Cyrillic script: Difference between revisions

{{Redirect2|Cyrillic|Cyrillic alphabet|the national variants of the Cyrillic script|Cyrillic alphabets|other uses|Cyrillic (disambiguation)}}

{{More citations needed|date=January 2023}}

| time        = [[early Cyrillic alphabet|Earliest variants]] exist {{circa|893}}<ref name="Auty">Auty, R. ''Handbook of Old Church Slavonic, Part II: Texts and Glossary.'' 1977.</ref> – {{circa|940}}

| direction  = Left-to-right

| footnotes  = Names: {{langx|be|кірыліца}}; {{langx|bg|кирилица}} {{IPA|bg|ˈkirilit͡sɐ|}}; {{langx|mk|кирилица}} {{IPA|mk|kiˈrilit͡sa|}}; {{langx|ru|кириллица}} {{IPA|ru|kʲɪˈrʲilʲɪtsə|}}; {{langx|sr|ћирилица}} {{IPA|sr|t͡ɕirǐlit͡sa|}}; {{langx|uk|кирилиця}} {{IPA|uk|kɪˈrɪlɪt͡sʲɐ|}}.

| fam2        = [[Proto-Sinaitic]]

| fam3        = [[Phoenician alphabet|Phoenician]]

| sisters    = {{plainlist|

}}

| children    = [[Old Permic script]]

| unicode    = {{ublist |class=nowrap |[https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0400.pdf U+0400–U+04FF] {{smaller|Cyrillic}} |[https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0500.pdf U+0500–U+052F] {{smaller|Cyrillic Supplement}} |[https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2DE0.pdf U+2DE0–U+2DFF] {{smaller|Cyrillic Extended-A}} |[https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UA640.pdf U+A640–U+A69F] {{smaller|Cyrillic Extended-B}} |[https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1C80.pdf U+1C80–U+1C8F] {{smaller|Cyrillic Extended-C}} |[https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1E030.pdf U+1E030–U+1E08F] {{smaller|Cyrillic Extended-D}}}}

| iso15924    = Cyrl

| sample      = Romanian Cyrillic - Lord's Prayer text.svg

}}

The '''Cyrillic script''' ({{IPAc-en|s|ᵻ|ˈ|ɹ|ɪ|l|ᵻ|k|audio=LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Cyrillic.wav}} {{respell|sih|RI|lik}})<ref>{{Cite OED|term=Cyrillic|id=1142284800|access-date=2025-04-15|access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite MW|Cyrillic|access-date=2025-04-15}}</ref> is a [[writing system]] used for various languages across [[Eurasia]]. It is the designated national script in various [[Slavic languages|Slavic]], [[Turkic languages|Turkic]], [[Mongolic languages|Mongolic]], [[Uralic languages|Uralic]], [[Caucasian languages|Caucasian]] and [[Iranian languages|Iranic]]-speaking countries in [[Southeastern Europe]], [[Eastern Europe]], the [[Caucasus]], [[Central Asia]], [[North Asia]], and [[East Asia]], and used by many other [[minority language]]s.

The [[Early Cyrillic alphabet]] was developed during the 9th century AD at the [[Preslav Literary School]] in the [[First Bulgarian Empire]] during the reign of [[Tsar]] [[Simeon I of Bulgaria|Simeon I the Great]], probably by the disciples of the two [[Byzantine]] brothers [[Saints Cyril and Methodius|Cyril and Methodius]], who had previously created the [[Glagolitic script]]. Among them were [[Clement of Ohrid]], [[Naum of Preslav]], [[Constantine of Preslav]], [[John the Exarch|Joan Ekzarh]], [[Chernorizets Hrabar]], [[Saint Angelar|Angelar]], [[Saint Sava (disciple of Saints Cyril and Methodius)|Sava]] and other scholars.<ref>''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.&nbsp;119.</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Francis |last=Dvornik |title=The Slavs: Their Early History and Civilization |url=https://archive.org/details/slavstheirearlyh00dvor |url-access=limited |quote=The Psalter and the Book of Prophets were adapted or "modernized" with special regard to their use in Bulgarian churches and it was in this school that the [[Glagolitic script]] was replaced by the so-called Cyrillic writing, which was more akin to the Greek uncial, simplified matters considerably and is still used by the Orthodox Slavs. |year=1956 |place=Boston |publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences |page=[https://archive.org/details/slavstheirearlyh00dvor/page/n184 179] }}</ref>{{sfnp|Curta|2006|pp=221–222}}<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J-H9BTVHKRMC&pg=PR98 |chapter=The Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire |title=Oxford History of the Christian Church |first1=J. M. |last1=Hussey |first2=Andrew |last2=Louth |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-19-161488-0 |pages=100 }}</ref> The script is named in honor of [[Cyril the Philosopher|Saint Cyril]].

[[Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana]] attributed [[Serbian Cyrillic alphabet|Cyrillic script]] to [[Cyril and Methodius|Saint Cyril and Methodius]],14th century

]]

[[File:Azbuka 1574 by Ivan Fyodorov v3.png|thumb|left|I A page from Буквар (ABC (Reader)), the first Old Slavonic textbook, printed by [[Ivan Fedorov (printer)|Ivan Fyodorov]] in 1574 in [[Lviv]]. This page features the Cyrillic alphabet.]]The Cyrillic script was created during the [[First Bulgarian Empire]].<ref name=Cubberley1996>Paul Cubberley (1996) "The Slavic Alphabets". In Daniels and Bright, eds. ''The World's Writing Systems.'' Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-507993-0}}.</ref> 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 and of all [[Slavs]]:

{{blockquote|Unlike the Churchmen in Ohrid, Preslav scholars were much more dependent upon Greek models and quickly abandoned the [[Glagolitic script]]s in favor of an adaptation of the Greek [[Uncial script|uncial]] to the needs of Slavic, which is now known as the Cyrillic alphabet.{{sfnp|Curta|2006|pp=221–222}}}}

|year=1983}}</ref><ref name=fortson>Benjamin W. Fortson. ''Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction'', p.&nbsp;374.</ref>

With the orthographic reform of Saint [[Patriarch Evtimiy of Bulgaria|Evtimiy of Tarnovo]] and other prominent representatives of the [[Tarnovo Literary School]] of the 14th and 15th centuries, such as [[Gregory Tsamblak]] and [[Constantine of Kostenets]], the school influenced Russian, Serbian, Wallachian and Moldavian medieval culture. This is known in Russia as the second [[South Slavs|South-Slavic]] influence.

==Letters==

{| cellpadding=4 style="font-size:larger; text-align:center;" class="Unicode" summary="Letters of the early Cyrillic alphabet"

|+ style="font-size:smaller;" | The [[early Cyrillic alphabet]]<ref>А. Н. Стеценко. ''Хрестоматия по Старославянскому Языку'', 1984.</ref><ref>Cubberley, Paul. ''The Slavic Alphabets'', 1996.</ref>

|-

|{{script|Cyrs|[[Koppa (Cyrillic)|Ҁ]]}}<ref name="Lunt">Lunt, Horace G. ''Old Church Slavonic Grammar, Seventh Edition'', 2001.</ref>|| {{script|Cyrs|[[Er (Cyrillic)|Р]]}} || {{script|Cyrs|[[Es (Cyrillic)|С]]}} || {{script|Cyrs|[[Te (Cyrillic)|Т]]}} || {{script|Cyrs|[[Uk (Cyrillic)|ОУ]]}}{{efn|Variant forms: ОѴ, Ꙋ.}}

|-

|{{script|Cyrs|[[yat|Ѣ]]}}|| {{script|Cyrs|[[Iotated A (Cyrillic)|Ꙗ]]}}|| {{script|Cyrs|[[Iotated E (Cyrillic)|Ѥ]]}}|| {{script|Cyrs|[[Yu (Cyrillic)|Ю]]}}{{efn|Variant form: Ꙕ.}}|| {{script|Cyrs|[[yus|Ѫ]]}}{{efn|Variant form: Ꙛ.}}|| {{script|Cyrs|[[yus|Ѭ]]}}|| {{script|Cyrs|[[yus|Ѧ]]}}{{efn|Variant form: Ꙙ.}}

|}

[[Computer font]]s for early Cyrillic alphabets are not routinely provided. Many of the letterforms differ from those of modern Cyrillic, varied a great deal between [[manuscript]]s, and changed over time.  In accordance with [[Unicode]] policy, the standard does not include letterform variations or [[Ligature (typography)|ligatures]] found in manuscript sources unless they can be shown to conform to the Unicode definition of a character: this aspect is the responsibility of the typeface designer.

===Currency signs===

* The Ukrainian [[hryvnia sign]] (₴) is from the [[cursive]] [[minuscule]] [[Ukrainian alphabet|Ukrainian Cyrillic letter]] [[Ge (Cyrillic)|He]] (<span style="font-family: times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">''г''</span>).

* The Russian [[ruble sign]] (₽) from the majuscule Р.

* The [[Kazakhstani tenge]] sign (₸) from Т

* The [[Mongolian tögrög]] sign (₮) from Т

The development of Cyrillic [[letter form]]s passed directly from the [[medieval]] stage to the late [[Baroque]], without a [[Renaissance]] phase as in [[Western Europe]]. Late Medieval Cyrillic letters (categorized as [[vyaz (Cyrillic calligraphy)|vyaz']] and still found on many [[icon]] inscriptions today) show a marked tendency to be very tall and narrow, with strokes often shared between adjacent letters.

=== Lowercase forms ===

Cyrillic typefaces, as well as Latin ones, have [[roman type|roman]] and [[italic type|italic]] forms (practically all popular modern computer fonts include parallel sets of Latin and Cyrillic letters, where many glyphs, uppercase as well as lowercase, are shared by both). However, the native typeface terminology in most Slavic languages (for example, in Russian) does not use the words "roman" and "italic" in this sense.{{efn|The Russian name {{lang|ru-Latn|ital'yanskiy shrift}} (Italian type) refers to a particular typeface family, whereas {{lang|ru-Latn|rimskiy shrift}} (roman type) is just a synonym for Latin type, Latin alphabet.}} Instead, the nomenclature follows German naming patterns:{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}<!-- When a citation is found, please recycle at [[Typeface#Style of typefaces]] -->

[[File:Cyrillic alternates.svg|thumb|right|200px|

{{legend|#9CC2E5|Default Russian (Eastern) forms on the left.}}

{{legend|#FFD966|Alternate Serbian/Macedonian (Southern) italic forms on the right.}}

''See also:''<br>

{{anchor|Bulgarian}}

{| border=0 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=1 style="padding:0 .5em .2em; border:1px solid #999; margin:1em 0;"

'''Slavic languages''':

'''Non-Slavic languages of Russia''':

The Cyrillic script has also been used for languages of Alaska,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Alaskan Orthodox texts |url=http://www.asna.ca/alaska/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706164728/http://www.asna.ca/alaska/ |archive-date=Jul 6, 2011 |access-date=2011-06-20 |website=All Saints of North America Orthodox Church}}</ref> [[Slavic Europe]] (except for [[Western Slavs|Western Slavic]] and [[Slovenian language|Slovenian]]), the [[Caucasus]], the languages of [[Idel-Ural]], [[Siberia]], and the [[Russian Far East]].

==Usage of Cyrillic versus other scripts==

===Latin script===

{{CSS image crop

{{legend|#0b280b|Sole official script}}

{{legend|#44aa00|Co-official with another script (either because the official language is biscriptal, or the state is bilingual)}}

{{legend|#ccffaa|Legacy script for the official language, or large minority use}}

{{legend|#D7D7D7|Cyrillic is not widely used}}

}}

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.<ref>{{Citation |last=Grey |first=Alexandra |title=Language Standardisation and Language Variation in Multilingual Contexts |chapter=8 How Standard Zhuang has Met with Market Forces |date=2021-12-14 |pages=163–182 |publisher=Multilingual Matters |language=en |doi=10.21832/9781800411562-011 |isbn=978-1-80041-156-2 |s2cid=245301540 |postscript=.|doi-access=free |hdl=10453/150285 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

===Romanization===

{{Main|Romanization of Cyrillic}}

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:

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]].

|-

! colspan=12 style="background-color:#fbec5d; font-family:inherit; font-weight:normal;" | '''[[Slavic languages|Slavic]] Cyrillic letters'''

| style="width:7%;"| [[A with grave (Cyrillic)|<big>А̀</big><br /><small>A with grave</small>]]

| style="width:7%;"| [[A with circumflex (Cyrillic)|<big>А̂</big><br /><small>A with circumflex</small>]]

|- valign=top

| colspan=12 style="background-color:#b0bf1a; font-family:inherit; font-weight:normal;"| '''Examples of non-Slavic Cyrillic letters (see [[List of Cyrillic letters]] for more)'''

| [[A with ring above (Cyrillic)|<big>А̊</big><br /><small>A with<br />ring</small>]]

| [[Schwa (Cyrillic)|<big>Ә</big><br><small>Schwa</small>]]

|- valign=top

| colspan=12 style="background-color:#87ceeb;font-family:inherit; font-weight:normal;" | '''Cyrillic letters used in the past'''

| [[Yat|<big>Ѣ</big><br><small>Yat</small>]]

| [[Iotated A|<big>Ꙗ</big><br><small>Iotated&nbsp;A</small>]]

|}

|+ Cyrillic alphabets comparison table

! colspan="81" style="text-align: center" |Early/Reference scripts

| К || &nbsp; || Л || &nbsp; || М || &nbsp; || Н || &nbsp; || &nbsp; || &nbsp; || О || &nbsp; || П || &nbsp;

| &nbsp; || Р || &nbsp; || С || &nbsp; || Т || &nbsp; || &nbsp; || &nbsp; || У || Ў || &nbsp; || Ф || Х || &nbsp; || &nbsp;

|-

! Ukrainian

| К || &nbsp; || Л || &nbsp; || М || &nbsp; || Н || &nbsp; || &nbsp; || &nbsp; || О || &nbsp; || П || &nbsp;

| &nbsp; || Р || &nbsp; || С || &nbsp; || Т || &nbsp; || &nbsp; || &nbsp; || У || &nbsp; || &nbsp; || Ф || Х || &nbsp; || &nbsp;

|-

! Rusyn

| &nbsp; || И || &nbsp; || &nbsp; || &nbsp; || &nbsp; || Й

| К || {{small|Къ}} || Л || &nbsp; || М || &nbsp; || Н || &nbsp; || &nbsp; || &nbsp; || О || &nbsp; || П || {{small|Пъ}}

| &nbsp; || &nbsp; || Ц || {{small|Цъ}} || &nbsp; || &nbsp; || Ч || {{small|Чъ}} || Ш || &nbsp; || Щ || Ъ || Ы || &nbsp; || Ь || Э || &nbsp; || Ю || Я

|-

|-

! Udmurt

|-

! colspan="81" style="text-align: center" | Turkic languages

|-

! Azerbaijani

|-

! Bashkir

| &nbsp; || &nbsp; || Ц || &nbsp; || &nbsp; || &nbsp; || Ч || &nbsp; || Ш || &nbsp; || Щ || Ъ || Ы || &nbsp; || Ь || Э || &nbsp; || Ю || Я

|}

==Computer encoding==

{{Main|Cyrillic script in Unicode}}

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, no longer used. 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:

To indicate stressed or long vowels, [[combining diacritical mark]]s can be used after the respective letter (for example, {{unichar|0301|combining acute accent|cwith=◌}}: е́ у́ э́ etc.).

===Other===

Other [[character encoding]] systems for Cyrillic:

===Keyboard layouts===

===Internet top-level domains in Cyrillic===

* [[List of Internet top-level domains#Cyrillic script|gTLDs]]

* [[.мон]]

==References==

{{Refbegin|indent=yes}}

{{refend}}

==Further reading==

* {{Cite book|last1=Isailović|first1=Neven G.|last2=Krstić|first2=Aleksandar R.|chapter=Serbian Language and Cyrillic Script as a Means of Diplomatic Literacy in South Eastern Europe in 15th and 16th Centuries|title=Literacy Experiences concerning Medieval and Early Modern Transylvania|year=2015|location=Cluj-Napoca|publisher=George Bariţiu Institute of History|pages=185–195|url=https://www.academia.edu/25272837}}

==External links==

{{Commons category}}

{{wiktionary|Appendix:Cyrillic script}}

* [http://www.unicode.org/charts/collation/ Unicode collation charts]—including Cyrillic letters, sorted by shape