General knowledge · Words & language

The Cyrillic alphabet

9th–10th century AD

Writing systems — the script of the Orthodox Slavs

The writing system used for Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Ukrainian and dozens of other languages across Eurasia, by some 250 million people. It was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire, probably at the Preslav Literary School under Tsar Simeon I, by adapting Greek uncial letters and borrowing extra characters from the older Glagolitic script for Slavic sounds Greek could not write. It is named in honour of Saint Cyril, who with his brother Methodius devised Glagolitic — not this alphabet — and it became the European Union's third official script when Bulgaria joined in 2007.

How to spot them

▸The script of Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Macedonian and many languages of Central Asia
▸Named after a saint who did not invent it; he invented the Glagolitic script instead
▸Letters such as Ж, Щ, Ы, and the hard and soft signs Ъ and Ь, which spell no sound of their own
▸False friends for English readers: Р is 'r', С is 's', Н is 'n', В is 'v', Х is 'kh'

Key facts

Developed at the Preslav Literary School under Tsar Simeon I the Great (c. 890s)

In the First Bulgarian Empire, by disciples of two Byzantine missionary brothers

Built from Greek uncial capitals, with extra letters taken from the older Glagolitic script

The borrowed signs cover Slavic sounds such as sh, ch and zh that Greek had no letters for

Named after a saint who actually devised the other, angular Slavic script

Saint Cyril and his brother Methodius created Glagolitic; their pupils created the script named for him

Reformed in 1708–10 by a tsar into the 'civil script', with Latin-looking letterforms (1708–1710)

Peter the Great abolished archaic letters and introduced upper and lower case

Became the European Union's third official script in 2007 (2007)

On Bulgaria's accession, joining the Latin and Greek alphabets

Romanian was written in it until the 1860s, when the country switched to Latin letters (1860s)

A reminder that the script crossed the Slavic/Romance boundary

Quick-fire facts

•About 250 million people use it as the official script of their national language, roughly half of them in Russia
•It is named for Saint Cyril, but he and Methodius created the Glagolitic script; their Bulgarian disciples created this one
•Scholars associate its creation with the Preslav Literary School in the First Bulgarian Empire, in the reign of Simeon I
•Clement of Ohrid, Naum of Preslav and Constantine of Preslav are among the scholars credited with the work
•It overtook Glagolitic during the 12th century
•Peter the Great's civil-script reform of 1708–10 gave Russian type its modern, Latin-like look
•Bulgaria's accession to the EU in 2007 made it the Union's third official script, after Latin and Greek
•The hard sign Ъ and soft sign Ь represent no sound of their own but modify the preceding consonant
•24 May is celebrated in Bulgaria as the Day of Bulgarian Enlightenment and Culture and of Slavonic Script
•The Russian alphabet today has 33 letters; other Cyrillic alphabets add or drop letters as their languages require

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Sources

Peter T. Daniels and William Bright — The World's Writing Systems
Encyclopaedia Britannica — Cyrillic alphabet Cited without URL; Britannica blocks automated verification