Who uses the Cyrillic alphabet. History of the origin and development of the Cyrillic alphabet. Cyrillic - Slavic script

There is still a lot of obscurity in the history of the origin of the Cyrillic alphabet. This is due, first of all, to the fact that very few monuments of ancient Slavic writing have come down to us. Based on the available historical material, scientists build numerous theories, sometimes contradicting each other.

Traditionally, the appearance of writing among the Slavs is associated with the adoption of Christianity in the 10th century. But the book "The Legend of Slavic Writings", which at the end of the 9th century. wrote the Bulgarian writer Chernigorizets Brave, proves that even in the pagan era the Slavs had their own letters and signs. With the adoption of Christianity, Latin and Greek letters appeared in Russian writing, which, however, could not convey many Slavic sounds (b, z, c).

The creation of a coherent system of signs that is fully consistent with Slavic phonetics, we owe to the enlighteners brothers Cyril (Konstantin) and Methodius. The compilation of such a system (alphabet) was required in order to translate Byzantine religious books into the Slavic language and spread Christianity. To create the alphabet, the brothers took the Greek alphabetic system as a basis. The alphabet, presumably developed by 863, was called the Glagolitic alphabet (from the Slavic “verb” - to speak). The most important monuments of the Glagolitic alphabet are the Kyiv Leaflets, the Sinai Psalter, and some gospels.

The origin of the second Slavic Cyrillic alphabet (on behalf of Cyril) is very vague. It is traditionally believed that the followers of Cyril and Methodius created at the beginning of the 10th century. a new alphabet based on the Greek alphabet with the addition of letters from the Glagolitic alphabet. The alphabet consisted of 43 letters, from the bottom 24 were borrowed from the Byzantine charter letter, and 19 were reinvented. The oldest monument of the Cyrillic alphabet is considered to be an inscription on the ruins of a temple in Preslav (Bulgaria), dating back to 893. The inscription of the letters of the new alphabet was simpler, therefore, over time, the Cyrillic alphabet became the main alphabet, and the Glagolitic fell out of use.

From the 10th to the 14th centuries Cyrillic had a form of writing called the charter. Distinctive features charter were distinctness and straightforwardness, lower elongation of letters, large size and the absence of spaces between words. The most striking monument of the charter is the book "Ostromir Gospel", written by deacon Gregory in 1056-1057. This book is a true work of the ancient Slavic art of the book, as well as a classic example of the writing of that era. Among the significant monuments, it is also worth noting the "Arkhangelsk Gospel" and "Izbornik" of the Grand Duke Svyatoslav Yaroslavovich.

From the charter, the following form of Cyrillic inscription developed - semi-charter. The semi-ustav was distinguished by more rounded, sweeping smaller letters with many lower and upper elongations. A system of punctuation marks and superscripts appeared. The semi-ustav was actively used in the XIV-XVIII centuries. along with cursive and ligature.

The appearance of cursive writing is associated with the unification of Russian lands into a single state and, as a result, a more rapid development of culture. There was a need for a simplified, comfortable writing style. Cursive writing, which took shape in the 15th century, made it possible to write more fluently. The letters, partially interconnected, became rounded and symmetrical. Straight and curved lines have acquired balance. Along with cursive writing, ligature was also common. It was characterized by an ornate combination of letters and an abundance of decorative lines. Elm was used mainly for designing titles and highlighting single words in the text.

The further development of the Cyrillic alphabet is associated with the name of Peter I. If Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century. laid the foundations of book printing in Russia, then Peter I brought the country's printing industry to European level. He carried out a reform of the alphabet and fonts, as a result of which a new civil script was approved in 1710. IN civil script reflected both changes in the spelling of letters and changes in the alphabet. Most of the letters have acquired the same proportions, which greatly simplifies reading. The Latin s and i were introduced into use. The letters of the Russian alphabet that do not have a correspondence in the Latin (ъ, ь and others) differed in height.

From the middle of the XVIII to the beginning of the XX centuries. went further development Russian alphabet and civil style. In 1758, the extra letters "zelo", "xi" and "psi" were removed from the alphabet. The old "io" was replaced by ё at the suggestion of Karamzin. The Elizabethan font was developed, which was distinguished by great compactness. It finally fixed the modern spelling of the letter b. In 1910, Berthold's type foundry developed an academic typeface that combined elements of 18th-century Russian typefaces and the Latin sorbonne typeface. A little later, the use of Russian modifications of Latin fonts took shape in a trend that dominated Russian book printing until the October Revolution.

Change social order in 1917, the Russian font did not bypass. As a result of a broad spelling reform, the letters i, ъ (yat) and Θ (fita) were removed from the alphabet. In 1938, a font laboratory was established, which will later be transformed into the Department of New Fonts at the Research Institute of Printing Engineering. Talented artists such as N. Kudryashov, G. Bannikov, E. Glushchenko worked on the creation of fonts in the department. It was here that headline fonts for the Pravda and Izvestia newspapers were developed.

At present, no one disputes the significance of the font. A lot of work has been written about the role of type in the perception of information, that each type has an emotional component and how this can be applied in practice. Artists actively use the centuries-old experience of typography to create more and more new fonts, and designers skillfully manage the abundance of graphic forms in order to make the text more readable.

When we try to imagine the beginning of Russian literature, our thought necessarily turns to the history of writing. The importance of writing in the history of the development of civilization is difficult to overestimate. Language, like a mirror, reflects the whole world, our whole life. And when reading written or printed texts, we seem to sit in a time machine and can be transported both to recent times and to the distant past. The possibilities of writing are not limited by time or distance. But people have not always mastered the art of writing. This art has been developing for a long time, over many millennia. First, picture writing (pictography) appeared: some event was depicted in the form of a drawing, then they began to depict not an event, but individual objects, first observing the similarity with the depicted, and then in the form of conventional signs (ideography, hieroglyphs), and, finally, they learned not to depict objects, but to convey their names with signs (sound writing). Initially, only consonants were used in the sound letter, and vowels were either not perceived at all, or were indicated by additional signs (syllabary). The syllabary was in use among many Semitic peoples, including the Phoenicians. The Greeks created their alphabet on the basis of the Phoenician script, but significantly improved it by introducing special signs for vowel sounds. The Greek alphabet formed the basis of the Latin alphabet, and in the 9th century the Slavonic alphabet was created by using the letters of the Greek alphabet. The great work of creating the Slavic alphabet was accomplished by the brothers Konstantin (who took the name Cyril at baptism) and Methodius. The main merit in this matter belongs to Cyril. Methodius was his faithful assistant. Composing the Slavic alphabet, Cyril was able to catch in the sound of the Slavic language familiar to him from childhood (and it was probably one of the dialects of the ancient Bulgarian language) the main sounds of this language and find for each of them letter designations. When reading in Old Slavonic, we pronounce the words the way they are written. In the Old Church Slavonic language, we will not find such a discrepancy between the sound of words and their pronunciation, as, for example, in English or French. The Slavic bookish language (Old Church Slavonic) became widespread as a common language for many Slavic peoples. It was used by the southern Slavs (Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats), Western Slavs (Czechs, Slovaks), Eastern Slavs (Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians). In memory of the great feat of Cyril and Methodius, on May 24, the Day of Slavic Literature is celebrated all over the world. It is especially solemnly celebrated in Bulgaria. There are festive processions with the Slavic alphabet and icons of the holy brothers. Starting from 1987, the holiday of Slavic writing and culture began to be held in our country on this day. The Russian people pays tribute to the memory and gratitude of “the teachers of the Slavic countries...”

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:

On May 24, Russia and a number of other countries celebrated the Day of Slavic Literature and Culture. Remembering the brothers-enlighteners Cyril and Methodius, quite often they stated 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 writing to the Slavic land 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 to translate into this dialect not even the Gospel, but a physics or history textbook - 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 suggests 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 are included in 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 is of 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? Those scientists who speak of its primacy believe that it was invented by St. Cyril, a 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, the enlightenment of the Slavic peoples continued the brother of Cyril Methodius, who became the bishop of Moravia.

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. Indeed, it is in the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets that each letter represents a separate word filled with a deep philosophical meaning 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, to write the Old Church Slavonic language. 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

- (Chuvash. chӑvash alphabet) common name alphabets, the letters of which were used to convey the elements of sound speech in the writing of the ancient Chuvash and modern Chuvash languages. In Chuvash writing, only alphabetic characters were used ... ... Wikipedia

Where as academic nonsense from the Internet. -AND ABOUT.

The eternal dispute about what appeared first - a chicken or an egg, among linguists acquires the features of a discussion on the topic of the priority of Cyrillic or Glagolitic. It is still not entirely clear which of these alphabets appeared earlier and why, in the end, the Slavs still preferred the Cyrillic alphabet. Perhaps this choice was determined by political factors.

Since the 19th century, the idea has been firmly rooted among linguists that the creators of the Slavic alphabet first invented the Glagolitic alphabet. She deserved the birthright in comparison with the Cyrillic alphabet, if only because the oldest of the Slavic manuscripts were filled with her original alphabetic system. However, not everything turns out to be so simple. The question becomes even more confusing - politics is mixed in with philology.

A dark question is the existence of "pre-Cyrillic" writing among the ancient Slavs. Most likely, they had pictography, pictorial writing, just as every nationality at the level of the primitive communal system had it. At a later time, they may have used runic writing.

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The basis of the Old Slavonic alphabet was Greek letters, to which Cyril added nineteen "new" letters. As the Slavic writer of the early 10th century, Chernorizets Khrabr, wrote in the “Tale of Writing”: “Before, the Slavs did not have books, but they read and guessed with the help of features and cuts, being pagans. When they were baptized, it was difficult for them to write without adaptation in the Slavic language in Roman and Greek letters ... and so it was for many years ... Then the philanthropic God sent them St. Constantine the philosopher, called Cyril, a righteous and faithful man, and he created thirty letters for them, others in accordance with the (needs) of the Slavic language " .

See also: Pre-Columbian America defies translation

In 1848, the Russian philologist I. I. Sreznevsky expressed the following idea: "The peculiarity of many Glagolitic letters has long led to the conclusion that the Glagolitic alphabet is the ancient alphabet of the pagan Slavs and, therefore, is older than the Cyrillic alphabet." Over the years, a lot of evidence has been collected to support such a hypothesis.

Glagolitic

"Following this conviction, they believe that the Cyrillic alphabetic tradition was established later, after the death of Cyril, and not even among the first students, but after them - among the writers and scribes who worked in the Bulgarian kingdom in the 10th century," writes Yuri Loshchits in his the book "Cyril and Methodius". - Through them, the Cyrillic alphabet passed to Russia. It would seem that if the authoritative majority gives primacy to the Glagolitic alphabet, then why not calm down and return to the obsolete issue more? However, old disputes now and then resume. these impulses to argue more often come from the lawyers of the Glagolitic alphabet.

This part of philologists operates with a rather coherent system of evidence that the Cyrillic alphabet has replaced the Glagolitic alphabet, and in rather rough forms. The Slovenian scholar Franz Grevs argues that the forcible elimination of the Glagolitic occurred at the turn of 893 - 894, when Prince Simeon, who received a Greek education, stood at the head of the Bulgarian state and therefore advocated the approval of an alphabet within the country that coincides with the Greek letter. The scribes had to hurriedly clean up the Glagolitic letters and write Cyrillic statutory letters on parchment scrolls. According to the doctor of theology F. Grevs, the Chernorizets Brave, already mentioned by us, spoke in defense of the Glagolitic alphabet. Surprise, however, is the fact that the Brave himself did not hint at a word about the presence of a conflict between the ABCs.

The existence of the Glagolitic alphabet is evidenced not only by rewritten books and manuscripts - palimpsests. Many uncorrected books have survived, in particular, the Assemanian Gospel of the 10th-11th centuries, the Zograf Gospel of the 10th-11th centuries, the Clotian collection of the 11th century, the Sinai Psalter and the Sinai breviary of the 11th century, etc. Despite the lack of exact dating, all these literary monuments were created after death of the founders of Slavic writing. “That is, at a time when, according to the opinion of the supporters of the “verbal primacy,” the tradition of this letter was intensively supplanted by adherents of the pro-Greek alphabet, which allegedly prevailed against the intentions of the “verb” Cyril,” notes Yuri Loshchits.

Most philologists adhere to this point of view: the Cyrillic alphabet was preferred solely for political reasons, since in writing letters it obediently followed Greek patterns and, as a result, did not go beyond the written tradition of the Byzantine Empire. The people who gave her preference named this Slavic alphabet in memory of Cyril the Philosopher. The oldest monuments of Glagolitic writing testify to the peaceful coexistence of two alphabetic traditions at the time of the creation of a single literary language of the Slavic peoples.

See also: The language of the Queen of Sheba is deciphered

The well-known Russian Slavist Nikolai Durnovo, with all his reverence for the Glagolitic alphabet, drew attention to the fact that "the older official Slavic inscriptions are Cyrillic": "Therefore, a priori, one can think that both alphabets, or rather, both varieties of the same Slavic alphabet, and Cyrillic and Glagolitic , were created or conceived at the same time, for different functions".

In conclusion, let us cite one more passage from the biography of "Cyril and Methodius" by Loshchitsa: "The question of the primacy of the Cyrillic or Glagolitic alphabet, as well as the question of the primacy of the Cyrillic or Latin alphabet in the lands of the Western Slavs, is not only philological, but involuntarily both confessional and political. Violent the displacement of Cyrillic writing from the West Slavic environment began as early as the age of the Thessalonica brothers, on the very eve of the division of the churches into western and eastern - Catholic and Orthodox. It continues to this day. "

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Igor Bukker

Replica

I'm surprised at this stupid discussion.

I will repeat briefly what I have already stated in more detail.
All alphabets in the world arose at first as just another imitation of the first of them, the Jewish Aleph-Bet. In them, the signs of Hebrew letters were replaced by all sorts of other signs - for the purpose of secret writing for the needs of local merchants. At the same time, the sound meanings of the letters were changed and / or some signs were added - to designate already vowels, which is not in the Hebrew script, because it is not necessary in it.

In 623, the descendants of the fugitive slaves of Rome on the swampy banks of the Marava River proclaimed the first Slovenian state, as it were, - Samo, a partisan type, which did not last long. In connection with the proclamation of his state, his "ataman" Samo, about whom almost nothing is known, announced the attributes of this state of his, in particular, the alphabet for writing in this state. One of the trade secrets, perhaps specially proposed for this purpose, was called "Glagolitic". It was used for ecclesiastical purposes in some places as early as the 18th century. More convenient and tenacious turned out to be the Cyrillic alphabet, which was strictly imposed by the church, with graphically simpler icons for exactly the same speech sounds. They are borrowed from the Greek script, from the Latin alphabet and - with distortions - directly from the Alef-Bet of the Hebrew script (for example, the last consonants of the Slovene letter are the letters C, Ch, Sh, Shch).

It seems that the propagandists of Christianity for the Slovenes of Moravia were precisely the Jews by birth (like Christ, like Vladimir the Baptist of Rus') Solon brothers Cyril and Methodius, enthusiasts of their own proposed set of icons to designate the same sounds of local Slovenian speech.
Joseph Olshanitsky.
________________
P.S. According to the bug note that was sent in, Somo's name has now been corrected by me to Samo.