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Numerous Cyrillic alphabets are based on the Cyrillic script. The early Cyrillic alphabet was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 9th century AD at the Preslav Literary School by the disciples of the Byzantine theologians Cyril and Methodius. It is the basis of alphabets used in various languages, past and present, in parts of Southeastern Europe and Northern Eurasia, especially those of Slavic origin, and non-Slavic languages influenced by Russian. As of 2011, around 252 million people in Eurasia use it as the official alphabet for their national languages. About half of them are in Russia. Cyrillic is one of the most-used writing systems in the world.
Contents
- Common letters
- Slavic languages
- Russian
- Belarusian
- Ukrainian
- Rusyn
- Bulgarian
- Serbian
- Macedonian
- Montenegrin
- Bosnian
- Croatian
- Uralic languages
- Karelian
- Kildin Smi
- Komi Permyak
- Mari alphabets
- Kurdish
- Ossetian
- Tajik
- Other
- Romance languages
- Romani
- Mongolian
- Overview
- Khalkha
- Buryat
- Kalmyk
- Northwest Caucasian languages
- Abkhaz
- Northeast Caucasian languages
- Avar
- Lezgian
- Azerbaijani
- Bashkir
- Chuvash
- Kazakh
- Kyrgyz
- Tatar
- Turkmen
- Uzbek
- Dungan language
- Tungusic languages
- Chukotko Kamchatkan languages
- Eskimo Aleut languages
- Other languages
- Constructed languages
- References
Some of these are illustrated below; for others, and for more detail, see the links. Sounds are transcribed in the IPA. While these languages by and large have phonemic orthographies, there are occasional exceptions—for example, Russian ⟨г⟩ is pronounced /v/ in a number of words, a relic from when they were pronounced /ɡ/ (e.g. его yego 'him/his', is pronounced [jɪˈvo] rather than [jɪˈɡo]).
Spellings of names transliterated into the Roman alphabet may vary, especially й (y/j/i), but also gh/g/h and ж (zh/j).
Non-Slavic alphabets are generally modelled after Russian, but often bear striking differences, particularly when adapted for Caucasian languages. The first few of these alphabets were developed by Orthodox missionaries for the Finnic and Turkic peoples of Idel-Ural (Mari, Udmurt, Mordva, Chuvash, and Kerashen Tatars) in the 1870s. Later, such alphabets were created for some of the Siberian and Caucasus peoples who had recently converted to Christianity. In the 1930s, some of those languages were switched to the Uniform Turkic Alphabet. All of the peoples of the former Soviet Union who had been using an Arabic or other Asian script (Mongolian script etc.) also adopted Cyrillic alphabets, and during the Great Purge in the late 1930s, all of the Latin alphabets of the peoples of the Soviet Union were switched to Cyrillic as well (the Baltic Republics were annexed later, and were not affected by this change). The Abkhazian and Ossetian languages were switched to Georgian script, but after the death of Joseph Stalin, both also adopted Cyrillic. The last language to adopt Cyrillic was the Gagauz language, which had used Greek script before.
In Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, the use of Cyrillic to write local languages has often been a politically controversial issue since the collapse of the Soviet Union, as it evokes the era of Soviet rule and Russification. Some of Russia's peoples such as the Tatars have also tried to drop Cyrillic, but the move was halted under Russian law. A number of languages have switched from Cyrillic to other orthographies—either Roman‐based or returning to a former script.
While English mainly uses the Latin alphabet, there is a small minority who use the Cyrillic, mainly Russian and other Slavic immigrants to English speaking countries. This system of Cyrillic English is commonly called Renglish.
Unlike the Latin script, which is usually adapted to different languages by adding diacritical marks/supplementary glyphs (such as accents, umlauts, tildes and cedillas) to standard Roman letters, the Cyrillic script is usually adapted by the creation of entirely new letter shapes. In some alphabets invented in the 19th century, such as Mari, Udmurt and Chuvash, umlauts and breves also were used.
Bulgarian and Bosnian Sephardim lacking Hebrew typefaces occasionally printed Judeo-Spanish in Cyrillic.
Common letters
The following table lists the Cyrillic letters which are used in the alphabets of most of the national languages which use a Cyrillic alphabet. Exceptions and additions for particular languages are noted below.
Slavic languages
Cyrillic alphabets used by Slavic languages can be divided into two categories:
Russian
Notes:
- In the pre-reform Russian orthography, in Old Russian and in Old Church Slavonic the letter is called yer. Historically, the "hard sign" takes the place of a now-absent vowel, which is still preserved as a distinct vowel in Bulgarian (which represents it with ъ) and Slovene (which is written in the Latin alphabet and writes it as e), but only in some places in the word.
- When an iotated vowel (vowel whose sound begins with [j]) follows a consonant, the consonant is palatalized. The Hard Sign indicates that this does not happen, and the [j] sound will appear only in front of the vowel. The Soft Sign indicates that the consonant should be palatalized in addition to a [j] preceding the vowel. The Soft Sign also indicates that a consonant before another consonant or at the end of a word is palatalized. Examples: та ([ta]); тя ([tʲa]); тья ([tʲja]); тъя ([tja]); т (/t/); ть ([tʲ]).
Before 1918, there were four extra letters in use: Іі (replaced by Ии), Ѳѳ (Фита "Fita", replaced by Фф), Ѣѣ (Ять "Yat", replaced by Ее), and Ѵѵ (ижица "Izhitsa", replaced by Ии); these were eliminated by reforms of Russian orthography.
Belarusian
The Belarusian alphabet displays the following features:
Ukrainian
The Ukrainian alphabet displays the following features:
Rusyn
The Rusyn language is spoken by the Lemko Rusyns in Carpathian Ruthenia, Slovakia, and Poland, and the Pannonian Rusyns in Croatia and Serbia.
*Letters absent from Pannonian Rusyn alphabet.
Bulgarian
The Bulgarian alphabet features:
The Cyrillic alphabet was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School. The Cyrillic script was originally developed in Bulgaria and has been used there (with modifications and exclusion of certain archaic letters via spelling reforms) continuously since then, superseding the previously used Glagolitic alphabet, which was also invented and used there before the Cyrillic alphabet overtook its use as a written script for Bulgarian. The Cyrillic alphabet was then borrowed by neighboring countries (e.g. Serbia and later Romania) and their peoples by the spread of Orthodox Christianity, who later modified it and added/excluded letters from it to better suit the needs of their own language. It was later adapted to write Russian and evolved into the Russian alphabet and the alphabets of many other Slavic (and later non-Slavic) languages.
Serbian
The South Slavic alphabets (with the exception of Bulgarian) are generally derived from the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet. It, and by extension its descendants, differs from the East Slavic ones in that the alphabet has generally been simplified: Letters such as Я, Ю, and Ё, representing /ja/, /ju/, and /jo/ in Russian, respectively, have been removed. Instead, these are represented by the digraphs ⟨ја⟩, ⟨ју⟩, and ⟨јо⟩, respectively. Additionally, the letter Е, representing /je/ in Russian, is instead pronounced /e/ or /ɛ/, with /je/ being represented by ⟨јe⟩. Alphabets based on the Serbian that add new letters often do so by adding an acute accent ⟨´⟩ over an existing letter.
The Serbian alphabet shows the following features:
Macedonian
The Macedonian alphabet differs from Serbian in the following ways:
Montenegrin
The Montenegrin alphabet differs from Serbian in the following ways:
Bosnian
The Bosnian language uses Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, although the Latin is more common. A Bosnian Cyrillic script (Bosančica) was used in the Middle Ages, along with other scripts, but has no connection to the modern Bosnian language.
Croatian
Cyrillic alphabet is used in present day Croatia among the Serb minority. In Croatian schools the Cyrillic alphabet was taught during the time Croatia was part of Yugoslavia.
Uralic languages
Uralic languages using the Cyrillic script (currently or in the past) include:
Karelian
The Karelian language was written in the Cyrillic script in various forms until 1940 when publication in Karelian ceased in favor of Finnish, except for Tver Karelian, written in a Latin alphabet. In 1989 publication began again in the other Karelian dialects and Latin alphabets were used, in some cases with the addition of Cyrillic letters such as ь.
Kildin Sámi
Over the last century, the alphabet used to write Kildin Sami has changed three times: from Cyrillic to Latin and back again to Cyrillic. Work on the latest version of the official orthography commenced in 1979. It was officially approved in 1982 and started to be widely used by 1987.
Komi-Permyak
The Komi-Permyak alphabet:
Mari alphabets
Meadow Mari alphabet:
Hill Mari alphabet
Kurdish
Kurds in the former Soviet Union use a Cyrillic alphabet:
Ossetian
The Ossetic language has officially used the Cyrillic script since 1937.
Tajik
The Tajik language is written using a Cyrillic-based alphabet.
Other
Romance languages
Romani
Romani is written in Cyrillic in Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and the former USSR.
Mongolian
The Mongolic languages include Khalkha (in Mongolia), Buryat (around Lake Baikal) and Kalmyk (northwest of the Caspian Sea). Khalkha Mongolian is also written with the Mongol vertical alphabet.
Overview
This table contains all the characters used.
Һһ is shown twice as it appears at two different location in Buryat and Kalmyk
Khalkha
The Cyrillic letters Кк, Пп, Фф and Щщ are not used in native Mongolian words, but only for Russian loans.
Buryat
The Buryat (буряад) Cyrillic script is similar to the Khalkha above, but Ьь indicates palatalization as in Russian. Buryat does not use Вв, Кк, Фф, Цц, Чч, Щщ or Ъъ in its native words.
Kalmyk
The Kalmyk (хальмг) Cyrillic script is similar to the Khalkha, but the letters Ээ, Юю and Яя appear only word-initially. In Kalmyk, long vowels are written double in the first syllable (нөөрин), but single in syllables after the first. Short vowels are omitted altogether in syllables after the first syllable (хальмг = /xaʎmaɡ/).
Northwest Caucasian languages
Living Northwest Caucasian languages are generally written using Cyrillic alphabets.
Abkhaz
Abkhaz is a Caucasian language, spoken in the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia, Georgia.
Other
Northeast Caucasian languages
Northeast Caucasian languages are generally written using Cyrillic alphabets.
Avar
Avar is a Caucasian language, spoken in the Republic of Dagestan, of the Russian Federation, where it is co-official together with other Caucasian languages like Dargwa, Lak, Lezgian and Tabassaran. All these alphabets, and other ones (Abaza, Adyghe, Chechen, Ingush, Kabardian) have an extra sign: palochka (Ӏ), which gives voiceless occlusive consonants its particular ejective sound.
Lezgian
Lezgian is spoken by the Lezgins, who live in southern Dagestan and northern Azerbaijan. Lezgian is a literary language and an official language of Dagestan.
Other
Azerbaijani
The Cyrillic script was used for the Azerbaijani language from 1939 to 1991.
Bashkir
The Cyrillic script was used for the Bashkir language after the winter of 1938.
Chuvash
The Cyrillic alphabet is used for the Chuvash language since the late 19th century, with some changes in 1938.
Kazakh
Kazakh is also written with the Latin alphabet (in Turkey, but not in Kazakhstan), and modified Arabic alphabet (in the People's Republic of China, Iran and Afghanistan).
The Cyrillic letters Вв, Ёё, Цц, Чч, Щщ, Ъъ, Ьь and Ээ are not used in native Kazakh words, but only for Russian loans.
Kyrgyz
Kyrgyz has also been written in Latin and in Arabic.
Tatar
Tatar has used Cyrillic since 1939, but the Russian Orthodox Tatar community has used Cyrillic since the 19th century. In 2000 a new Latin alphabet was adopted for Tatar, but it is used generally on the Internet.
The Cyrillic letters Ёё, Цц, Щщ are not used in native Tatar words, but only for Russian loans.
Turkmen
Turkmen, written 1940–94 exclusively in Cyrillic, since 1994 officially in Roman, but in everyday communication Cyrillic is still used along with Roman script.
Uzbek
From 1941 the Cyrillic script was used exclusively. In 1998 the government has adopted a Latin alphabet to replace it. The deadline for making this transition has however been repeatedly changed, and Cyrillic is still more common. It is not clear that the transition will be made at all.
Other
Dungan language
Since 1953.