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The Cyrillic alphabet (pronounced /səˈɹɪlɪk/; also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is actually a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by six Slavic national languages (Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian and Ukrainian) as well as non-Slavic (Kazakh, Uzbek, Kyrgyz and Tajik of the former Soviet Union, and Mongolian). It is also used by many other languages of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Siberia and other languages in the past. Not all letters in the Cyrillic alphabet are used in every language that is written with it. The Unicode Standard, Version 5. ... An alphabet is a complete standardized set of letters—basic written symbols—each of which roughly represents a phoneme of a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it may have been in the past. ...  Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language  Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language  Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup... A national language is a language (or language variant, i. ... Serbian (; ) is one of the standard versions of the Shtokavian dialect, used primarily in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and by Serbs in the Serbian diaspora. ... Kazakh (also Qazaq and variants[2], natively , , ‎; pronounced ) is a Turkic language closely related to Nogai and Karakalpak. ... Uzbek (O‘zbek tili in Latin script, Ўзбек тили in Cyrillic script) is an Eastern Turkic language and the official language of Uzbekistan. ... Kyrgyz or Kirghiz (Kyrgyz tili, Кыргыз тили, قىرعىز ٴتىلى) is a Turkic language, and, together with Russian, an official language of Kyrgyzstan. ... Tajik or Tadjik (тоҷикӣ, تاجیکی, tojikí) is a descendant of the Persian language spoken in Central Asia. ... Eastern Europe is a concept that lacks one precise definition. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Caucasus Mountains. ... This article is about Siberia as a whole. ...

The alphabet has official status with many organisations. With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official alphabet of the EU. Dark green: current members; light green: acceding countries; orange: recognized candidate countries Bulgaria (along with Romania) is part of the second stage of the EUs fifth enlargement1 and is currently scheduled to join it on January 1, 2007. ... is the 1st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... Wikiquote has a collection of quotations by or about: European Union The European Union On-Line Official EU website, europa. ...

History

A page from Azbuka, the first Russian textbook, printed by Ivan Fyodorov in 1574. This page features the Cyrillic alphabet.

Main article: Early Cyrillic alphabet

The layout of the early Cyrillic alphabet shares a common root with the ninth-century Glagolitic alphabet^[1], which was based on the Greek uncial script and the Latin alphabet. The original mother letter-forms are closely related to uncial (ustav) cursive Greek. Saints Cyril and Methodius, Byzantine Greeks from Thessaloniki, are usually credited with the Glagolitic alphabet's development. The first monument to Fedorov was opened in Moscow in 1909. ... The original Cyrillic alphabet was a writing system developed in Macedonia and in the First Bulgarian Empire in the tenth century to write the Old Church Slavonic liturgical language. ... The original Cyrillic alphabet was a writing system developed in Macedonia and in the First Bulgarian Empire in the tenth century to write the Old Church Slavonic liturgical language. ... (8th century - 9th century - 10th century - other centuries) Events Beowulf might have been written down in this century, though it could also have been in the 8th century Viking attacks on Europe begin Oseberg ship burial The Magyars arrive in what is now Hungary, forcing the Serbs and Bulgars south... The Glagolitic alphabet or Glagolitsa is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. ... Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz redirects here. ... The Book of Kells, c. ... Cursive is any style of handwriting which is designed for writing down notes and letters by hand. ... For details about each of the saints, see Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius. ... Byzantine Greeks or Byzantines, is a conventional term used by modern historians to refer to the medieval Greek or Hellenized citizens of the Byzantine Empire, centered mainly in Constantinople, southern Balkans, the Greek islands, the coasts of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and the large urban centres of Near East and... Thessaloniki or Salonica (Greek: ) is Greeces second-largest city and the capital of Macedonia, the largest Region of Greece. ...

Although it is widely accepted that the Glagolitic alphabet was invented by Saints Cyril and Methodius, the origins of the early Cyrillic alphabet are still a source of much controversy. It has been attributed to Saint Clement of Ohrid, disciple of Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius and founder of Ohrid Literary School in southwestern Bulgaria. Recent studies have suggested that the Cyrillic alphabet was more likely developed at the Preslav Literary School in northeastern Bulgaria. The history of the alphabet begins in Ancient Egypt, more than a millennium into the history of writing. ... The Middle Bronze Age alphabets are two similar but undeciphered scripts, dated to be from the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1500 BC), and believed to be ancestral to nearly all modern alphabets: the Proto-Sinaitic script discovered in the winter of 1904-1905 by William Flinders Petrie, and dated to... The Ugaritic alphabet is a cuneiform abjad, used from around 1300 BC for the Ugaritic language, an extinct Canaanite language discovered in Ugarit, Syria. ... The Proto-Canaanite alphabet is an abjad of twenty-plus acrophonic glyphs, which is found in Levantine texts of the Late Bronze Age (from ca. ... The Phoenician alphabet is a continuation of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, by convention taken to begin with a cut-off date of 1050 BCE. It was used by the Phoenicians to write Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language. ... The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet is an offshoot of the Phoenician alphabet used to write the Hebrew language from about the 10th century BCE until it began to fall out of use in the 5th century BCE with the adoption of the Aramaic alphabet as a writing system for Hebrew and... The Samaritan alphabet is a direct descendant of the paleo-Hebrew variety of the Phoenician alphabet, the more commonly known Hebrew alphabet having been adapted from the Aramaic alphabet under the Persian Empire. ... Bilingual inscription (Greek and Aramaic) by the Indian emperor Ashoka the Great, 3rd century BC. The Aramaic alphabet is an abjad alphabet designed for writing the Aramaic language. ... The KharoṣṭhÄ« script, also known as the GāndhārÄ« script, is an ancient alphabetic script used by the Gandhara culture of historic northwest India to write the Gandhari and Sanskrit languages (the Gandhara kingdom was located along the present-day border between Afghanistan and Pakistan between the Indus... Variation of BrāhmÄ« with dates. ... The Brahmic family is a family of abugidas (writing systems) used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, descended from the BrāhmÄ« script of Mauryan India. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... The Pahlavi script was used broadly in the Sasanid Persian Empire to write down Middle Persian for secular, as well as religious purposes. ... The Avestan alphabet was created in the 3rd century AD for writing the hymns of Zarathustra (a. ... 11th century book in Syriac Serto. ... The Sogdian alphabet is derived from Syriac, the descendant script of Aramaic alphabet. ... Hungarian Runes (Hungarian: , ( ) or simply ) is a type of runic writing system used by the Magyars (mainly by Székely Magyars) prior to AD 1000. ... The Uyghur alphabet is any of the following: A descendant of the Sogdian alphabet, used for texts of Buddhist, Manichæan and Christian contents for 700–800 years in East Turkestan. ... The Nabatean alphabet is a consonantal alphabet (abjad) that was used by the Nabateans in the 2nd century BC. Important inscriptions are found in Petra. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing languages such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and others. ... The Mandaic alphabet is based on the Aramaic alphabet, and is used for writing the Mandaic language. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz redirects here. ... Rune redirects here. ... The Coptic alphabet is an alphabet used for writing the Coptic language. ...   The Gothic alphabet is an alphabetic writing system attributed by Philostorgius to Wulfila, used exclusively for writing the ancient Gothic language. ... The Glagolitic alphabet or Glagolitsa is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. ... Paleohispanic scripts Light green (along the Mediterranean coast) is the Iberian language, dark grey (mainly southern Portugal) is the Tartessian language, dark blue (central Spain) is the Celtiberian language, light blue (mainly northern Portugal) is the Lusitanian language, and dark green (Eastern Pyrenees) is the Aquitanian language. ... The ancient South Arabian alphabet (also known as musnad) branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in ca. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... The Meroitic script is an alphabet of Egyptian (Hieroglyphic) origin used in Kingdom of Meroë. Some scholars, e. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Jamo redirects here. ... Zhuyin fuhao (Traditional Chinese: ; Simplified Chinese: ; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Tongyong Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Chu-yin fu-hao), or Symbols for Annotating Sounds, often abbreviated as Zhuyin, or known as Bopomofo (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) after the first four letters of this Chinese phonemic alphabet (bo po mo fo), is the national phonetic system of the... The Gupta script was used for writing Sanskrit and is associated with the Gupta Empire of India which was a period of material prosperity and great religious and scientific developments. ... Mithilakshar (also known as Tirhuta) is the traditional script of the Maithili language, which is is spoken in the Indian state of Bihar and eastern Nepal. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ...   Lepcha script is used by the Lepcha people. ... The Limbu alphabet, or Kirat-Sirijonga script, is a Brahmic script used to write the Limbu language of northern India and Nepal. ... The Kanai Baraxiboa rock inscription near Guwahati. ... It has been suggested that Robert B. Wray be merged into this article or section. ... The Assamese script belongs to the Brahmic family of scripts and is very similar to Devanagari. ... The Oriya script is used to write the Oriya language. ... Rigveda manuscript in Devanagari (early 19th century) DevanāgarÄ« (देवनागरी — in English pronounced ) (ISCII – IS13194:1991) [1] is an abugida alphabet used to write several Indian languages, including Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Bihari, Bhili, Konkani, Bhojpuri and Nepali from Nepal. ... The Newari script also known as the Ranjana script is used for writing the Newari language of Nepal. ... The Newari script also known as the Ranjana script is used for writing the Newari language of Nepal. ... The Gujarati script (ગુજરાતી લિપિ GujarātÄ« Lipi), which like all NāgarÄ« writing systems is strictly speaking an abugida rather than an alphabet, is used to write the Gujarati and Kutchi languages. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... The Inuktitut syllabary (Inuktitut: ᑎᑎᕋᐅᓯᕐᒃ ᓄᑖᕐᒃ titirausiq nutaaq) is a writing system used by Inuit people in Nunavut and in Nunavik, Quebec. ... Blackfoot is the name of any of the Algonquian languages spoken by the Blackfoot tribe of Native Americans, who currently live in the northwestern plains of North America. ... The Laṇḍā script (Gurmukhi: ਲੰਡਾ), meaning an alphabet without tail, is a Punjabi word used to refer to scripts in Northern India that do not use vowel signs. ... The GurmukhÄ« (ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ) script is derived from the Later Sharada script and was standardized by the second Sikh guru, Guru Angad Dev, in the 16th century for writing the Punjabi language. ... The Takri script (sometimes called Tankri) is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic family of scripts. ... Bhujimol script, palm_leaf MS of the Devimahatmya, Bihar or Nepal, 11th century. ... The Newari script also known as the Ranjana script is used for writing the Newari language of Nepal. ... Soyombo script - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... The Tamil Brahmi script, unlike standard Asokan Brahmi, distinguished between pure consonants and consonants with an inherent vowel marker Tamil-Brahmi was an early script used to write Tamil characters. ... An example of the Vatteluttu script from an inscription by Rajaraja Chola I at the Brihadisvara temple in Thanjavur. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Tamil script. ... Grantha (Punjabi , Tamil , from Sanskrit ग्रन्थ grantha meaning book or manuscript) is an ancient script that was prevalent in South India. ... The Sinhala script is used to write the Sinhala language. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...   Saurashtra was a script used to write the Saurashtra language. ... The Malayalam script is an abugida of the Brahmic family, used to write the Malayalam language. ... Tulu script Not very long ago, Tulu had its own written script. ... Old Kawi is the oldest Kawi script used on Bali in 775 AD. It is written on palm leaves. ... Basic signs of the Balinese script The Balinese alphabet is a type of alphabet called an abugida that was used to write the Balinese language, an Austronesian language spoken by about three million people on the Indonesian island of Bali. ... Javanese script is the script that Javanese is originally written in (not to be confused with Javascript, which is a programming language). ... The Mon language is an Austroasiatic language spoken in Myanmar and Thailand. ... This article or section uses Khmer characters which may be rendered as boxes or other nonsensical symbols. ... The Kadamba script marks the birth of a dedicated Kannada script that was used for Kannada language. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Telugu script, an abugida from the Brahmic family of scripts, is used to write Telugu, a Dravidian Language found in the Southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh as well as several other neighboring states. ... Nearly all the segmental scripts (alphabets, but see below for more precise terminology) used around the globe were apparently derived from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet. ... For details about each of the saints, see Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius. ... This article is about the medieval Bulgarian saint. ... The Ohrid Literary School was one of the two major medieval Bulgarian cultural centres, along with the Preslav Literary School (Pliska Literary School). ... Ceramic icon of St. ...

Among the reasons for the replacement of the Glagolitic with the Cyrillic alphabet is the greater simplicity and ease of use of the latter and its closeness with the Bulgar and Greek alphabets, which were widely in use among the population of the Bulgarian Empire. First Bulgarian Empire Second Bulgarian Empire This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ...

There are also other theories regarding the origins of the Cyrillic alphabet, namely that the alphabet was created by Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius themselves, or that it preceded the Glagolitic alphabet, representing a "transitional" stage between Greek and Glagolitic cursive, but these have been disproved. Although Cyril is almost certainly not the author of the Cyrillic alphabet, his contributions to the Glagolitic and hence to the Cyrillic alphabet are still recognised, as the latter is named after him.

The alphabet was disseminated along with the Old Church Slavonic liturgical language, and the alphabet used for modern Church Slavonic language in Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic rites still resembles early Cyrillic. However, over the following ten 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. Today, dozens of languages in Eastern Europe and Asia are written in the Cyrillic alphabet. Old Church Slavonic (also called Old Slavic[1]) is the first literary Slavic language, developed from the Slavic dialect of Thessalonica (modern Thessaloniki) by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries, Saints Cyril and Methodius. ... A sacred language is a language, frequently a dead language, that is cultivated for religious reasons by people who speak another language in their daily life. ... Page from the Spiridon Psalter in Church Slavic. ... Orthodox icon of Pentecost. ... The term Eastern Rites may refer to the liturgical rites used by many ancient Christian Churches of Eastern Europe and the Middle East that, while being part of the Roman Catholic Church, are distinct from the Latin Rite or Western Church. ... This is a list of languages that have been written in the Cyrillic alphabet at one time or another. ...

As the Cyrillic alphabet spread throughout the East and South Slavic territories, it was adopted for writing local languages, such as Old Ruthenian. Its adaptation to the characteristics of local languages led to the development of its many modern variants, below. Old East Slavic language is one name for a language spoken between the 10th and 14th centuries in Kievan Rus and its successor states, the ancestor of the modern East Slavic languages. ...

Capital and lowercase letters were not distinguished in old manuscripts. А (А, а) is the first letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. ... Be (Б, б) is the second letter in the Cyrillic alphabet. ... Ve (В, в) is the third letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the sound [v]. In Russian, it is pronounced [f] at the end of a word. ... Ge or He (Г, г) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, pronounced differently in different languages. ... De (Д, д) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. ... Ye (Є, є) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, used in the Ukrainian language to represent the iotated vowel sound /je/. Categories: Cyrillic letters | Writing system stubs ... Zhe (Ж, ж) is the letter of Cyrillic alphabet which represents the voiced postalveolar fricative (sound file), the same sound which is represented by s in the English word treasure. Zhe is the 7th letter of the Bulgarian and Belarusian alphabets, the 8th letter in the Macedonian, Russian and Serbian alphabets, and... Dze (Ѕ, ѕ) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, used in the Macedonian language; it is, however, much older and is found in the original Slavonic alphabet. ... Ze (З, з) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the consonant /z/. Its easily confusable with the number 3, for example the stages of the N1 rocket. ... I or Y (И, и) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet, pronounced in Russian, or in Ukrainian. ... I (І, і) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, used in the Belarusian and Ukrainian languages. ... Ka (К, к) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the consonant /k/. It corresponds to the Roman K in origin, pronunciation, and appearance. ... El (Л, л) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. ... Em (М, м) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the consonant /m/. Code positions Categories: Cyrillic letters | Language stubs ... En (Н, н) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the consonant /n/. It looks exactly like the Latin capital letter H. Categories: Cyrillic letters | Language stubs ... O (О, о) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the vowel /o/. Categories: Cyrillic letters | Language stubs ... Pe (П, п) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the consonant /p/. It arose directly from the Greek letter Pi (Π, π). The shape of capital printed Pe can be described as a square with the bottom line missing, not to be confused with El (Cyrillic), which has a curved left. ... The letter koppa in the Early Cyrillic alphabet Koppa or Stigma (Ҁ, ҁ) is an archaic letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, originally derived from the Greek letter Qoppa. ... Er (Р, р) is the eighteenth letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. ... Es (С, с) is the nineteenth letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. ... Te (Т, т) is the letter representing the consonant /t/ in the Cyrillic alphabet. ... Uk (, ) is a letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet. ... Ef (Ф, ф) is the twenty-first letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. ... Kha, or Ha, (Х, х) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the voiceless velar fricative /x/ (pronounced like the ch in German Bach). It is derived from the Greek letter chi (Χ, χ). Categories: Cyrillic letters | Language stubs ... Omega (Ѡ, ѡ) is a letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet, descended from the Greek Omega (Ω, ω). These early letters were called Archaic letters. ... Tse (Ц, ц) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet. ... Che (Ч, ч) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the consonant cluster /tS/ or /tS/ (like the ch in change). Categories: Cyrillic letters | Language stubs ... Sha (Ш, ш) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the consonant sound /ʃ/ or /ʃʲ/. It is equivalent to sh in English, ch in French, sch in German, ş in Turkish, or sz in Polish. ... Shcha or Shta (Щ, щ) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the consonant // or // in Russian, // or // in Ukrainian, and the consonant // in Bulgarian. ... The letter (Ъ, ъ) of the Cyrillic alphabet is known as the hard sign (твёрдый знак ) in the modern Russian alphabet and as er golyam (ер голям, big yer) in the Bulgarian alphabet. ... Yery (Ы, ы) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet. ... Soft Sign (Ь, ь) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet (Russian: мягкий знак (mĭahkiy znak) [], Ukrainian: м’який знак (miakyy znak) [], Belarusian: мяккі знак (miakki znak) []). It is named so because it usually indicates softening, or palatalization, of the preceding consonant or of the group of them. ... Yat or Jat (, ) is the thirty-second letter of the old Cyrillic alphabet and name of the sound represented by it. ... Yu (Ю, ю) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the iotated vowel /ju/. In common with many Cyrillic letters, it was derived from a digraph, being a ligature of Izhe (then І) or Izhei (then Н, both now И) and Uk (Ѹ, no longer in the alphabet). ... Ya (Я, я) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the iotated vowel (IPA). ... Little Yus and Big Yus , or Jus, are the letters representing two Common Slavonic nasal vowels, in the early Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets. ... Little Yus and Big Yus , or Jus, are the letters representing two Common Slavonic nasal vowels, in the early Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets. ... Little Yus and Big Yus , or Jus, are the letters representing two Common Slavonic nasal vowels, in the early Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets. ... Little Yus and Big Yus , or Jus, are the letters representing two Common Slavonic nasal vowels, in the early Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets. ... Ksi (Ѯ, ѯ) is a letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet, descended from the Greek letter Xi. ... Psi (Ѱ, ѱ) is a letter in the early Cyrillic alphabet, derived from the Greek letter psi (Ψ, ψ). It represents the sound /ps/, as in English naps, and was used largely in loan words from foreign languages. ... Fita (Ѳ, ѳ) is a letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet, descended from the Greek Theta. ... Izhitsa (Ѵ, ѵ) is a letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet. ... E iotified (Ѥ, ѥ) is a letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet. ... In Unicode, the Cyrillic block extends from U+0400 to U+052F. The characters in the range U+0400–U+045F are basically the characters from ISO 8859-5 moved upward by 864 positions. ... “PDF” redirects here. ...

A page from the Church Slavonic Grammar of Meletius Smotrytsky (1619).

Yeri (Ы) was originally a ligature of Yer and I (ЪІ). Iotation was indicated by ligatures formed with the letter I: ІА (ancestor of modern ya, я), Ѥ, Ю (ligature of I and ОУ), Ѩ, Ѭ. Many letters had variant forms and commonly-used ligatures, for example И=І=Ї, Ѡ=Ѻ, ОУ=Ѹ, ѠТ=Ѿ. Download high resolution version (349x602, 7 KB)This page from the Church Slavonic Grammar (1619) by Meletius Smotrisky (R Мелетий Смотриский /meletij smotriskij/) gives the Cyrillic alphabet in the semi-uncial style (R полуустав /poluustav/) as it was used in Eastern Europe (Muscovy, Ukraine, parts... Download high resolution version (349x602, 7 KB)This page from the Church Slavonic Grammar (1619) by Meletius Smotrisky (R Мелетий Смотриский /meletij smotriskij/) gives the Cyrillic alphabet in the semi-uncial style (R полуустав /poluustav/) as it was used in Eastern Europe (Muscovy, Ukraine, parts... What is a letter?... from the first edition of Smotrytskys grammar Meletius Smotrytsky (Ukrainian: Мелетій Смотрицький; Belarusian: Мялецій Сматрыцкі; Russian: Мелетий Смотрицкий), né Maksym Herasymovytch (c. ... In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more letterforms are written or printed as a unit. ... Iotation is a form of palatalisation which occurs in Slavic languages. ... Ya (Я, я) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the iotated vowel (IPA). ...

The letters also had numeric values, based not on the native Cyrillic alphabetical order, but inherited from the letters' Greek ancestors. Greek numerals are a system of representing numbers using letters of the Greek alphabet. ...

The early Cyrillic alphabet is difficult to represent on computers. Many of the letterforms differed from modern Cyrillic, varied a great deal in manuscripts, and changed over time. Few fonts include adequate glyphs to reproduce the alphabet. The current Unicode standard does not represent some significant letterform variations, and omits some characters, such as Cyrillic dotless I, iotified Yat, abbreviated Yer (Yerok), and many ligatures. Cyrillic numerals was a numbering system derived from the Cyrillic alphabet, used by South and East Slavic peoples. ... Christ Pantocrator seated in a capital U in an illuminated manuscript from the Badische Landesbibliothek, Germany. ... variant glyphs representing the character a (allographs of a) in the Zapfino typeface. ... The Unicode Standard, Version 5. ... Yat or Jat (, ) is the name of the thirty-second letter of the old Cyrillic alphabet, or of the sound it represents. ... The letter (Ъ, ъ) of the Cyrillic alphabet is known as the hard sign (твёрдый знак ) in the modern Russian alphabet and as er golyam (ер голям, big yer) in the Bulgarian alphabet. ... In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more letterforms are written or printed as a unit. ...

The Unicode 5.1 standard, released on April 4, 2008, greatly improves computer support for the early Cyrillic and the modern Church Slavonic language. is the 94th day of the year (95th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2008 (MMVIII) is the current year, a leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Era (or Anno Domini), in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. ... Church Slavonic may refer to: Old Church Slavonic language Church Slavonic language This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

Letter-forms and typography

The development of Cyrillic typography passed directly from the medieval stage to the late Baroque, without a Renaissance phase as in Western Europe. Late Medieval Cyrillic letters (still found on many icon inscriptions even today) show a marked tendency to be very tall and narrow; strokes are often shared between adjacent letters. A specimen of roman typefaces by William Caslon Typography is the art and techniques of type design, modifying type glyphs, and arranging type. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times. ... For other uses, see Baroque (disambiguation). ... This article is about the European Renaissance of the 14th-17th centuries. ... A current understanding of Western Europe. ... This article is about the religious artifacts. ...

Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, mandated the use of westernized letter forms in the early eighteenth century. Over time, these were largely adopted in the other languages that use the alphabet. Thus, unlike modern Greek fonts that retained their own set of design principles (such as the placement of serifs, the shapes of stroke ends, and stroke-thickness rules), modern Cyrillic fonts are much the same as modern Latin fonts of the same font family. The development of some Cyrillic computer typefaces from Latin ones has also contributed to the visual Latinization of Cyrillic type. Peter the Great or Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov (Russian: Пётр I Алексеевич Pyotr I Alekse`yevich, Пётр Великий Pyotr Veli`kiy) (9 June 1672 – 8 February 1725 [30 May 1672–28 January 1725 O.S.][1]) ruled Russia from 7 May (27 April O.S.) 1682 until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his... In typography, serifs are non-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols. ...

Cyrillic uppercase and lowercase letter-forms are not as differentiated as in Latin typography. Upright Cyrillic lowercase letters are essentially small capitals (with the few exceptions: "а", "е", "p", "y" adopted Western lowercase shapes, lowercase "ф" is typically designed under the influence of "p", lowercase "Б" is "б", one of traditional hand-written forms), although a good-quality Cyrillic typeface will still include separate small caps glyphs.^[2] Capital letters or majuscules (in the Roman alphabet: A, B, C, ...) are one type of case in a writing system. ... Minuscule, or lower case, is the smaller form (case) of letters (in the Roman alphabet: a, b, c, ...). Originally alphabets were written entirely in majuscule (capital) letters which were spaced between well-defined upper and lower bounds. ... In typography, small caps (short for small capitals) are uppercase (capital) characters that are printed in a smaller size than normal uppercase characters of the same font. ...

Comparison of some upright and hand-written letters (Ge, De, I, I kratkoye, Em, Te and Tse. Top row is set in Georgia font, bottom in Kisty CY)

Cyrillic fonts, as well as Latin ones, have roman and italic variants (practically all popular modern fonts include parallel sets of Latin and Cyrillic letters, where many glyphs, uppercase as well as lowercase, are simply shared by both). However, the native font terminology in Slavic languages (for example, in Russian) does not use the words "roman" and "italic" in this sense.^[3] Instead, the nomenclature follows German naming patterns: Comparison of some upright and cursive letters. ... Roman type has two separate meanings in typography, both of which refer to the fact that the capital letters of a Roman font have an appearance similar to those used for lettering stone in ancient Rome: Roman type can refer to one of the major families of traditional typefaces as... In typography, italic type /tælk/ or /atælk/ refers to cursive typefaces based on a stylized form of calligraphic handwriting. ...

• A roman-style font (Cyrillic, Latin, Greek...) is simply called pryamoy shrift ("upright font")—compare with Normalschrift ("regular font") in German
• An italic font is called kursiv (literally "cursive") or kursivniy shrift ("cursive font")—from the German word Kursive, meaning italic typefaces and not actual cursive
• Cursive handwriting is rukopisniy shrift ("hand-written font") in Russian—in German: Kurrentschrift or Laufschrift, both meaning literally ‘running font’

Similarly to the Latin fonts, italic and handwritten shapes of many Cyrillic letters (typically lowercase; uppercase only for hand-written or stylish types) are very different from their upright shapes. In certain cases, the correspondence between uppercase and lowercase glyphs does not coincide in Latin and Cyrillic fonts: for example, handwritten Cyrillic m is a possible lowercase counterpart of T instead of M. Cursive is any style of handwriting which is designed for writing down notes and letters by hand. ...

The standard Cyrillic letters compared to the ones used in Serbian and Macedonian, both in regular shape and italic/cursive

As in Latin typography, a sans-serif face may have a mechanically-sloped oblique font (naklonniy shrift—"sloped," or "slanted font") instead of italic.

A boldfaced font is called poluzhirniy shrift ("semi-bold font"), because there existed fully-boldfaced shapes which are out of use since the beginning of the twentieth century.

A bold italic combination (bold slanted) doesn't exist for all font families.

In Serbian and Macedonian, some italic and cursive letters are different from those used in other languages. These letter shapes are often used in upright fonts as well, especially for advertisements, road signs, inscriptions, posters and the like, less so in newspapers or books. The Cyrillic lowercase B, б, has a slightly different design both in the regular and italic/cursive shape, which is related to the lowercase Greek letter Delta, δ. Look up Δ, δ in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

The following table shows the differences between the upright and italic/cursive Cyrillic letters as used in Russian. Italic, and especially cursive glyphs that are bound to confuse beginners are highlighted (confusing either because of an entirely different look, or because of being a false friend with an entirely different Latin character). Look up False friend in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

As used in various languages

Main articles: Cyrillic alphabet variants, Languages using Cyrillic, and List of Cyrillic letters

Distribution of the Cyrillic alphabet worldwide. The dark green shows the countries that use Cyrillic as the one main script; the lighter green those that use Cyrillic alongside another official script.

Sounds are indicated using the IPA. These are only approximate indicators. While these languages by and large have phonemic orthographies, there are occasional exceptions-for example, Russian его (yego, 'him/his'), which is pronounced [jɪˈvo] instead of [jɪˈgo]. Distribution of the Cyrillic alphabet worldwide. ... This is a list of languages that have been written in the Cyrillic alphabet at one time or another. ... This page contains special characters. ... Image File history File links Cyrillic_alphabet_distribution_map. ... Image File history File links Cyrillic_alphabet_distribution_map. ... A phonemic orthography is a writing system where the written graphemes correspond to phonemes, the spoken sounds of the language. ...

Note that transliterated spellings of names may vary, especially y/j/i, but also gh/g/h and zh/j.

Derived alphabets

The first alphabet partly derived from Cyrillic is Abur, applied to the Komi language. Other writing systems derived from Cyrillic were applied to Caucasian languages and the Molodtsov alphabet for Komi language. Abur, or Old Permic, is an original ancient Permic writing system, derived from Cyrillic and Greek, introduced by Stepan Chrap in 1372. ... . Komi language edition of Wikipedia The Komi language, also known as Zyrian, or Komi-Zyrian, is a language spoken by the Komi peoples in the northeastern European part of Russia. ... . Komi language edition of Wikipedia The Komi language, also known as Zyrian, or Komi-Zyrian, is a language spoken by the Komi peoples in the northeastern European part of Russia. ...

Relationship to other writing systems

Latin alphabets

A number of languages written in the Cyrillic alphabet have also been written in the Latin alphabet, such as Azerbaijani, Uzbek and Moldavian. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, official status shifted from Cyrillic to Latin. The transition is complete in most of Moldova and Azerbaijan, but Uzbekistan still uses both systems. Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz redirects here. ... Moldovan (also Moldavian) is the official name for the Romanian language in the Republic of Moldova and in its breakaway territory of Transnistria. ...

Romanization

There are various systems for romanization of Cyrillic text, including transliteration to convey Cyrillic spelling in Latin characters, and transcription to convey pronunciation. Languages can be romanized in a variety of ways, as shown here with Mandarin Chinese In linguistics, romanization (or Latinization, also spelled romanisation or Latinisation) is the representation of a word or language with the Roman (Latin) alphabet, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language... Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system. ... For other uses, see Latins and Latin (disambiguation). ... Transcription is the conversion into written, typewritten or printed form, of a spoken language source, such as the proceedings of a court hearing. ... Look up pronunciation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Standard Cyrillic-to-Latin transliteration systems include:

• Scientific transliteration, used in linguistics, is based on the Latin Croatian alphabet.
• The Working Group on Romanization Systems of the United Nations recommends different systems for specific languages. These are the most commonly used around the world.
• ISO 9:1995, from the International Organization for Standardization.
• American Library Association and Library of Congress Romanization tables for Slavic alphabets (ALA-LC Romanization), used in North American libraries.
• BGN/PCGN romanization (1947), United States Board on Geographic Names & Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use).
• GOST 16876, a now defunct Soviet transliteration standard. Replaced by GOST 7.79, which is ISO 9 equivalent.
• Volapuk encoding, an informal rendering of Cyrillic text over Latin-alphabet ASCII.

See also romanization of Belarusian, Bulgarian, Kyrgyz, Russian, and Ukrainian. This page meets Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ... The Croatian alphabet is a modified and extended version of the Latin alphabet which is used in Croatian language. ... UN redirects here. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Scientific transliteration. ... ALA-LC is a set of standards for romanization, or the representation of text in other writing systems using the Latin alphabet. ... BGN/PCGN romanization refers to the systems for romanization (transliteration into the Latin alphabet) and Roman-script spelling conventions adopted by the United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) and the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use (PCGN). ... GOST 16876-71 (Russian: ) is a romanization system (for transliteration of Cyrillic texts into the Latin alphabet) devised by the National Administration for Geodesy and Cartography of the former Soviet Union. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Scientific transliteration. ... Volapuk encoding (Russian: кодировка волапюк, kodirovka volapyuk) or Pseudotranslit is a slang term for rendering the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet with Latin ones. ... Romanisation or Latinisation of Belarusian is any system for transliterating written Belarusian from the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin. ... The Kyrgyz language language is written in the Kyrgyz alphabet, a modification of the Cyrillic alphabet. ...

Cyrillization

Representing other writing systems with Cyrillic letters is called Cyrillization. A Cyrillization is a system for representing a language with the Cyrillic alphabet, where the source language use a writing system other than the Cyrillic alphabet (compare this to Romanization). ...

Computer encoding

Further information: Cyrillic characters in Unicode