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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 languagesBelarusian, 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.

Cyrillic 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:

Bryce Wesley Merkl さんのコメント...

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