"from"
	Ц ц	ци	ci	[tsi]	c	[ts]	Glagolitic tsi Ⱌ
	Ч ч	чрьвь	črvĭ	[tʃr̤̥vĭ]	č, ch	[tʃ]	Glagolitic cherv Ⱍ	"Worm"
	Ш ш	ша	ša	[ʃa]	š, sh	[ʃ]	Glagolitic sha Ⱎ
	Щ щ	шта	šta	[ʃta]	št, sht	[ʃt]	Glagolitic schta Ⱋ	Later analyzed by folk etymology as a Ш-Т ligature
	Ъ ъ	ѥръ	jerŭ	[jɛrŭ]	ŭ, u:	[ŭ]	Glagolitic yer Ⱏ
	Ꙑ ꙑ	ѥры	jery	[jɛry]	y	[y] , or possibly [ŭi]	Ъ-I or Ъ-И ligature
	Ь ь	ѥрь	jerĭ	[jɛrĭ]	ĭ, i:	[ĭ]	Glagolitic yerj Ⱐ
	Ѣ ѣ	ять	yatĭ	[jatĭ]	ě	[æ]	Glagolitic yat Ⱑ?
	Ю ю	ю	ju	[ju]	ju	[iu]	I-ОУ ligature, the У is omitted	There was no [jo] in early Slavic, so I-ОУ and I-О did not have to be distinguished.
	Ꙗ ꙗ	я	Yes	[Yes]	Yes	[ia]	I-A ligature
	Ѥ ѥ	ѥ	jeː	[jɛ]	ever	[iɛ]	І-Є ligature
	Ѧ ѧ	ѧсъ	ęsŭ	[ɛ̃sŭ]	ę, ẽ	[ɛ̃]	Glagolitic ens Ⱔ	Russian name: юсъ малый (small yus) .
	Ѩ ѩ	ѩсъ	jęsŭ	[jɛ̃sŭ]	ję, jẽ	[jɛ̃]	I-Ѧ ligature	Russian name: юсъ малый йотированный (joted little yus)
	Ѫ ѫ	ѫсъ	ǫsŭ	[ɔ̃sŭ]	ǫ, õ	[ɔ̃]	Glagolitic ons Ⱘ	Russian name: юсъ большой ( capital yus)
	Ѭ ѭ	ѭсъ	jǫsŭ	[jɔ̃sŭ]	jǫ, jõ	[jɔ̃]	I-Ѫ ligature	Russian name: юсъ большой йотированный ( joted capital Yus)
	Ѯ ѯ	кси	ksi	[ksi]	ks	[ks]	Greek xi Ξ	The last four letters are not used for the Slavic script, they are only needed for numbering and for insertions from the Greek.
	Ѱ ѱ	пси	psi	[psi]	ps	[ps]	Greek psi Ψ
	Ѳ ѳ	фита	fita	[fita]	θ, th, T, F	[t] / [θ] / [f]	Greek theta Θ
	Ѵ ѵ	ижица	ižica	[iʒitsa]	ü, v	[ɪ] , [y] , [v]	Greek Ypsilon Υ

In addition to these letter forms, there were some spelling variants, ligatures and regional variants, all of which were subject to changes over time.

Numbers, Diacritics, and Punctuation

Each letter also had a numeric value that was taken from the corresponding Greek letter . A titlo over some letters could indicate their use as a number. See also Cyrillic numerals .

Various diacritical marks , taken from the Greek polytonic orthography , were also used. They are not displayed correctly on all web browsers. They should be right above the letter, not above the letter in the upper right:

ӓ Trema , diaeresis (U + 0308)

а̀ Varia ( grave accent ), for stress on the last syllable (U + 0340)

а́ Oksia ( acute ), denotes a stressed syllable ( Unicode U + 0341)

а҃ Titlo , denotes abbreviations or numerals (U + 0483)

а҄ Kamora ( circumflex ), denotes palatalization (U + 0484); serves in the later Church Slavonic to distinguish plural forms with identical singular forms.

а҅ Dasia or Spiritus asper , puff (U + 0485)

а҆ Psili , Swatel'tse or Spiritus lenis (U + 0486), denotes the initial vowel sound, at least in the later Church Slavonic.

а҆̀ The combination of Swatel'tse and Varia is called Apostrof .

а҆́ The combination of Swatel'tse and oksia is called Iso .

Punctuation:

· Center point (characters) (U + 0387), used to separate words

, Comma (U + 002C)

. Period (punctuation) (U + 002E)

։ Armenian Period (Punctuation Mark) (U + 0589), is similar to a colon

჻ Georgian to separate paragraphs (U + 10FB)

⁖ triangular colon (U + 2056, added in Unicode 4.1)

⁘ diamond colon (U + 2058, added in Unicode 4.1)

⁙ quintuple colon (U + 2059, added in Unicode 4.1)

; Greek question mark (U + 037E), similar to a semicolon

! Exclamation mark (U + 0021)

literature

• Alexander Berdnikov, Olga Lapko :, Old Slavonic and Church Slavonic in TEX and Unicode. In: EuroTEX '99 Proceedings. September 1999 (PDF; 482 kB).
• David J. Birnbaum: Unicode for Slavic Medievalists. ( Memento of March 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) September 28, 2002 (PDF; 320 kB).
• Paul Cubberley: The Slavic Alphabets. In: Peter T. Daniels, William Bright (Eds.): The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press, New York 1996, ISBN 0-19-507993-0 .
• Michael Everson , Ralph Cleminson: Final proposal for encoding the Glagolitic script in the UCS. Expert Contribution to the ISO N2610R. September 4, 2003 (PDF; 938 kB).
• Simon Franklin: Writing, Society and Culture in Early Rus, c. 950-1300. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002, ISBN 0-521-81381-6 .
• V. Lev: The history of the Ukrainian script (paleography). In: Ukraine: a concise encyclopædia. Volume 1. University of Toronto Press, 1963, 1970, 1982, ISBN 0-8020-3105-6 .
• V. Simovyc, JB Rudnyckyj: The history of Ukrainian orthography. In: Ukraine: a concise encyclopædia. Part 1.

Web links

Commons : Old Cyrillic alphabet  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• The University of Texas at Austin: Old Church Slavonic Online.
• Azbuka , Church Slavonic calligraphy and typography.
• Obshtezhitie.net , Cyrillic and Glagolitic manuscripts and early printed books.