Cyrillic alphabet Facts for Kids

Cyrillic alphabet

	This article contains Cyrillic text. Without the correct software, you may see question marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Cyrillic letters.

The Cyrillic alphabet is a native Slavic alphabet. Now it is used to write Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Rusyn, Bulgarian, Macedonian and for most South Slavic languages. It was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century and it was required by the Soviet Union for many non-Slavic languages in the Caucasus, Siberia, Central Asia and in Northern Russia to be written in Cyrillic.

History

Old Church Slavonic was the original language of the Slavic people. Old Church Slavonic was used for Russian Orthodox Church. In the 9th century, two monks named St. Cyril and Methodius were missionaries in Eastern Europe who preached to the Slavic people by inventing Glagolitic, which was early Cyrillic.

John 4.16 in Old Church Slavonic

During the 18th century, Nikolay Karamzin added the Э, Й and Ё letters.

In 1708, Peter the Great added lowercase forms to the letters

In 1991, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan decided to drop the Cyrillic script and adopt the Latin script.

Example of the Cyrillic script. Excerpt from the manuscript "Bdinski Zbornik". Written in 1360.
Cyrillic Script Monument in Antarctica
View of the cave monastery near the village of Krepcha, Opaka Municipality in Bulgaria. Here is found the oldest Cyrillic inscription, dated 921.
A page from Азбука (Букварь) (ABC (Reader)), the first Russian language textbook, printed by Ivan Fyodorov in 1574. This page features the Cyrillic alphabet.
A page from the Church Slavonic Grammar of Meletius Smotrytsky (1619)