The
Cyrillic alphabet (pronounced
/sɪˈrɪlɪk/ also called
azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is actually a family of
alphabets, subsets of which are used by a wide variety of
Slavic languages—
Belarusian,
Bulgarian,
Macedonian,
Russian,
Rusyn,
Serbian, and
Ukrainian—as well as
many other languages of the former
Soviet Union,
Asia and
Eastern Europe. It has also been used for other languages in the past. Not all letters in the Cyrillic alphabet are used in every language with which it is written.
The alphabet has official status with many organisations, and with the
accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on
January 1,
2007, Cyrillic also became the third official alphabet of the
EU.
History The development of Cyrillic
typography passed directly from the
medieval stage to the late
Baroque, without a
Renaissance phase as in
Western Europe. Late Medieval Cyrillic letters (still found on many
icon inscriptions even today) show a marked tendency to be very tall and narrow; strokes are often shared between adjacent letters.
Peter the Great, Czar of Russia, mandated the use of westernized letter forms in the early eighteenth century; over time, these were largely adopted in the other languages that use the alphabet. Thus, unlike modern Greek fonts that retained their own set of design principles (such as the placement of
serifs, the shapes of stroke ends, and stroke-thickness rules), modern Cyrillic fonts are much the same as modern Latin fonts of the same font family. The development of some Cyrillic computer typefaces from Latin ones has also contributed to the visual Latinization of Cyrillic type.
Cyrillic
uppercase and
lowercase letter-forms are not as differentiated as in Latin typography. Upright Cyrillic lowercase letters are essentially
small capitals (with the few exceptions: "а", "е", "p", "y" adopted Western lowercase shapes, lowercase "ф" is typically designed under the influence of "p", lowercase "Б" is "б", one of traditional hand-written forms), although a good-quality Cyrillic typeface will still include separate small caps glyphs.
Cyrillic fonts, as well as Latin ones, have
Roman and
Italic variants (almost all modern fonts include parallel sets of Latin and Cyrillic letters, where many glyphs, uppercase as well as lowercase, are simply shared by both). The traditional terminology of Cyrillic fonts refers to the Roman type as
upright font (Russian:
pryamoy shrift) and to the Italic as
cursive (
kursivniy shrift or simply
kursiv); it follows the German tradition (Kursiv) and does not mean actual
cursive, i.e.
hand-written font (
rukopisniy shrift). Italic and hand-written shapes of many letters (typically lowercase; uppercase only for hand-written or stylish types) are very different from the upright shapes. As in Latin typography, a sans-serif face may have a mechanically-sloped oblique font (
naklonniy) instead of italic. Bold fonts are called
semi-bold (
poluzhirniy): "fully" bold shapes are out of usage since the beginning of the 20th century. Bold italic (bold slanted) combination exists not for every font family.
In Serbian and Macedonian, some italic and cursive letters are different from those used in other languages. These letter shapes are often used in upright fonts as well, especially for advertisings, road signs, inscriptions, posters and the like, less so in newspapers or books.
The following table shows the differences between the upright and cursive Cyrillic letters as used in Russian. Cursive glyphs that are bound to confuse beginners (either because of an entirely different look, or because of being a
false friend with an entirely different Latin character) are highlighted.
Letter-forms and typography Sounds are indicated using
IPA. These are only approximate indicators. While these languages by and large have
phonemic orthographies, there are occasional exceptions—for example, Russian его (
yego, 'him/his'), which is pronounced
[jɪˈvo] instead of
[jɪˈgo].
Note that transliterated spellings of names may vary, especially
y/
j/
i, but also
gh/
g/
h and
zh/
j.
See also a more complete list of
languages using Cyrillic.
As used in various languages The following table lists Cyrillic letters which are used in most national versions of the Cyrillic alphabet. Exceptions and additions for particular languages are noted below.
The
soft sign ь is not a letter representing a sound, but modifies the sound of the preceding letter, indicating
palatalisation ("softening"), also separates the consonant and the following vowel. Sometimes does not have phonetical meaning, just orthographical (Russian туш,
tush /tuʃ/ = 'flourish after a toast', тушь,
tushʹ /tuʃ/ = 'india ink'). In some languages, a
hard sign ъ or apostrophe
' just separates consonant and the following vowel (бя /bʲa/, бья /bʲja/, бъя = б'я /bja/).
Common letters Slavic languages Main article: Belarusian alphabet Belarusian Further information: Bosnian language The Bosnian language uses both Latin and Cyrillic alphabets but Cyrillic is seldom if ever used in today's practice. There was also a
Bosnian Cyrillic script (
Bosančica) used in the Middle Ages, along with other scripts, although its connection with the Bosnian language, which was only standardised in the 1990s and whose status as a language is still debated, is tenuous at best. The modern Cyrillic used to write the language is the
Serbian variant.
Bosnian Further information: Bulgarian language The
Bulgarian alphabet features:
Тhe Bulgarian names for the consonants are
[bə],
[kə],
[lə] etc. with stressed
schwa instead of
[be],
[ka],
[el] etc.
(Е) represents
/ɛ/ and is called "е"
[e].
(Щ) represents
/ʃt/ and is called "щъ"
[ʃtə].
(Ъ) represents the
schwa /ə/, and is called "ер голям"
[ˈer goˈlʲam] ('big er').
Bulgarian Main article: Macedonian alphabet Macedonian Main article: Russian alphabet Russian Further information: Rusyn language The
Rusyn language is spoken by the
Lemko Rusyns in
Transcarpathian Ukraine, Slovakia, and Poland, and the
Pannonian Rusyns in Serbia.
*Letters absent from Pannonian Rusyn alphabet.
Rusyn Main article: Serbian Cyrillic alphabet Serbian Main article: Ukrainian alphabet Ukrainian These alphabets are generally modelled after Russian, but often bear striking differences, particularly when adapted for
Caucasian languages. The first few of them were generated by Orthodox missionaries for the Finnic and Turkic peoples of
Idel-Ural (
Mari,
Udmurt,
Mordva,
Chuvash,
Kerashen Tatars) in
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 alphabets were switched to the
Uniform Turkic Alphabet. All of the peoples of the former Soviet Union who had been using an Arabic or other Asian script (
Mongolian script, etc.) also adopted Cyrillic alphabets, and during the
Great Purge in late 1930s, all of the Roman‐based alphabets of the peoples of the Soviet Union were switched over to Cyrillic as well (the Baltic Republics were annexed later, and weren't affected by this change). The Abkhazian alphabet was switched to
Georgian script, but after the death of
Stalin, Abkhaz 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 represent local languages has often been a politically controversial issue since the collapse of the
Soviet Union, as it evokes the era of Soviet rule (see
Russification). Some of Russia's languages have also tried to drop Cyrillic, but the move was halted under Russian law (see
Tatar alphabet). A number of languages have switched from Cyrillic to other orthographies—either Roman‐based or returning to a former script.
Unlike the Roman alphabet, which is usually adapted to different languages by using additions to existing letters such as accents, umlauts, tildes and cedillas, the Cyrillic alphabet is usually adapted by the creation of entirely new letter shapes. In some alphabets invented in the nineteenth century, such as
Mari,
Udmurt and
Chuvash,
umlauts and
breves also were used.
Bulgarian and
Bosnian Sephardim lacking
Hebrew typefaces occasionally printed
Judeo-Spanish in Cyrillic.
Non-Slavic languages Iranian languages Further information: Ossetic language The
Ossetic language has officially used the Cyrillic alphabet since 1937.
Ossetian Main article: Tajik alphabet Tajik Main article: Moldovan alphabet Moldovan The
Mongolic languages include
Khalkha (in
Mongolia),
Buryat (around
Lake Baikal) and
Kalmyk (northwest of the
Caspian Sea). Khalkha Mongolian is also written with the
Mongol vertical alphabet.
Mongolian This table contains all the characters used.
Һһ is shown twice as it appears at two different location in Buryat and Kalmyk Overview The Cyrillic letters Кк, Фф and Щщ are not used in native Mongolian words, but only for Russian loans.
В в =
/w/ Е е =
/jɛ/,
/jœ/ Ё ё =
/jo/ Ж ж =
/ʤ/ З з =
/ʣ/ Н н =
/n-/,
/-ŋ/ Ө ө =
/œ/ Ү ү =
/y/ Ы ы =
/iː/ (after a hard consonant)
Ь ь =
/ĭ/ (extra short)
Ю ю =
/ju/,
/jy/ Khalkha The
Buryat (буряад) Cyrillic alphabet is similar to the Khalkha above, but Ьь indicates palatalization as in Russian. Buryat does not use Вв, Кк, Фф, Цц, Чч, Щщ or Ъъ in its native words.
Е е =
/jɛ/,
/jœ/ Ё ё =
/jo/ Ж ж =
/ʤ/ Н н =
/n-/,
/-ŋ/ Ө ө =
/œ/ Ү ү =
/y/ Һ һ =
/h/ Ы ы =
/ei/,
/iː/ Ю ю =
/ju/,
/jy/ Buryat The
Kalmyk (хальмг) Cyrillic alphabet is similar to the Khalkha, but the letters Ээ, Юю and Яя appear only word-initially. In Kalmyk, long vowels are written double in the first syllable (нөөрин), but single in syllables after the first. Short vowels are omitted altogether in syllables after the first syllable (хальмг =
/xaʎmag/).
Ә ә =
/æ/ В в =
/w/ Һ һ =
/ɣ/ Е е =
/ɛ/,
/jɛ-/ Җ җ =
/ʤ/ Ң ң =
/ŋ/ Ө ө =
/œ/ Ү ү =
/y/ Kalmyk Living
Northwest Caucasian languages are generally written using adaptations of the Cyrillic alphabet.
Northwest Caucasian languages Main article: Abkhaz alphabet Abkhaz Turkic languages Main article: Azerbaijani alphabet Azerbaijani The Cyrillic alphabet was used for the
Bashkir language after the winter of
1938.
Bashkir The Cyrillic alphabet is used for the
Chuvash language since the late 19th century, with some changes in 1938.
Chuvash Kazakh is also written with the Latin alphabet (in
Turkey, but not in
Kazakhstan), and modified
Arabic alphabet (in the
People's Republic of China,
Iran and
Afghanistan).
The Cyrillic letters Вв, Ёё, Цц, Чч, Щщ, Ъъ, Ьь and Ээ are not used in native Kazakh words, but only for Russian loans.
Ә ә =
/æ/ Ғ ғ =
/ʁ/ (
voiced uvular fricative)
Қ қ =
/q/ (
voiceless uvular plosive)
Ң ң =
/ŋ/ Ө ө =
/œ/ У у =
/uw/,
/yw/,
/w/ Ұ ұ =
/u/ Ү ү =
/y/ Һ һ =
/h/ İ і =
/i/ Kazakh Kyrgyz has also been written in Latin and in Arabic.
Ң ң =
/ŋ/ (
velar nasal)
Ү ү =
/y/ (
close front rounded vowel)
Ө ө =
/œ/ (
open-mid front rounded vowel)
Kyrgyz Main article: Tatar alphabet Tatar The Cyrillic alphabet is still used most often for the
Uzbek language, although the government has adopted a version of the Latin alphabet to replace it. The deadline for making this transition has however been repeatedly changed. The latest deadline was supposed to be 2005, but was shifted once again a few more years. Some scholars are not convinced that the transition will be made at all.
В в =
/w/ Ж ж =
/ʤ/ Ф ф =
/ɸ/ Х х =
/χ/ Ъ ъ =
/ʔ/ Ў ў =
/ø/ Қ қ =
/q/ Ғ ғ =
/ʁ/ Ҳ ҳ =
/h/ Uzbek The first alphabet partly derived from Cyrillic is
Abur, applied to the
Komi language. Other writing systems derived from Cyrillic were applied to Caucasian languages and the
Molodtsov alphabet for
Komi language.
Derived alphabets Latin alphabets There are various systems for
romanization of Cyrillic text, including
transliteration to convey Cyrillic spelling in
Latin characters, and
transcription to convey
pronunciation.
Standard Cyrillic-to-Latin transliteration systems include:
See also
romanization of Belarusian,
Bulgarian,
Kyrgyz,
Russian, and
Ukrainian.
Scientific transliteration, used in linguistics, is based on the Latin
Croatian alphabet.
The
Working Group on Romanization Systems of the
United Nations recommends different systems for specific languages. These are the most commonly used around the world.
ISO 9:1995, from the International Organization for Standardization.
American Library Association and Library of Congress Romanization tables for Slavic alphabets (
ALA-LC Romanization), used in North American libraries.
BGN/PCGN romanization (1947), United States Board on Geographic Names & Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use).
GOST 16876, a now defunct Soviet transliteration standard. Replaced by GOST 7.79, which is
ISO 9 equivalent.
Volapuk encoding, an informal rendering of Cyrillic text over Latin-alphabet ASCII.
Romanization Representing other writing systems with Cyrillic letters is called
Cyrillization.
Cyrillization Further information: Cyrillic characters in Unicode In
Unicode, the Cyrillic block extends from U+0400 to U+052F. The characters in the range U+0400 to U+045F are basically the characters from
ISO 8859-5 moved upward by 864 positions. The characters in the range U+0460 to U+0489 are historic letters, not used now. The characters in the range U+048A to 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
combined by adding U+0301 ("combining acute accent") after the accented vowel (e.g., ы́ э́ ю́ я́). Some languages, including modern
Church Slavonic, are still not fully supported.
Punctuation for Cyrillic text is similar to that used in European Latin-alphabet languages.
Other
character encoding systems for Cyrillic:
CP866 – 8-bit Cyrillic character encoding established by
Microsoft for use in
MS-DOS also known as GOST-alternative
ISO/IEC 8859-5 – 8-bit Cyrillic character encoding established by
International Organization for Standardization KOI8-R – 8-bit native Russian character encoding
KOI8-U – KOI8-R with addition of Ukrainian letters
MIK – 8-bit native Bulgarian character encoding for use in
DOS Windows-1251 – 8-bit Cyrillic character encoding established by Microsoft for use in
Microsoft Windows. Former standard encoding in
GNU/Linux for Belarusian and Bulgarian, but currently displaced by
UTF-8.
GOST-main GB 2312 - Principally simplified Chinese encodings, but there are also basic 33 Russian Cyrillic letters (in upper- and lower-case).
JIS and
Shift JIS - Principally Japanese encodings, but there are also basic 33 Russian Cyrillic letters (in upper- and lower-case).
Computer encoding Each language has its own standard
keyboard layout, adopted from
typewriters. With the flexibility of computer input methods, there are also transliterating or
homophonic keyboard layouts made for typists who are more familiar with other layouts, like the common English
qwerty keyboard. When practical Cyrillic keyboard layouts or fonts are not available, computer users sometimes use transliteration or look-alike "
volapuk" encoding to type languages which are normally written with the Cyrillic alphabet.
See
Keyboard layouts for non-Roman alphabetic scripts.
Notes Bringhurst, Robert (2002).
The Elements of Typographic Style (version 2.5), pp. 262–264. Vancouver, Hartley & Marks.
ISBN 0-88179-133-4.
Nezirović, M. (1992).
Jevrejsko-španjolska književnost. Sarajevo: Svjetlost. [cited in Šmid, 2002]
Šmid, Katja (2002). "
Los problemas del estudio de la lengua sefardíPDF (603 KiB)", in
Verba Hispanica, vol X. Liubliana: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Liubliana. ISSN 0353-9660.
1 件のコメント:
I noticed your mention of Kalmyk in your discussion of the Cyrillic alphabet, and I thought I'd mention this great site in Kalmyk:
Хальмг wiki browser
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