Cyrillic script facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Cyrillic script
1850s Romanian text (Lord's Prayer), written with the Cyrillic script
Type	Alphabet
Spoken languages	See Languages using Cyrillic
Time period	Earliest variants exist c. 893 – c. 940
Parent systems	Egyptian hieroglyphs Proto-Sinaitic Phoenician Greek script augmented by Glagolitic Early Cyrillic script Cyrillic script
Child systems	Old Permic script
Sister systems	Armenian Coptic Latin
Unicode range	U+0400–U+04FF Cyrillic U+0500–U+052F Cyrillic Supplement U+2DE0–U+2DFF Cyrillic Extended-A U+A640–U+A69F Cyrillic Extended-B U+1C80–U+1C8F Cyrillic Extended-C U+1E030–U+1E08F Cyrillic Extended-D
ISO 15924	Cyrl
Names: Belarusian: кірыліца, Bulgarian: кирилица [ˈkirilit͡sɐ], Macedonian: кирилица Macedonian pronunciation: [[Help:IPA/Macedonian|kiˈrilit͡sa]], Russian: кириллица [kʲɪˈrʲilʲɪtsə], Serbian: ћирилица Serbo-Croatian pronunciation: [[en:Wikipedia:IPA for Serbo-Croatian|t͡ɕiˈrilit͡sɐ]], Ukrainian: кириллиця [keˈrɪɫet͡sʲɐ]
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

The Cyrillic script is a writing system used for many languages across Europe and Asia. You might know it best from the Russian alphabet. It's the official alphabet in several countries, including Russia, Ukraine, and Bulgaria. It's also used for many other languages, like Turkic, Mongolic, and Iranian languages.

As of 2019, about 250 million people use Cyrillic as their main alphabet. Russia alone accounts for about half of these users. When Bulgaria joined the European Union in 2007, Cyrillic became the third official alphabet of the EU, joining the Latin and Greek alphabets.

The Early Cyrillic alphabet was created in the 9th century AD in the First Bulgarian Empire. It was likely developed by students of Saints Cyril and Methodius. These two Byzantine brothers had earlier created another alphabet called Glagolitic script. The Cyrillic script is named in honor of Saint Cyril.

The Story of Cyrillic

How the Alphabet Got Its Name

The Cyrillic script was developed and made popular by the followers of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Bulgaria. It wasn't created by Cyril and Methodius themselves. So, its name is a way to honor them, not to say they were the direct authors.

Where Did Cyrillic Come From?

A 14th-century document from the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana linking the Cyrillic script to Saint Cyril and Methodius.

A cave monastery in Bulgaria where the oldest Cyrillic writing, from 921, was found.

The Cyrillic script was created in the First Bulgarian Empire. Experts believe it was developed at the Preslav Literary School. This school was a very important center for writing and culture in the First Bulgarian Empire. It was also important for all Slavs, a group of people who speak Slavic languages.

Scholars at Preslav used the Greek uncial script (an old style of Greek writing) as a base. They added letters from the older Glagolitic alphabet for sounds not found in Greek. This made it suitable for Slavic languages. Important Bulgarian writers and scholars worked at this school, helping to spread the new script.

How Cyrillic Spread

A page from the first Old Slavonic textbook, printed in 1574. It shows the Cyrillic alphabet.

Cyrillic quickly spread to other Slavic people. It was also adopted by non-Slavic people like the Romanians. The oldest known Cyrillic writings have been found in the Preslav area of Bulgaria, dating back to 921 AD.

This new alphabet became the foundation for writing in many languages in Eastern Europe, especially those connected to the Eastern Orthodox Church. This included Slavic languages and even non-Slavic ones like Romanian (until the 1860s). For many centuries, Catholic and Muslim Slavs also used Cyrillic.

Cyrillic and Glagolitic were used for the Church Slavonic language, especially its older form. By the 12th century, Cyrillic became much more common than Glagolitic. The writings created in Old Church Slavonic spread north from Bulgaria. They became a common language for communication in the Balkans and Eastern Europe.

A special type of Cyrillic, called Bosnian Cyrillic (or Bosančica), was used in medieval Bosnia. The earliest examples of this script might be from the 10th or 11th century. Bosnian Cyrillic was used until the 18th century, and even sometimes in the 20th century.

Changes Over Time

In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Tarnovo Literary School in Bulgaria helped shape Cyrillic. This influenced writing in Russia, Serbia, and other regions.

A big change happened in Russia between 1708 and 1710. Peter the Great, the Russian Tsar, reformed the Cyrillic script. He had visited Western Europe and wanted Russian letters to look more like Latin letters. He got rid of some old letters and added new ones. Letters also started to have both uppercase and lowercase forms, just like in Latin. This new style was called the Civil script.

Today, many languages in the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and northern Eurasia use Cyrillic alphabets. Each language has adapted the script to fit its own sounds and needs. For example, Vuk Stefanović Karadžić updated the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet. He removed letters that were no longer used in spoken Serbian and added new ones that were unique to Serbian.

Cyrillic Letters Today

An example of Cyrillic script from a manuscript called "Bdinski Zbornik," written in 1360.

The Cyrillic script spread across East Slavic and some South Slavic areas. It was adapted to write local languages like Old East Slavic. This led to many different Cyrillic alphabets, each with its own set of letters.

In old manuscripts, there was no difference between capital and small letters. Over time, this changed.

Numbers and Letters

In the past, Cyrillic letters also had number values. These values were based on their Greek ancestors, not on their order in the Cyrillic alphabet.

Cyrillic Letters and Computer Fonts

Modern Cyrillic letters look a lot like modern Latin letters. This is partly because of changes made by Peter the Great. Also, many Cyrillic computer fonts were designed based on Latin fonts.

In Cyrillic, lowercase letters often look like smaller versions of their capital letters. However, some letters, like 'а', 'е', 'і', 'ј', 'р', and 'у', have adopted shapes similar to Latin lowercase letters.

When you see Cyrillic text, you might notice that the italic (slanted) forms of some letters look very different from their regular (upright) forms. This is similar to how some Latin letters change when italicized.

Languages Using Cyrillic

Cyrillic is the main alphabet for many languages. Here are some examples:

Slavic languages:

Non-Slavic languages in Russia:

Non-Slavic languages in other countries:

Cyrillic vs. Latin Script

The Cyrillic Script Monument in Antarctica, near the Bulgarian base.

Many languages that use Cyrillic have also been written using the Latin alphabet. Examples include Azerbaijani, Uzbek, Serbian, and Romanian.

After the Soviet Union broke apart in 1991, some countries that were part of it officially switched from Cyrillic to Latin. This change is complete in most of Moldova, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan. Uzbekistan still uses both alphabets. Kazakhstan is also officially changing from Cyrillic to Latin, a process expected to finish by 2025.

The Russian government has said that Cyrillic must be used for all public communications in all parts of Russia. This rule helps keep the country connected. For some language speakers, this law has been a topic of discussion. For example, some Chechen people prefer to use a Latin script.

Countries where Cyrillic is widely used.

Cyrillic Script in Europe.

Standard Serbian uses both Cyrillic and Latin scripts. While Cyrillic is officially used by the government in Serbia, both alphabets are used in daily life. Latin is often used more in less formal situations.

Converting Between Alphabets

Romanization

Romanization is the process of writing Cyrillic text using Latin letters. There are different ways to do this. Some systems focus on showing the exact spelling, while others try to show how the words are pronounced.

Some common systems for converting Cyrillic to Latin include:

• Scientific transliteration: Used by language experts.
• United Nations recommendations: These are widely used around the world.
• ISO 9: A standard from the International Organization for Standardization.

Cyrillization

The opposite of romanization is Cyrillization. This is when you write words or names from other writing systems using Cyrillic letters.

Images for kids

• 

  1850s Romanian text (Lord's Prayer), written with the Cyrillic script