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THE CYRILLIC ALPHABET
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Early Cyrillic Alphabet
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There are few facts available about the making of the Cyrillic alphabet in the 9th century. Two monks
from Salonika, Cyril and Methodius, are generally acknowledged as its originators. It is assumed that
the new alphabet was developed after a request in 862 from Prince Rostislav of Moravia, who wanted
a separate Slavonic alphabet to stem the influence of the Franks and Germans. The new alphabet
enabled the use of the written Bulgarian language in both administration and liturgy; and in 893 a
national council adopted Bulgarian as the official language for both the State and the Church.
St. Climent of Ohrid (†896), a disciple of Cyril and Methodius, established at the end of the 9th century
a Bulgarian school in Ohrid that included both theological and other subjects. During its first seven
years the school attracted more than 3000 students. St. Climent simplified the newly developed Slavic
alphabet and gave it the name "Cyrillic" after his master. The university in Sofia is named after Climent
Ohridski, who is buried in the St. Climent monastery in Ohrid. Another disciple of Cyril and Methodius,
St. Naoum (†910) of Moravia, established a school in Preslav that also taught Bulgarian based on the
new Slavic alphabet.
Cyrillic is one of two ancient Slavic alphabets that were invented, according to manuscripts, by St.
Cyril, a missionary who intended to convert Slavs to Christianity and decided to transcribe the Bible
into Slavic. Modern scientific research shows that Cyrillic was actually invented later than St. Cyril’s
other alphabet, Glagolitic, but still in the second half of the 9th century. The source for the Cyrillic
alphabet, which was formed in Bulgaria, is the Greek uncial alphabet. The letter composition of the
original Cyrillic script fitted the old form of the Bulgarian language.
Many symbols of the alphabet were added in vain, for there were no sounds for them in Slavic. The
Old Church Slavonic language, the first to use Cyrillic, also introduced many diacritics to it: stress
markers, aspiration markers etc.; though there were no aspiration markers at all in other Slavic
languages. In addition, many signs for nasal vowels were invented for Slavic languages.
In the 10th and 11th centuries Cyrillic was in wide use in all countries populated by those Slavs who
accepted Christianity - Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, and Moravia. After 988, when Kiev (in present day
Ukraine) also took up Christianity, Cyrillic became the first Russian alphabet. The oldest texts and
inscriptions in Cyrillic date from 10th century Bulgaria, 11th century Russia, and 12th century Bosnia
and Serbia. As the languages evolved, the number of letters, the shape of them, and even the
pronunciation also evolved. The only language that preserves Cyrillic in its initial form is Old Church
Slavonic, the language of Orthodox churches in several East European countries. The weakening
influence of the Byzantine Empire gave way to Roman letters replacing Cyrillic in Europe: since the
16th century Czech and Polish kingdoms and the Lithuanian principality converted to the Roman
alphabet; and in the 17th century Romania followed. But in temples of those countries Cyrillic was
used for two more centuries.
The history of the Bulgarian language is divided into three periods: old, middle, and modern. The Old
Bulgarian Period lasted from the 9th century through the 11th century; and the texts from this period
make up the bulk of the Old Church Slavonic texts, their colloquial, popular variant. The Middle
Bulgarian Period lasted from the 12th century through the 14th century. The Modern Bulgarian Period
started in the 15th century, but the modern literary language, which is quite different from Old
Bulgarian, formed only during the 19th century. Modern Bulgarian's two major dialect groups are the
eastern and western dialects, each subdivided into north and south varieties. The modern literary
language is based primarily on the northeastern dialects.
Slavic tribes came to modern Bulgaria together with Turk nomads who left their name "Bulgars," but
lost their language in favor of Slavic. Nowadays, together with the closely related Macedonian
language, Bulgarian forms the eastern group of the South Slavic branch of the Slavic languages.
Bulgarian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, as do the Russian, Serbian, and Macedonian languages.
Today Cyrillic is not only used by the primarily Slavic peoples of Bulgaria, Russia, Yugoslavia,
Macedonia, Bosnia, Belarus, and Ukraine, but also by the Asiatic populations of Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Mongolia, for it is more easily learned than Arabic or Chinese symbols. In
earlier times Cyrillic letters were used in Azerbaijan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan as well. Languages
that use the script today include: Slavic (Old Church Slavonic, Bulgarian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian,
Ukrainian, Belorussian, and Macedonian), Iranian (Ossetic and Tati), non-Indo-European (Kazakh,
Uzbek, Kirghiz, Mongolian, and hundreds of languages of Russia).
The Cyrillic alphabet appears difficult to get the hang of at first, but in the case of Bulgarian it is almost
always phonetic, making it much simpler to learn than our own! The words in the "Essential Bulgarian"
section are a direct transliteration from the Cyrillic, using the scheme shown below. In addition to the
pronunciation advice below, when a stand-alone 'y (й)' is combined with a vowel, other sounds are
produced: ey (ей) is more like the sound "a" - for example in the word say, iy is like the sound "e", for
example in bee, and ay is like the sound "i", for example in light.
Finally, when a word ends in a 'hard' vowel, it is changed into a 'soft' vowel. B --> P, D --> T, and G --> K.
The "cursive" or italic writing is closer to actual Bulgarian handwriting, although in printed text and on
modern signs you will usually see only the capitals, and sometimes the other (non-italic) small letters
shown. The cursive letters (lower-case only) are often very different from the normal letters -
especially confusing is the small 't' (т), which is easily confused with a lower case 'm' (м). Sometimes
they alter more than is shown on the site - for example, often the letter "l" (л) is often very close to
triangular, losing the flat top. Also, a capital D (Д) is frequently shown simply as a triangle.
Bulgarian has several traits that make it unique (together with Macedonian) among the Slavic
languages. Due to strong Greek language influence it has a definite article that comes after the noun
(as do the Scandinavian and Germanic languages) - for example, in Bulgarian: zhena (woman) and
zhenata (that woman, the woman). Bulgarian lost the case system that existed in Common Slavic, the
language from which all Slavic languages descended. In Bulgarian languages, as in English,
prepositions have replaced cases as a way of showing the grammatical relationships between
different parts of a sentence-for example, in Bulgarian: knigata za zhenata (the book about the woman)
and dadoh knigata na zhenata (I gave the book to the woman). All that happened because of longtime
Greek influence. But the language, however, have preserved the Common Slavic vocative form.
Bulgarian verbs have a large variety of tenses, including present, future, future perfect, future in the
past, perfect, pluperfect, imperfect, and aorist, in addition to an imperative, a verbal adverb, and
various participles. The infinitive form of the verb has been lost. The language has a special set of
verb forms that indicate that an event has not been witnessed or is not vouched for - for example:
Ivan napravi tova (Ivan did that, and I witnessed it or vouch for the truth of the statement) and Ivan
napravil tova (Ivan is alleged to have done that, but I did not witness the act or do not want to vouch
for the truthfulness of the statement).
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Old Church Slavic
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Today's Bulgarian Alphabet
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