Cyrillic alphabet

The Cyrillic alphabet is an alphabet used to write six natural Slavic languages (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Serbian, Macedonian, and Bulgarian) and many other languages of the former Soviet Union, Asia and Eastern Europe.

Table of Cyrillic letters

(Russian letters bolded; old letters italics)

Languages using Cyrillic

The following languages have used Cyrillic at one time or another:

• Slavic languages
  • Russian
  • Ukrainian
  • Belarusian
  • Serbian
  • Macedonian
  • Bulgarian

• Turkic languages
  • Azeri (1939-91)
  • Tatar
  • Turkmen (1940-94)
  • Uzbek (1940-98)
  • Kyrgyz
  • Kazakh and Gagauz (since 1957)

• Indo-Iranian languages
  • Ossetic
  • Tajik

• Romance languages
  • Romanian (up to 19th century and in Moldova between 1940-89 (see Moldavian))

• Finno-Ugric languages
  • Udmurt
  • Kildin Saami
  • Mordvin

• Other languages
  • Abaza
  • Abkhaz
  • Adygei
  • Aisor
  • Altai
  • Avar
  • Balkar
  • Bashkir
  • Buryat
  • Chechen (1940-1991)
  • Chuvash
  • Chukchi
  • Dargwa
  • Dungan
  • Evenks
  • Kabardian
  • Kalmyk
  • Karachay
  • Karakalpak
  • Karelian
  • Khakas
  • Khants
  • Komi
  • Koryak
  • Kumyk
  • Kurdish (living in former USSR)
  • Lak
  • Lezghian
  • Mansi
  • Mari
  • Mongolian
  • Nanai
  • Nenets
  • Nogai
  • Oriat
  • Romany (in Serbia and Montenegro and former USSR)
  • Selkup
  • Tabasaran
  • Tat
  • Tuva
  • Udekhe (Udege) and Yakut languages)

• Constructed languages
  • Slovio
  • Lingua Franca Nova

Cyrillic alphabet for Russian

The plan of the alphabet is derived from the Early Cyrillic alphabet, itself a derivative of the Glagolitic alphabet, a 9th century uncial cursive usually credited to two brothers, Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius. But the shapes of the glyphs in the Cyrillic alphabet are mainly Greek letters, although some letters retain their Glagolitic forms. Cyril's contributions to the Glagolitic alphabet and hence to the Cyrillic alphabet are still recognised, as the latter is named after him.

As used in various languages

Sounds are indicated using SAMPA. These are only approximate indicators. While these languages by and large have a phonemic orthography, there are occasional exceptions -- most notably Russian ЕГО (meaning him/his), which is pronounced /jevO/ instead of /jegO/.

Note that spellings of names may vary, especially Y/J/I but also GH/G/H and ZH/J.)

Slavic languages

Russian

Notes on the Hard Sign and Soft Sign:

1. When a iotated vowel (vowel whose sound begins with /j/) follows a consonant, the consonant will become palatalised (the /j/ sound will mix with the consonant), and the vowel's /j/ sound will not be heard independently. The Hard Sign will indicate that this does not happen, and the /j/ sound will appear only in front of the vowel. The Soft Sign will indicate the consonant should be palatised, but the vowel's /j/ sound will not mix with the palatalization of the consonant. The Soft Sign will also indicate that a consonant before another consonant or at the end of a word is palatised. Examples: та - ta; тя - t^ja; тья - t^jja; тъя - tja; т - t; ть - t^j.
2. 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, still preserved in Bulgarian. See the notes for Bulgarian.

Historical letters:

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).

Ukrainian

Like Russian except:

• Г is a voiced fricative consonant and is called "Ge". Between Ge and De is the letter Ghe (Ґ, ґ), pronounced /g/, i.e., like a Russian Г. It looks like Ge but has an "upturn" pointing up from the right side of the top bar. (This letter was not officially used in the Soviet Union, so it doesn't appear in many Cyrillic fonts.)
• Ye is pronounced /E/ and is called "E". Yo does not appear. Between E and Zhe is the letter Ye (Є, є), pronounced /jE/, which looks like the Russian letter E, only backwards. The Russian letter E does not appear.
• I is pronounced /1/ and is called "Y". Accordingly, Short I is called "Short Y". Between Y and Short Y appear the letter I (І, і), pronounced /i/, which looks like the Latin letter I, and the letter Yi (Ї, ї), pronounced /ji/, which looks like I with a diaeresis (the same two dots that appear in the Russian letter Yo) above it.
• Yery does not appear.
• The Hard Sign is not used; instead, its purpose is served by an apostrophe.

Belarusian

Like Russian except:

• I looks like the Latin letter I (І, і). (But Short I still looks the same as in Russian!)
• Between U and Ef is the letter Short U (Ў, ў), which looks like U (У) with a breve and pronounced /w/, or like the "u" part in diphthongs in "now", "low".
• Shcha does not appear.
• The Hard Sign is not used. Its purpose (removing of palatalization) is served by an apostrophe.
• Г represents a voiced fricative consonant

Bulgarian

Like Russian except:

• Ye is pronounced /E/ and is called "E".
• Yo does not appear.
• The Russian letter E does not appear.
• Shcha is pronounced /St/ and is called "Shta".
• The Hard Sign is used for a vowel, /@/ (Schwa).
• Yery does not appear.

Modern Serbian since 19th century

Like Russian except:

• Ye is pronounced /E/ and is called "E". Yo does not appear. The Russian letter E does not appear.
• Between De and E is the letter Gje (Ђ, ђ), which is pronounced /d^j/, and looks like Tjerv, except that the loop of the H curls farther and dips downwards.
• Short I does not appear. Between I and Ka is the letter Ej (Ј, ј), pronounced /j/, which looks like the Latin letter J.
• Between El and Em is the letter Elj (Љ, љ), pronounced /l^j/, which looks like El and the Soft Sign smashed together.
• Between En and O is the letter Enj (Њ, њ), pronounced /n^j/, which looks like En and the Soft Sign smashed together.
• Between Te and U is the letter Tjerv (Ћ, ћ), which is pronounced /t^j/ and looks like a lowercase Latin letter H with a bar. On the uppercase letter, the bar appears at the top; on the lowercase letter, the bar crosses the top half of the vertical line.
• Between Che and Sha is the letter Dzhe (Џ, џ), pronounced /dZ/, which looks like Tse but with the downturn moved from the right side of the bottom bar to the middle of the bottom bar.
• Sha is the last letter; the rest do not appear.

Macedonian

Like Serbian except:

• Between Ze and I is the letter Dze (Ѕ, ѕ), pronounced /dz/, which looks like the Latin letter S.
• Djerv is replaced by Gje (Ѓ, ѓ), pronounced /g^j/, which looks like Ghe with an acute accent (').
• Tjerv is replaced by Kja (Ќ, ќ), pronounced /k^j/, which looks like Ka with an acute accent (').

Non-Slavic languages

These alphabets are generally modelled after Russian, but often bear striking differences, particularly when adapted for Caucasian languages. In Central Asia, the use of Cyrillic to represent local languages has often been a politically controversial issue after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as it evokes the era of Soviet rule. An number of languages have switched from Cyrillic to other orthographies.

Kazakh

Cyrillic in Unicode

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. The characters in the range U+0460 — U+0489 are historic letters, not used now. The characters in the range U+048A — U+052F are additional letters for various languages that are written with Cyrillic script.

Unicode does not include accented Cyrillic letters, but they can be composed by adding U+0301 ("combining acute accent") after the accented vowel (e.g. ы́ э́ ю́ я́). Some languages (e.g. modern Church Slavonic) still are not fully supported.

Related articles

• Cyrillization
• Iotation
• palochka
• Volapuk encoding

External links

• Cyrillic alphabet at omniglot.com
• Unicode Code Charts "Cyrillic" (PDF)
• Unicode Code Charts "Cyrillic Supplement" (PDF)
• Information on Cyrillic transliteration and the handwritten script form of Cyrillic
• Generator for Russian typographical filler text