Early Cyrillic alphabet

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The original Cyrillic alphabet was a writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire in the tenth century to write the Old Church Slavonic liturgical language.

With Christianity having been made the official state religion in 864, Knyaz (Prince) Boris I commissioned the creation of the alphabet. Clement of Ohrid developed the alphabet and named it after his teacher, St. Cyril, a missionary who, along with his brother, Methodius, is credited for inventing the Glagolitic alphabet, an earlier Slavic alphabet and an influence on this one. The alphabet also shows influence from the Greek, Latin, and even the Hebrew alphabet.

In the following centuries, the Cyrillic alphabet adapted to changes in spoken language, developed regional variations to suit the features of national languages, and was subjected to academic reforms and political decrees. Variations of the Cyrillic alphabet are used to write languages throughout Eastern Europe and Asia.

The alphabet

Image	Unicode	Name (Cyrillic)	Name (transliterated)	Name (IPA)	Transliteration	IPA	Notes
	А а	АЗЪ	azǔ		a
	Б б	БѸКИ	buky		b
	В в	ВѢДИ	vědě		v
	Г г	ГЛАГОЛИ	glagoli		g
	Д д	ДОБРО	dobro		d
	Є є	ѤСТЬ	estǐ		e
	Ж ж	ЖИВѢТЄ	živěte		ž, zh
	Ѕ ѕ	ЅѢЛО	dzělo		dz, Z
	З з	ЗЄМЛIА	zeml’ja		z		See note 1
	И и	ИЖЄ	iže		i
	І і / Ї ї	И	i		i, I
	К к	КАКО	kako		k
	Л л	ЛЮДИѤ	ljudije		l
	М м	МЫСЛИТЄ	mūslite		m
	Н н	НАШЬ	našǐ		n
	О о	ОНЪ	onǔ		o
	П п	ПОКОИ	pokoi		p
	Р р	РЬЦИ	rǐci		r
	С с	СЛОВО	slovo		s
	Т т	ТВРЬДО	tvr̥do		t
	Ѹ ѹ	ѸКЪ	ukǔ		u		See note 2
	Ф ф	ФРЬТЪ	fr̤̥tǔ		f
	Х х	ХѢРЪ	xěrǔ		x
	Ѡ ѡ	ОТЪ	otǔ		ō, w
	Ц ц	ЦИ	ci		c
	Ч ч	ЧРЬВЬ	čr̤̥vǐ		č, ch
	Ш ш	ША	ša		š, sh
	Щ щ	ШТА	šta		št, sht, šč, shch
	Ъ ъ	ѤРЪ	jerǔ		ǔ, u:
	Ы ы	ѤРЫ	jerū		ū
	Ь ь	ѤРЬ	jerǐ		ǐ, i:
	Ѣ ѣ	ЯТЬ	jatǐ		ě, je
	Ю ю	Ю	ju		ju
	Я я	(И)Я	ja		ja
	Ѧ ѧ	ѦСЪ	ęsǔ		ę, ẽ		See note 3
	Ѩ ѩ	ѨСЪ	jęsǔ		ję, jẽ		See note 4
	Ѫ ѫ	ѪСЪ	ǫsǔ		ǫ, õ		See note 5
	Ѭ ѭ	ѬСЪ	jǫsǔ		jǫ, jõ		See note 6
	Ѯ ѯ	КСИ	ksi		ks
	Ѱ ѱ	ПСИ	psi		ps
	Ѳ ѳ	ФИТА	fita		θ, th, T, F
	Ѵ ѵ	ИЖИЦА	ižica		ü
	Ѥ ѥ	(И)Ѥ	jeː		jeː
	Ћ ћ	ДѤРВ	đerv, djerv		đ, dj		See note 7
	Ѿ ѿ	ОТЪ	otǔ		ōt, wt
							See note 8

Notes

Numerals, diacritics and punctuation

Each letter also had a numeric value, inherited from the corresponding Greek letter. A titlo over a sequence of letters indicated their use as a number. See Cyrillic numerals, Titlo.

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

• а´  oksia, indicating a stressed syllable (Unicode U+1FFD), similar to an acute accent
• а`  varia, indicating stress on the last syllable (U+1FEF), similar to a grave accent
• а҄  kamora, indicating palatalization (U+0484), similar to an inverted breve
• а҅  dasy pneuma, rough breathing mark (U+0485)
• а҆  zvatel'tse, or psilon pneuma, soft breathing mark (U+0486)
• а҃  titlo, indicating abbreviations, or letters used as numerals (U+0483)
• ӓ  trema, diaeresis (U+0308)
• а҆´  Combined zvatel'tse and oksia is called iso.
• а҆`  Combined zvatel'tse and varia is called apostrof.

• ·  ano teleia (U+0387), a middle dot used as a word separator
• ,  comma (U+002C)
• .  full stop (U+002E)
• ։  Armenian full stop (U+0589), resembling a colon
• ჻  Georgian paragraph separator (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)

See also

• Glagolitic alphabet
• Bosnian Cyrillic
• Modern Cyrillic alphabet
• Reforms of Russian orthography
• Cyrillic numerals
• Titlo
• Polytonic Greek orthography

References

• [A Berdnikov and O Lapko, "Old Slavonic and Church Slavonic in TEX and Unicode", EuroTEX ’99 Proceedings], September 1999 (PDF)
• [DJ Birnbaum, "Unicode for Slavic Medievalists"], September 28, 2002 (PDF)
• [M Everson and R Cleminson, "Final proposal for encoding the Glagolitic script in the UCS", Expert Contribution to the ISO N2610R], September 4, 2003 (PDF)
• V Lev, "The history of the Ukrainian script (paleography)", in Ukraine: a concise encyclopædia, volume 1. University of Toronto Press, 1963, 1970, 1982. ISBN 0802031056
• V Simovyc and JB Rudnyckyj, "The history of Ukrainian orthography", in Ukraine: a concise encyclopædia, volume 1 (op cit).
• [J Zamora, "Help me learn Church Slavonic", online]
• [Ukrainian Wikipedia, "Кирилиця" (Cyrillic)]

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