Numerous Cyrillic alphabets are based on the Cyrillic script. The early Cyrillic alphabet was developed in the 9th century AD and replaced the earlier Glagolitic script developed by the theologians Cyril and Methodius. It is the basis of alphabets used in various languages, past and present, 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. The creator is Saint Clement of Ohrid from the Preslav literary school in the First Bulgarian Empire.
Some of these are illustrated below; for others, and for more detail, see the links. Sounds are transcribed in the IPA. While these languages largely have phonemic orthographies, there are occasional exceptionsâÂÂfor example, Russian is pronounced in a number of words, an orthographic relic from when they were pronounced (e.g. õóþ yego 'him/his', is pronounced rather than ).
Spellings of names transliterated into the Roman alphabet may vary, especially ù (y/j/i), but also ó (gh/g/h) and ö (zh/j).
Unlike the Latin script, which is usually adapted to different languages by adding diacritical marks/supplementary glyphs (such as acutes and carons) to standard Roman letters, by assigning new phonetic values to existing letters (e.g. , whose original value in Latin was /k÷/, represents /g/ in Azerbaijani, /táÃÂð/ in Mandarin Chinese Pinyin, /q/ in a lot of other languages and /ÃÂ/ in some Bantu languages), or by the use of digraphs (such as ), the Cyrillic script is usually adapted by the creation of entirely new letter shapes. However, in some alphabets invented in the 19th century, such as Chuvash, umlauts and breves also were used.
Bulgarian and Bosnian Sephardim without Hebrew typefaces occasionally printed Judeo-Spanish in Cyrillic.
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 New Turkic Alphabet. All of the peoples of the former Soviet Union who had been using an Arabic or a different Asian script 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 (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, and were not affected by this change). The Abkhazian and Ossetian languages were switched to the Mkhedruli 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 either a Roman-based orthography or a return to a former script.
Cyrillic alphabets continue to be used in several Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Belarusian) and non-Slavic (Kazakh, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Gagauz, Mongolian) languages.
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.
Cyrillic alphabets used by Slavic languages can be divided into two categories:
The Bulgarian alphabet shows the following features:
The Cyrillic alphabet was originally developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 9th â 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School.
It has been used in Bulgaria (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 script overtook its use as a written script for the Bulgarian language. The Cyrillic alphabet was used in the then much bigger territory of Bulgaria (including most of today's Serbia), North Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania, Northern Greece (Macedonia region), Romania and Moldova, officially from 893. It was also transferred from Bulgaria and adopted by the East Slavic languages in Kievan Rus' and evolved into the Russian alphabet and the alphabets of many other Slavic (and later non-Slavic) languages. Later, some Slavs modified it and added/excluded letters from it to better suit the needs of their own language varieties.
South Slavic Cyrillic alphabets (with the exception of Bulgarian) are generally derived from Serbian Cyrillic. It, and by extension its descendants, differs from the East Slavic ones in that the alphabet has generally been simplified: Letters such as ÃÂ, ï, î, and é representing /j/, /ja/, /ju/, and /ÃÂ(ÃÂ)/ in Russian, respectively, have been removed. Instead, these are represented by the letter and digraphs , , and , respectively. Additionally, the letter ÃÂ, representing in Russian, is instead pronounced or , with being represented by . 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:
The Montenegrin alphabet differs from Serbian in the following ways:
The Macedonian alphabet differs from Serbian in the following ways:
ÃÂiro Truhelka claimed Serbo-Croatian language briefly used the Cyrillic script in areas with large Croatian or Bosnian speaking populations. There is a controversy in naming. Bosniak scholars call it Bosnian Script. Serb scholars call it Serbian script, as part of variant of Serbian Cyrillic and deem the term "bosanÃÂica" Anti-Serb Austro-Hungarian propaganda. Croat scholars call it Croatian Cyrillic
The Russian alphabet shows the following features:
Notes:
Before 1918, there were four extra letters in use: ÃÂà(replaced by ÃÂø), òó (äøÃÂð "Fita", replaced by äÃÂ), âã (ïÃÂà"Yat", replaced by ÃÂõ), and ôõ (øöøÃÂð "Izhitsa", replaced by ÃÂø); these were eliminated by reforms of Russian orthography.
The Belarusian alphabet shows the following features:
The Ukrainian alphabet shows the following features:
The Carpathian Rusyn language is spoken by the Carpatho-Rusyns in Carpathian Ruthenia, Slovakia, and Poland.
The Carpathian Rusyn alphabet differs from Ukrainian in that the letters ÃÂ, ë, and the hard sign (ê), from Russian, are also used, and the order is slightly different.
The Pannonian Rusyn language is spoken by the Pannonian Rusyns.
This alphabet uses all the letters of the Ukrainian alphabet except Dotted I (ÃÂ ÃÂ). Note that Pannonian Rusyn is a West Slavic language despite its name.
The Romanian language used the cyrillic script up to the 19th century (see Romanian Cyrillic alphabet).
The Moldovan language (an alternative name of the Romanian language in Bessarabia, Moldavian ASSR, Moldavian SSR and Moldova) used varieties of the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet in 1812âÂÂ1918, and the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet (derived from the Russian alphabet and standardised in the Soviet Union) in 1924âÂÂ1932 and 1938âÂÂ1989. Nowadays, this alphabet is still official in the unrecognized republic of Transnistria (see Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet).
Ladino uses the cyrillic script in occasional Bulgarian Sephardic publications.
Romani is written in Cyrillic in Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and the former USSR.
Kurds in the former Soviet Union use a Cyrillic alphabet:
The Ossetic language has officially used the Cyrillic script since 1937.
The Tajik alphabet is written using a Cyrillic-based alphabet.
Uralic languages using the Cyrillic script (currently or in the past) include:
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 ÃÂ.
Over the last century, the alphabet used to write Kildin Sámi 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.
The Komi-Permyak Cyrillic alphabet:
Meadow Mari Cyrillic alphabet:
Hill Mari Cyrillic alphabet
The Cyrillic script was used for the Bashkir language after the winter of 1938.
The Cyrillic alphabet is used for the Chuvash language since the late 19th century, with some changes in 1938.
The Cyrillic letters ÃÂñ, ÃÂó, ÃÂô, ÃÂÃÂ, ÃÂö, ÃÂ÷, ÃÂþ, äÃÂ, æÃÂ, éàand êàare not used in native Chuvash words, but only for Russian loans.
Kazakh can be alternatively written in the Latin alphabet. Latin is expected to entirely replace Cyrillic by the 2030s, alongside the modified Arabic alphabet (in the People's Republic of China, Iran and Afghanistan).
The Cyrillic letters ÃÂò, ÃÂÃÂ, æÃÂ, çÃÂ, êÃÂ, ìàand ÃÂàare not used in native Kazakh words, but only for Russian loans.
Kyrgyz has also been written in Latin and in Arabic.
Bold letters are used only in loanwords.
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 ÃÂÃÂ, æÃÂ, éàare not used in native Tatar words, but only for Russian loans.
Turkmen, written 1940âÂÂ1994 exclusively in Cyrillic, since 1994 officially in Roman, but in everyday communication Cyrillic is still used along with Roman script.
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.
In addition to the letters from the Russian alphabet, ÃÂâÂÂï, except for é and ë, the Uzbek Cyrillic alphabet includes ÃÂ, ÃÂ, àand ò at the end. They are distinct letters in the Uzbek Cyrillic alphabet and are sorted after ï as shown above.
Several Cyrillic alphabets have been used to write Yakut, but the current alphabet was adopted in 1939.
Letters in Bold are only used in Russian Loanwords.
Living Northwest Caucasian languages are generally written using Cyrillic alphabets.
Abaza is a Caucasian language, spoken by Abazins in the Karachay-Cherkessia Republic, Russia.
Abkhaz is a Caucasian language, spoken in the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia, Georgia.
Adyghe is a Caucasian language, spoken in the Republic of Adygea, Russia.
Kabardian is a Caucasian language, spoken in the Republics of Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia, Russia.
Northeast Caucasian languages are generally written using Cyrillic alphabets.
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 (ÃÂ), which gives voiceless occlusive consonants its particular ejective sound.
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.
The Mongolic languages include Khalkha (in Mongolia; Cyrillic is official since 1941, in practice from 1946), Buryat (around Lake Baikal; Cyrillic is used since the 1930s) and Kalmyk (northwest of the Caspian Sea; Cyrillic is used in various forms since the 1920-30s). Khalkha Mongolian is also written with the Mongol vertical alphabet, which was the official script before 1941. Since the beginning of the 1990s Mongolia has been making attempts to extend the rather limited use of Mongol script and the most recent National Plan for Mongol Script aims to bring its use to the same level as Cyrillic by 2025 and maintain a dual-script system (digraphia).
This table contains all the characters used.
úû is shown twice as it appears at two different locations in Buryat and Kalmyk
Long vowels are indicated with double letters. The Cyrillic letters ÃÂú, ÃÂÿ, äàand éàare not used in native Mongolian words, but only for Russian or other loans (ÃÂÿ may occur in native onomatopoeic words).
The Buryat (ñÃÂÃÂÃÂðô) Cyrillic script is similar to the Khalkha above, but ìàindicates palatalization as in Russian. Buryat does not use ÃÂò, ÃÂú, ÃÂÿ, äÃÂ, æÃÂ, çÃÂ, éàor êàin its native words (ÃÂÿ may occur in native onomatopoeic words).
The Kalmyk (àðûÃÂüó) Cyrillic script differs from Khalkha in some respects: there are additional letters (ÃÂÃÂ, ÃÂÃÂ, âã, úû), letters ÃÂÃÂ, îàand ïàappear only word-initially, long vowels are written double in the first syllable (ýééÃÂøý), but single in syllables after the first. Short vowels are omitted altogether in syllables after the first syllable (àðûÃÂüó = ). ÃÂö and ÃÂÿ are used in loanwords only (Russian, Tibetan, etc.), but ÃÂÿ may occur in native onomatopoeic words.
Since 1953.
Since 1936.
Since 1936.
Since late 1980s.
The letters ö ÷, àÃÂ, àÃÂ, ü ý are sometimes replaced by ÃÂü óü, ÃÂü úü, ÃÂü ýü, Ã¥ü àü or àÃÂ, àÃÂ, â ã, ò ó.
Cyrillic Letters: