Old Cyrillic alphabet. Cyrillic, what letters of the alphabet are these? Cyrillic in Unicode

Introduction

Cyrillic - Slavic writing

In Rus', the Slavic alphabet, mainly in the form of the Cyrillic alphabet, appears shortly before the adoption of Christianity. The first records were related to the economic and, perhaps, foreign policy activities of the recently emerged large state. The first books contained a record of Christian liturgical texts.

The literary language of the Slavs has reached us, recorded in handwritten monuments in two alphabets - Glagolitic and Cyrillic. The word "glagolitic" can be translated by the word "little letter" and means the alphabet in general. The term "Cyrillic" may mean "the alphabet invented by Cyril", but the great antiquity of this term has not been proven. Manuscripts from the era of Constantine and Methodius have not reached us. The earliest Glagolitic text is the Kyiv leaves (X century), Cyrillic - an inscription in Preslav in 931.

In terms of letter composition, the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets are almost identical. The Cyrillic alphabet, according to manuscripts from the 11th century, had 43 letters. It was based on the Greek alphabet. For sounds that are the same in Slavic and Greek, Greek letters were used. For sounds unique to the Slavic language, 19 signs of a simple form, convenient for writing, were created, which corresponded to the general graphic style of the Cyrillic alphabet.

The Cyrillic alphabet took into account and correctly conveyed the phonetic composition of the Old Church Slavonic language. However, the Cyrillic alphabet had one major drawback: it included six Greek letters that were not needed to convey Slavic speech.

1. Cyrillic. Emergence and development

Cyrillic is one of the two ancient Slavic alphabets, which formed the basis of the Russian and some other Slavic alphabets.

Around 863, the brothers Constantine (Cyril) the Philosopher and Methodius from Soluni (Thessaloniki), by order of the Byzantine Emperor Michael III, streamlined the writing system for the Slavic language and used the new alphabet to translate Greek religious texts into the Slavic language. For a long time, the question remained debatable whether it was the Cyrillic alphabet (and in this case, Glagolitic is considered a secret script that appeared after the ban on the Cyrillic alphabet) or Glagolitic - alphabets that differ almost exclusively in style. Currently, the prevailing point of view in science is that the Glagolitic alphabet is primary, and the Cyrillic alphabet is secondary (in the Cyrillic alphabet, Glagolitic letters are replaced by well-known Greek ones). The Glagolitic alphabet was used by the Croats for a long time in a slightly modified form (until the 17th century).

The appearance of the Cyrillic alphabet, based on the Greek statutory (solemn) letter - uncial, is associated with the activities of the Bulgarian school of scribes (after Cyril and Methodius). In particular, in the life of St. Clement of Ohrid directly writes about his creation of Slavic writing after Cyril and Methodius. Thanks to the previous activities of the brothers, the alphabet became widespread in the South Slavic lands, which led in 885 to the prohibition of its use in church services by the Pope, who was struggling with the results of the mission of Constantine-Cyril and Methodius.

In Bulgaria, the holy king Boris converted to Christianity in 860. Bulgaria becomes the center of the spread of Slavic writing. Here the first Slavic book school was created - the Preslav Book School - the Cyril and Methodius originals of liturgical books (Gospel, Psalter, Apostle, church services) were copied, new Slavic translations from Greek were made, original works appeared in the Old Slavonic language (“On the writing of the Chrnoritsa Khrabra” ).

The widespread use of Slavic writing, its “golden age,” dates back to the reign of Tsar Simeon the Great (893-927), son of Tsar Boris, in Bulgaria. Later, the Old Church Slavonic language penetrates Serbia, and at the end of the 10th century it becomes the language of the church in Kievan Rus.

The Old Church Slavonic language, being the language of the church in Rus', was influenced by the Old Russian language. It was the Old Slavonic language of the Russian edition, as it included elements of living East Slavic speech.

Initially, the Cyrillic alphabet was used by some of the southern Slavs, the eastern Slavs, and also the Romanians; Over time, their alphabets diverged somewhat from each other, although the style of letters and the principles of spelling remained (with the exception of the Western Serbian version, the so-called bosančica) generally the same.

The composition of the original Cyrillic alphabet is unknown to us; The “classical” Old Church Slavonic Cyrillic alphabet of 43 letters probably partly contains later letters (ы, оу, iotized). The Cyrillic alphabet entirely includes the Greek alphabet (24 letters), but some purely Greek letters (xi, psi, fita, izhitsa) are not in their original place, but are moved to the end. To these were added 19 letters to represent sounds specific to the Slavic language and absent in Greek. Before the reform of Peter I, there were no lowercase letters in the Cyrillic alphabet; all text was written in capitals. Some letters of the Cyrillic alphabet, absent in the Greek alphabet, are close in outline to Glagolitic ones. Ts and Sh are externally similar to some letters of a number of alphabets of that time (Aramaic script, Ethiopic script, Coptic script, Hebrew script, Brahmi) and it is not possible to unambiguously establish the source of the borrowing. B is similar in outline to V, Shch to Sh. The principles of creating digraphs in the Cyrillic alphabet (И from ЪІ, УУ, iotized letters) generally follow the Glagolitic ones.

Cyrillic letters are used to write numbers exactly according to the Greek system. Instead of a pair of completely archaic signs - sampia stigma - which are not even included in the classical 24-letter Greek alphabet, other Slavic letters are adapted - C (900) and S (6); subsequently, the third such sign, koppa, originally used in the Cyrillic alphabet to denote 90, was replaced by the letter Ch. Some letters that are not in the Greek alphabet (for example, B, Zh) do not have a numerical value. This distinguishes the Cyrillic alphabet from the Glagolitic alphabet, where the numerical values ​​did not correspond to the Greek ones and these letters were not skipped.

The letters of the Cyrillic alphabet have their own names, based on various common Slavic names that begin with them, or directly taken from Greek (xi, psi); The etymology of some names is controversial. Judging by the ancient abecedarii, the letters of the Glagolitic alphabet were also called. [Application]

In 1708-1711 Peter I undertook a reform of Russian writing, eliminating superscripts, abolishing several letters and legitimizing another (closer to the Latin fonts of that time) style of the remaining ones - the so-called civil font. Lowercase versions of each letter were introduced; before that, all letters of the alphabet were capitalized. Soon the Serbs switched to the civilian script (with appropriate changes), and later the Bulgarians; Romanians, in the 1860s, abandoned the Cyrillic alphabet in favor of Latin writing (interestingly, at one time they used a “transitional” alphabet, which was a mixture of Latin and Cyrillic letters). We still use a civil font with minimal changes in style (the largest is the replacement of the m-shaped letter “t” with its current form).

Over three centuries, the Russian alphabet has undergone a number of reforms. The number of letters generally decreased, with the exception of the letters “e” and “y” (used earlier, but legalized in the 18th century) and the only “author’s” letter - “e”, proposed by Princess Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova. The last major reform of Russian writing was carried out in 1917-1918, resulting in the modern Russian alphabet, consisting of 33 letters.

At the moment, the Cyrillic alphabet is used as the official alphabet in the following countries: Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Russia, Serbia, Ukraine, Montenegro, Abkhazia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Transnistria, Tajikistan, South Ossetia. The Cyrillic alphabet of non-Slavic languages ​​was replaced by the Latin alphabet in the 1990s, but is still used unofficially as a second alphabet in the following states: Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan.

The question of the origin and development of the Glagolitic alphabet raised in this material is very complex. And not only because practically very few historical monuments and documentary evidence of the use of this font have survived. Looking through the literature, scientific and popular publications that somehow relate to this issue, it should, unfortunately, be noted that there are practically no works that fully cover this topic. At the same time, M.G. Riznik claims that “no other letter has been written as much as about the Glagolitic alphabet and its origin” (Letter and font. Kyiv: Higher School, 1978).

G.A. Ilyinsky at one time counted about eighty works devoted to this issue. About 30 hypotheses have been put forward regarding the origin of the Glagolitic alphabet. Today, it’s enough to go online and see that a lot has actually been written about the Glagolitic alphabet. But basically it’s just a rehash of the same information, opinions and views. One gets the impression of a huge “circulation” of the same information.

In our opinion, a lot of interesting things can be found in the design of Glagolitic characters if you try to consider them from the point of view of the artistic and figurative expressiveness of this font. Despite the exceptional graphic originality of Glagolitic letters (not to mention the semantic meaning of each sign), many scientists tried to find prototypes of letter patterns in various alphabets of the world. The basis of the Glagolitic alphabet was most often found in Greek italic. Some see its basis in pre-Christian Cyrillic writing. Others saw its roots in the Iranian-Aramaic script in the East. The emergence of the Glagolitic alphabet was associated with Germanic runes. Safarik P.I. I saw the graphic basis of the Glagolitic alphabet in Hebrew writing. Obolensky M.A. turns to the Khazar script in search of sources of the Glagolitic alphabet. Fortunatov F.F. saw the basis of the Glagolitic alphabet in the Coptic script. Other scientists found the roots of the Glagolitic alphabet in Albanian, Persian, and Latin.

However, the searches listed above by comparing the graphic features of Glagolitic letters with other types were mostly of a formal nature.

The two main types of Slavic writing preserved in history are Glagolitic and Cyrillic. From the school course we know that both types of writing existed in parallel for some time. Later, the Cyrillic alphabet replaced the Glagolitic alphabet. Every schoolchild knows these, now elementary, truths. Information has become so firmly ingrained in our consciousness that it is perceived as an axiom. We know the time of the appearance of the official Slavic alphabet - 863, the 9th century after the Nativity of Christ, which began a new era.

We can judge the Cyrillic alphabet based on its name. Probably its creator was Kirill. Although this is not true to this day. Yes, there is historical information that Kirill invented some kind of alphabet for translating Christian liturgical books onto a Slavic basis.

But there is still no consensus on which alphabet exactly. In the chronicle sources of the 9th-10th centuries there are specific indications that Cyril (Constantine) created the Slavic alphabet, but none of these sources provide examples of the letters of this alphabet.

We know the number of letters included in Cyril’s alphabet, and the list of them that Chernorizets Khrabr gives in his work. He also divides the letters of Cyril’s alphabet into those created “according to the order of Greek letters” and into letters “according to Slovenian speech.” But the number of letters in the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet, as well as their sound meaning, were practically the same. The oldest monuments of the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet date back to the end of the 9th - beginning of the 10th century. The name of this alphabet is not proof of the creation of the Cyrillic alphabet by Kirill.

In the intense struggle for religious and political influence between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Byzantine Orthodox Churches, these two alphabet played an extremely important role in the formation of the identity of the Slavs. The Glagolitic alphabet was used in liturgical books in Dalmatia. A modified Cyrillic alphabet was used in Bulgaria.

Letters of the “round Glagolitic” alphabet and their meaning

There are several points of view on the problem of the formation and development of the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet.

According to one of them, Cyril created the Glagolitic alphabet, and the Cyrillic alphabet arose later as an improvement of the Glagolitic alphabet.

According to another, Cyril created the Glagolitic alphabet, and the Cyrillic alphabet existed among the Slavs earlier, as a modification of the Greek letter.

It is assumed that Cyril created the Cyrillic alphabet, and the Glagolitic alphabet was formed among the Slavs in the pre-Cyrillic period. And it also served as the basis for the construction of the Cyrillic alphabet.

Perhaps Cyril created the Cyrillic alphabet, and the Glagolitic alphabet appeared as a kind of secret writing during the period of persecution of books written in Cyrillic by the Catholic clergy.

There is also a version according to which Glagolitic letters appeared as a result of deliberate complication, adding curls and circles instead of dots in Cyrillic letters, and in some characters due to their inversion.

There is a version that the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet existed among the Slavs even in the pre-Christian period of their development.

All these points of view on the problem of the formation and development of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet are quite controversial and today have a lot of contradictions and inaccuracies. Modern science and factual material do not yet make it possible to create an accurate picture and chronology of the development of Slavic writing in general.

There are too many doubts and contradictions, and very little factual material on the basis of which these doubts can be dispelled.

Thus, Kirill’s student allegedly improved the alphabet created by the teacher, and thus the Cyrillic alphabet was obtained based on the Glagolitic alphabet and the Greek statutory letter. Most Cyrillic-Glagolic books (palimpsests) have an earlier text - Glagolitic. When rewriting the book, the original text was washed away. This confirms the idea that the Glagolitic alphabet was written before the Cyrillic alphabet.

If we agree that Cyril invented the Glagolitic alphabet, then the question naturally arises: “Why was it necessary to invent complex letter signs in the presence of simple and clear letters of the Greek script, and this despite the fact that it was necessary to strive to ensure Greek influence on the Slavs, in which And what was the political mission of Cyril and Methodius?”

Kirill had no need to create a more complex in outline and less perfect alphabet with letter names containing entire concepts, when it would have been enough to give only the sound meaning of the letter.

“First of all, I didn’t have books, but with features and cuts I read and gataahu, the trash that exists... Then, the lover of mankind... sent an ambassador named after St. Constantine the Philosopher, called Cyril, the husband of the righteous and true, and created for them writings (30) and osm, ova wobo according to the order of the Greek letters, but according to the Slovenian speech...” says in “The Legend of the Letters” by Chernorizets Khrabra. Based on this passage, many researchers
tend to believe that Kirill created the Glagolitic alphabet (L.B. Karpenko, V.I. Grigorovich, P.I. Shafarik). But in the “Legend” it is clearly stated “... twenty-four of them are similar to Greek letters ...”, and a list of letters similar to Greek is given, and then fourteen letters “according to Slavic speech ...” are listed. The word “similar” “similar” corresponds to the Russian word “similar”, “similar”, “similar”. And in this case, we can only speak for sure about the similarity of Cyrillic letters with Greek letters, but not Glagolitic ones. Glagolitic letters are not at all “like” Greek letters. This is the first. Second: the digital values ​​of the Cyrillic letters are more consistent with the digital values ​​of the letters of the Greek alphabet. In the Cyrillic alphabet, the letters B and Z, which are not in the Greek alphabet, lost their digital meaning, and some received a different digital meaning, which precisely indicates that the Cyrillic alphabet was created in the model and likeness of the Greek alphabet. Glagolitic letter styles “according to Slavic speech” were forced to partially change their style, retaining their names. Most likely, this is how two styles of the Slavic alphabet appeared with the same composition and names of letters, but different patterns of letters and, most importantly, purpose. The Cyrillic alphabet was created on the basis of the Glagolitic alphabet and was intended for the translation of church books into the Slavic language.

“The presence of more ancient linguistic features in Glagolitic monuments in comparison with Cyrillic ones, Glagolitic insertions in the form of individual letters and text segments in Cyrillic manuscripts, the presence of palimpsests (texts on recycled parchment), in which the Cyrillic text is written on the washed-out Glagolitic alphabet, indicate the seniority of the Glagolitic alphabet ... The most ancient Glagolitic monuments are connected by their origin either with the territory where the activity of the Thessaloniki brothers took place, or with the territory of western Bulgaria, where the activity of the disciples took place” (L.B. Karpenko).

The totality of historical and linguistic facts based on a comparative analysis of Glagolitic and Cyrillic sources confirms our opinion about the primacy of the Glagolitic alphabet.

The end of the 9th century for the countries of Western Europe means the presence not only of writing, but also of a large number of different types of fonts: Greek, Roman capital square, rustic, old and new uncial, half-uncial, Carolingian minuscule. A huge number of books have been written that have survived to our time. There is written evidence of Greek and ancient temples preserved in stone, mosaic, wood and metal. The origin of various types of writing dates back to the 8th-22nd centuries BC. Mesopotamia and Egypt, Byzantium and Greece, Mayans and North American Indians. Pictography and ideography, wampums and shell writing. Everywhere and among many, but not among the Slavs, for for some reason they could not have written language until Saint Constantine was sent.

But it's hard to believe. It was necessary for all the Slavic tribes at that time to be blind and deaf, so as not to know and see how other peoples, with whom the Slavs undoubtedly had various kinds of connections, had been using different types of fonts for centuries. The Slavic lands were not an isolated reservation. However, judging by the theory of the development of writing that has developed and exists to this day, the Slavs,
being in close trade, political and cultural contacts with their neighbors, throughout all centuries remained until the 9th century throughout the entire territory of Ancient Rus' a huge “blank spot” on the map of the spread of writing.

This situation is difficult to resolve due to the lack of reliable written sources. This is all the more strange in the presence of an amazing, almost unknown to this day, truly wonderful world of those beliefs, customs, and rituals that our ancestors, the Slavs, or, as they called themselves in ancient times, the Rus, completely indulged in for thousands of years. Just take Russian epics and fairy tales as an example. They didn't happen out of nowhere. And in many of them, the hero, if not a fool, then a simple peasant son, meets at a crossroads or crossroads a stone with certain information indicating where to go and how the trip may end. But the main thing is not what and how is written on the stone, the main thing is that the hero easily reads it all.

The main thing is that he can read. This is common. And for Ancient Rus' there is nothing surprising in this. But in the fairy tales and legends of European and other “written” peoples there is nothing like this. The Slavs have come a very long and difficult historical path. Many nations and their empires fell, but the Slavs remained. That rich oral folk art, fairy tales, epics, songs, and the language itself, numbering more than two hundred and fifty thousand words, could not have appeared by chance. With all this, the practical absence or ignorance of the most ancient written monuments is surprising. Today there are very few monuments of Glagolitic writing.

In the 19th century there was a Psalter dating back to 1222, copied by the monk Nicholas of Arba under the papacy of Honorius in Glagolitic letters from the old Slavic Psalter, written by order and cost of Theodore, the last archbishop of Salona. Salona was destroyed around 640, so it can be argued that the Slavic Glagolitic original dates back to at least the first half of the 7th century. This proves that the Glagolitic alphabet existed at least 200 years before Cyril.

On the parchment sheets of the famous “Klotsov Codex” there are notes in Old German, indicating that the “Klotsov sheets” were written in Croatian, which is a local dialect of the Slavic language. It is possible that the pages of the Klotsov Codex were written by St. himself. Jerome, who was born in 340 in Stridon - in Dalmatia. Thus, St. Jerome back in the 4th century. used the Glagolitic alphabet, he was even considered the author of this alphabet. He was certainly a Slav and reports that he translated the Bible to his fellow countrymen. The sheets of the Klotsov Codex were later framed in silver and gold and divided among the owner’s relatives as the greatest value.

In the 11th century, the Albanians had an alphabet very similar to the Glagolitic alphabet. It is believed that it was introduced during the Christianization of the Albanians. The history of the Glagolitic alphabet, in any case, is completely different from what it is imagined to be. It is too simplified to the point of primitiveness, especially in Soviet literature on the history of type.

The emergence and development of writing in Rus' is canonically associated with its Christianization. Everything that could have been or was before the 9th century was rejected as having no right to exist. Although, according to Cyril himself, he met a Rusyn who had books written in Russian characters.

And this was even before Rurik was called to Novgorod and almost one hundred and thirty years before the baptism of Rus'! Kirill met “and found a man” who spoke “through that conversation”; that is, in Russian. Kirill met a Rusyn, who had two books - the Gospel and the Psalter - in 860 or 861. These books are very complex in their theological content and archaic style, but they existed and were written in Russian letters. This historical fact is cited in all twenty-three copies of the Pannonian Life of Constantine known to science, which confirms the authenticity of this event.

The presence of these books is indisputable evidence that Constantine took as the basis for his Cyrillic alphabet a script quite developed by the Rusyns. He did not create, but only improved (“by arranging the writing”), he streamlined the East Slavic writing that already existed before him.

One of the messages of Pope John VIII, a contemporary of Cyril and Methodius, clearly states that “Slavic writings” were known before Cyril and he “only found them again, rediscovered them.”

These words give reason to seriously think about their meaning. What does “found again” mean? This clearly indicates that they already existed before, were found earlier. They were used, and then somehow forgotten, lost, or stopped being used? When was this, at what time? There is no clear answer to these questions yet. Kirill “rediscovered” these letters. Didn't come up with it, didn't invent it, but just again
opened. It was the improvement of the Slavic script that was once created by someone that completed the mission of Cyril and Methodius to create a Slavic script.

A number of information about ancient writing in Rus' is available from Arab and European writers and travelers. They testified that the Rus had writings carved on wood, on a “white poplar” pole, “wrote on white tree bark.” The existence of pre-Christian writing in Rus' is also contained in Russian chronicles. There is historical evidence of the Byzantine king and chronicler Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (912-959), who in the treatise “De administrando imperio” (“On State Administration”) wrote that the Croats of 635, after baptism, swore allegiance to the Roman capital and in a charter written “ in their own letter,” they promised to maintain peace with their neighbors.

The Baschanskaya (Boshkanskaya) slab is one of the oldest known Glagolitic monuments. 11th century, Croatia.

The oldest monuments of Glagolitic writing are several inscriptions from the era of Tsar Simeon (892-927), an inscription of a Slavic priest on a letter of 982, found in the Athos monastery, and a tombstone dating back to 993 in a church in Preslav.

An important monument of the Glagolitic writing of the 10th century is the manuscript known as the “Kyiv Glagolitic sheets”, which at one time arrived at the Kiev Church Archaeological Museum from Archimandrite Antonin Kapustin, head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, and this document is located in the manuscript department of the Central Scientific Library of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, in Kyiv.

Kievan Glagolitic sheets, 10th century.

Among other famous monuments of Glagolitic writing, one should name the “Zograph Gospel” of the 10th-11th centuries, found in the Zograf Monastery on Mount Athos, the “Assemanian Gospel” from the Vatican, dating back to the 11th century, the “Sinaiticus Psalter” from the Monastery of St. Catherine, the “Mariinsky Gospel” from Athos, Klotsov collection (XI century) from the Klots family library (Italy).

There is a lot of debate about the authorship and history of the so-called “Klotsov Code”. There is written evidence that the leaves of the Klotsov Codex were written in Glagolitic alphabet in the own hand of St. Jerome, who was born in 340 in Stridon, in Dalmatia. He was a Slav by origin, as clearly evidenced by his own message that he translated the Bible to his fellow countrymen. In addition, the pages of this codex were at one time the object of religious veneration. They were framed in silver and gold and divided among the relatives of the owner of the codex, so that everyone would receive at least something from this valuable inheritance. Thus, already in the 4th century, Saint Jerome used the Glagolitic alphabet. At one time he was even considered the author of the Glagolitic alphabet, but no historical information on this matter has been preserved.

In 1766, a book by Klement Grubisic, published in Venice, argued that the Glagolitic alphabet existed long before the birth of Christ. Rafail Lenakovich expressed the same opinion back in 1640. All this indicates that the Glagolitic alphabet is centuries older than the Cyrillic alphabet.

In Rus', the beginning of weather records in the Tale of Bygone Years begins in 852, which makes it possible to assume that the chronicler of the 9th century used some earlier records. The texts of the agreements between the Kyiv princes and Byzantium have also been preserved. The texts of the treaties clearly indicate the developed ethics of written documentation of interstate relations already in the 10th century. Probably, the use of writing in Rus' found wide application in addition to church liturgical literature even before the official baptism of Rus'. This opinion is also supported by the existence of two alphabets in Rus' in the 9th century.

At the first stage of the development of writing there was no particular need for it. When something needed to be conveyed, a messenger was sent. There was no particular need for letters, because... everyone lived together, without going anywhere in particular. All basic laws were kept in the memory of the elders of the clan and passed on from one to another, preserved in customs and rituals. Epics and songs were passed on from mouth to mouth. It is known that human memory
capable of storing several thousand verses.

The recorded information was needed to indicate boundaries, boundary posts, roads, and property allocations. Perhaps that is why each sign had not only a graphic form, but also enormous semantic content.

As an example, we can recall the fact that in the vast Vedic literature there is no indication of the existence of writing in early Aryan India. There are often indications that written recording had not yet been practiced, and at the same time, references to the real existence of texts, but their existence only in the memory of those who memorized them by heart, are quite common. As for writing, it is not mentioned anywhere. Although there is evidence of children playing with letters, the Buddhist canonical writings praise lekha - “writing”, and the profession of “scribe” is characterized as very good; There is other evidence that suggests the use of writing. All this suggests that in the 6th century BC. Both adults and children mastered the art of writing in India. As Professor Rhys Davide has rightly pointed out, this is one of those rare cases where the absence of written evidence where there is good reason to expect it is in itself useful evidence. By the way, a very interesting fact. In one of the northwestern variants of the Indian Gurmukhi script, the first letter of the alphabet completely repeats the Slavic Glagolitic letter Az...

Yes, today there is very little actual evidence of pre-Christian Slavic writing, and this can be explained by the following:

1. Written monuments on “white bark”, “white poplar”, or on any other tree are simply short-lived. If in Greece or Italy time saved at least a small amount of marble products and mosaics, then Ancient Rus' stood among forests and the fire, raging, did not spare anything - neither human dwellings, nor temples, nor information written on wooden tablets.

2. The Christian dogma of the creation of the Slavic alphabet by Constantine was unshakable for centuries. Could anyone in Orthodox Russia allow themselves to doubt the generally accepted and deeply established version of the acquisition of writing by the Slavs from Saints Cyril and Methodius? The time and circumstances of the creation of the alphabet were known. And for centuries this version was unshakable. In addition, the adoption of Christianity in Rus' was accompanied by the zealous destruction of all traces of pagan, pre-Christian beliefs. And one can only imagine with what zeal all kinds of written sources and even information about them could be destroyed if they did not relate to Christian teaching or, moreover, contradicted
to him.

3. Most of the Slavic scientists of the Soviet era were restricted from traveling abroad, and even if they could go to foreign museums, their limited knowledge of languages, and the temporary timing of their business trips, did not allow them to work fruitfully. In addition, there were practically no specialists who dealt specifically with the emergence and development of Slavic writing, either in Russia or in the USSR. In Russia, everyone specifically adhered to the version of the creation of Slavic writing by Kirill and bowed to the opinion of foreign authorities. And their opinion was unequivocal - the Slavs did not have writing before Cyril. The science in the USSR about the writing and script of the Slavs did not create anything new, copying memorized generally accepted truths from book to book. It is enough to look at the illustrations that wander from book to book to be convinced of this.

4. Foreign scientists practically did not study the issues of Slavic writing. And they didn’t show much interest. Even if they tried to deal with this issue, they did not have the necessary knowledge of Russian, and especially the Old Church Slavonic language. Pyotr Oreshkin, the author of a book on Slavic writing, rightly writes: “The professors of Slavic languages” to whom I sent my work answered me in French,
in German, in English, being unable to write a simple letter in Russian.”

5. The monuments of early Slavic writing that were encountered were either rejected, or dated no earlier than the 9th century, or were simply not noticed. There is a fairly large number of all kinds of inscriptions on rocks, for example in the Kremnica region of Hungary, which then passed to Slovakia, on utensils located in various museums around the world. These inscriptions undoubtedly have Slavic roots, but this additional historical material has not been used or studied at all, just like the Slavic runic inscriptions. If there is no material, there is no one to specialize in it.

6. The situation is still very well developed among scientists when a recognized authority on any issue expresses its opinion, and others (less recognized) share it, not allowing themselves not only to object, but even to doubt such an authoritative opinion.

7. Many published works are not of a research nature, but of a compilation nature, where the same opinions and facts are copied by one author from another without specific work with factual materials.

8. Future specialists who are preparing at universities barely have time to study what was written before them from session to session. And there is no need yet to talk about serious scientific research in the field of the history of Slavic writing in universities.

9. Many researchers simply denied the alphabet of our ancestors the right to an independent path of development. And they can be understood: whoever wants to admit this - after all, the recognition of this situation destroys many pseudo-scientific constructions of scientists of previous centuries, aimed at proving the second-rate and secondary nature of the Slavic alphabet, writing and even language.

Of the two types of Slavic writing that existed together for some time, the Cyrillic alphabet received its further development. The Glagolitic alphabet moved away as a more complex letter in terms of the characters, as the officially accepted version says. But the Glagolitic alphabet could also fall out of use as a letter that ceased to be used, in connection with the introduction of the Cyrillic alphabet, for writing church books. The Glagolitic alphabet that has survived to this day
The letter has 40 letters, 39 of which represent almost the same sounds as in the Cyrillic alphabet.

In many books, articles and publications, Glagolitic letters are described as graphically more complex, “pretentious”, “contrived”. Some even characterize the Glagolitic alphabet as a “chimeric” and artificial alphabet, not similar to any of the currently existing alphabetic systems.

Many researchers looked for the graphic basis of the Glagolitic alphabet in the Cyrillic alphabet, in the Syriac and Palmyra alphabets, in the Khazar script, in the Byzantine cursive script, in the Albanian script, in the Iranian script of the Sassanid era, in Arabic script, in the Armenian and Georgian alphabets, in the Hebrew and Coptic alphabets , in Latin italics, in Greek musical notations, in Greek “spectacled writing”, in
cuneiform, in Greek astronomical, medical and other symbols, in Cypriot syllabary, in magical Greek writing, etc. Philologist G.M. Prokhorov showed the similarities in graphic terms between the letters of the Glagolitic alphabet and the signs of other writing systems.

And no one allowed the idea that the Glagolitic alphabet could have arisen independently, and not as a letter borrowed from someone. There is an opinion that the Glagolitic alphabet is the result of artificial individual work. And the origin of the very name of this alphabet is not entirely clear. Traditionally, the Glagolitic alphabet is understood as a derivative of the word glagoliti - to speak. But there is another version, set out by I. Ganush in a book with characteristic
for its time the name: “On the issue of runes among the Slavs with a special review of the runic antiquities of the Obodrites, as well as the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet. As a contribution to comparative Germanic-Slavic archaeology, the creation of Dr. Ignaz J. Hanusz, full member and librarian of the Imperial Czech Scientific Society in Prague". Ganush offers the following explanation for the Glagolitic name: “It may be that, according to the mass, the singing (reading) Dalmatian priests are called “verbalists,” just like their writings (books) from which they read. The word “verb” even now in Dalmatia serves as a designation for the Slavic liturgy, but the words “verb” and “glagolati” are already alien to today’s Serbo-Slavic dialects.” The Glagolitic alphabet has another name - the initial letter, which “in age surpasses all other names of alphabets,” and it is associated with the idea of ​​“the Glagolitic letter, the beech, the beech line.”

Both types of Glagolitic - rounded (Bulgarian) and angular (Croatian, Ilirian or Dalmatian) - really differ in a certain intricacy of characters in comparison with the Cyrillic alphabet.

It is this intricacy of the Glagolitic signs, together with their names, that forces us to look more carefully and in detail at each sign, its design and try to understand the meaning inherent in it.

The names of the alphabetic characters of the Glagolitic alphabet, later transferred to the Cyrillic alphabet, cause not only surprise, but also admiration. In Chernorizets Khrabra’s essay “On Letters” there is a clear description of the creation of the alphabet and the first letter: “And he created for them thirty-eight letters, some in the order of Greek letters, and others in accordance with Slavic speech. In the likeness of the Greek alphabet, he began his alphabet, they began with alpha, and
he put Az at the beginning. And just as the Greeks followed the Hebrew letter, so he followed the Greek... and following them, Saint Cyril created the first letter Az. But because Az was the first letter given from God to the Slavic race in order to open the letters of the mouth to the knowledge of those who learn, it is proclaimed by a wide parting of the lips, and other letters are pronounced by a smaller parting of the lips.” In the tale of Brave, not all letter names have
description.

The most interesting thing is that no other nation and no other writing system has such or even similar letter names. It is very characteristic that not only the names of the alphabetic signs of the Glagolitic alphabet cause surprise, but also their numerical meaning up to and including the letter “Worm”. This letter meant 1000, and the remaining letters of the Glagolitic alphabet no longer had a numerical value.

Time and many layers and changes today have significantly distorted the original meaning and meaning laid down by the creators of the Slavic alphabet, but even today this alphabet represents something more than a simple letter series.

The greatness of our Glagolitic alphabet lies in the fact that the very shape of the letters, their order and organization, their numerical value, their names are not a random, meaningless set of signs. The Glagolitic alphabet is a unique sign system based on the specific experience of the worldview and worldview of the Slavs. The creators of the Slavic writing system, as many researchers note, undoubtedly proceeded from a religious reflection of the world, from the idea of ​​the sacredness of the alphabet.

In this regard, another question arises: “If Kirill created the Slavic alphabet, then why not end it with omega, following the example of the Greek alphabet?”

“Alpha and Omega” - the Lord calls himself, as the first and last, as the beginning and end of all things. Why shouldn’t Kirill use this expression, well known at that time, and put omega at the end of the alphabet, thereby emphasizing the religious meaning of the alphabet he created?

The point is probably that he simply gave a different design to the letters, while preserving their existing structure and the established names of the letter styles of the Glagolitic alphabet used centuries before.

And the names of all the signs of the Slavic Glagolitic, and even the Cyrillic alphabet, when read carefully, not only indicate sound, but are also arranged into clearly meaningful phrases and sentences. To denote the letters of the Glagolitic alphabet, Old Church Slavonic words and word forms were used, which today have already lost a lot, but still retained their original meaning. The verbal meaning of the Glagolitic letters up to and including the letter “Worm” is especially pronounced.

Translated into modern Russian, the names of the letters sound like this: az (ya), beeches (letter, letters, literacy), vedi (I know, realize, know), verb (I say, speak), dobro (good, good), is ( exists, exists, is), live (live, live), zelo (very, completely, extremely), earth (world, planet), kako (how), people (children of men, people), think (meditate, think , think), he (one, otherworldly, unearthly), peace (peace, refuge, tranquility), rtsi (speak, say), word (speech, commandment), tvrdo (solid, immutable, true), ouk (teaching, teaching ), fert (elected, selective).

The meaning of the letters “Hera” and “Cherva” is still not resolved. The Cyrillic name of the letter “Hera” in the Orthodox interpretation is an abbreviation of the word “cherub”, borrowed from the Greek language. In principle, this is the only abbreviated name for the letter in the entire Slavic alphabet. Why on earth did Kirill, if he composed it, need to abbreviate this one word, and even with such a meaning? The worm, in the Orthodox interpretation, is a symbol of the most insignificant creation of the Creator. But whether this was their meaning in the Glagolitic alphabet remains a mystery to this day.

When reading the names of the letters of the Glagolitic alphabet, one feels a clear, logical connection between the names of all letters and their combinations, up to the letter “Cherv”. When translated into modern language, the names of the letters are formed into the following phrases and sentences: “I know the letters (literacy), “I say (say) good is (exists)”, “live perfectly”, “the earth thinks like people”, “our (unearthly) peace (calm)", "I say
The word (commandment) is firm (true)”, “teaching is chosen”.

There remain four letters with names: “Her”, “Omega”, “Qi”, “Cherv”. If we accept the Orthodox interpretation of these letters, then we can compose and obtain the phrase: “Cherub, or worm.” But then, naturally, questions arise with the letter “Omega”. Why it was included in this series and what it means will probably remain a mystery to us.

The phrase “The earth thinks like people” seems a little strange at first. However, if we take into account the achievements of modern science, we can only be amazed at the knowledge of our ancestors. Only in the middle of the twentieth century did scientists make a grand discovery - fungal mycorrhiza unites the root systems of all plants into a single network. Conventionally, this can be imagined as a huge web that connects the entire vegetation cover of the earth. This is also similar to the Internet that has enveloped the entire world today. Due to this mycorrhiza, information is transmitted from plant to plant. All this has been proven by the experiments of modern scientists. But how did the Slavs know about this two thousand years ago, speaking in their alphabet,
that “the earth thinks like people”?

In any case, even what we have seen and already understood suggests that the Slavic Glagolitic alphabet is a unique example of an alphabet that has no analogue on our planet in terms of the conceptual meaning of the signs. It is now difficult to establish by whom and when it was compiled, but the creators of the Glagolitic alphabet undoubtedly had extensive knowledge and sought to reflect this knowledge even in the alphabet, investing in each sign not only conceptual, but also figurative, visual figurative information content. Each sign of the Glagolitic alphabet contains a huge amount of information. But many people need to point this out and decipher it, then everything immediately becomes clear.

Therefore, probably, many easily see in the first letter a hieroglyphic image of a cross, especially if they adhere to the opinion that Kirill developed this alphabet to translate liturgical books onto a Slavic basis. If we accept this version, then it would be possible to come up with many letters with Christian symbolism. However, this is not observed. But in the Glagolitic alphabet, almost every letter graphically reveals its meaning. Most modern writing systems convey only the sound from which the reader derives meaning. At the same time, the sign itself, its graphic design, has practically no meaning, performing only the nominal function of a generally accepted, conventional designation of sound. In the Glagolitic alphabet, almost every sign carries a meaning. This is always characteristic of early forms of writing, when, first of all, they tried to express in each sign the meaning of the message. Below we will try to consider all the letters of the angular and round Glagolitic alphabet from the point of view of the artistic and figurative expressiveness of the sign.

A.V. Platov, N.N. Taranov

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Cyrillic

The alphabet that was born from the so-called “statutory Greek letter” has been called “Cyrillic” for a very long time.

It is the daughter of the writing system of the Byzantine Greeks and the granddaughter of the writing systems of Western Asia.

The time of its origin on the Balkan Peninsula is considered to be the 9th century AD. There, in the Balkan countries, Cyrillic inscriptions dating back to 893, 943, 949 and 993 were found. The first handwritten dated book in Cyrillic writing is considered to be the Novgorod Ostromirovo Gospel (1056 - 1057).

Just think about it and you will be amazed at the speed with which the newly invented letter spread throughout the leisurely ancient world of that time, devoid of communication routes and connections. The end of the 9th century - the first timid inscriptions in the extreme south of Eastern Europe; the middle of the 11th century is a magnificent example of the same writing thousands of miles away, behind the mountains, forests, in distant Novgorod.

When a modern novice researcher encounters information contained in very ancient sources, his attitude towards them usually goes through three stages. The first is joyful and naive trust. The second is severe suspicion, doubt and skepticism, bordering on complete denial. The third is a return to the consciousness that the ancients very rarely lied when they entered “on the tablets of history” information about certain facts of their modernity and their recent past.

Homer's stories about the Trojan War have long been considered a collection of fantastic fables that do not contain any historical truth. Schliemann began, his followers finally proved that most of the information contained in the Iliad (not to mention, of course, the messages from the intimate life of the Olympian gods and goddesses) is based on actual events. Even the names of the Greek and Trojan leaders were largely confirmed. Even their graves were found.

Recent discoveries of ancient manuscripts off the shores of the Dead Sea - the Qumran finds - have also been shown to the whole world; that the Bible is far from being only a collection of fantastic myths and legends, as it seemed to many until recently, but also a serious source on the history of a small Asian people that deserves attention. Of course, a lot of fiction was also added to the truth, but anyone who has had to deal with the facts of modern history, at least of the 19th century, knows that it also has to be carefully cleansed of fantasy and lies. And then they won’t be bothered...

In ancient times, disseminating any news was a difficult and time-consuming task. It was even more difficult to write anything down for posterity. You and I each take a piece of paper and a pencil in our hands and calmly sit down at the table to play “nonsense” or “burim”. And three or four thousand years ago, and even closer to us, in order to write “nonsense”, it was necessary for the most learned man (the unlearned did not know how to write) to either chisel a stubborn stone for many months, or burn clay tablets, or process leather or papyrus stems ... No, few people in that distant time could have thought of using the art of writing to lie, to just joke.

That’s why I think that from a number of hypotheses about who exactly was the author of the Cyrillic alphabet and who of the Glagolitic alphabet, we will focus on the most ancient evidence. According to contemporaries, the Cyrillic alphabet received its name because it was created by Cyril, the Solunsky scientist, educator of the Balkan and Czechomoravian Slavs. After all, no one could stop the knowledgeable people of that time from calling the Glagolitic alphabet Cyrillic. Let us believe them; Moreover, this does not change anything in the essence of our book.

It may be interesting to us, but not very important, who was the first to say “eh!” when creating the Slavic alphabet. The great "eh!" this was said one way or another in the 9th century, and during the 10th century it spread to the farthest edges of the Slavic world and forever entered the history of that part of it to which we belong; entered into the form of a specific alphabet system called the “Cyrillic alphabet”.

The rival of the Cyrillic alphabet, the Glagolitic alphabet, despite its well-known advantages, remained a monument of ancient times. Look at the tablet of Glagolitic signs, and you will probably think the same thing as many scientists think: before us is either a more ancient, archaic, or deliberately complicated type of Slavic writing, as if intended to hide the secret of what was written more than to tell about its content .

It is difficult to consider the Glagolitic alphabet to be more ancient: its monuments are “younger” than the oldest Cyrillic monuments. But there are reasons to assume that it is a “secret script”: the Glagolitic alphabet was most widely used in the west of the Slavic world, where papal Christianity fought fiercely with “eastern” Christianity, and those who followed not the pope, but the Byzantine patriarchs, had to keep their faith in secret .

However, there are so many votes “for” and “against” such a reading of the initial history of Slavic writing that we will not understand their interweavings, but, leaving you to “at a glance” get acquainted with the strange outlines of the Glagolitic alphabet, we will leave it aside.

The names of Cyrillic letters - those that little Alyosha Peshkov memorized in Nizhny Novgorod, may seem "dumb" to a modern reader. Some of them, however, sound like our modern words - “good”, “earth”, “people”. Others - "zelo", "rtsy", "uk" - seem obscure. Therefore, here is another list of them with approximate translations into the language of the 20th century.

A3 is the first person singular personal pronoun.

BUKI - letter. There were quite a few words with such an unusual form of the nominative singular for us: “kry” - blood, “bry” - eyebrow, “lyuby” - love.

VEDI - a form of the verb "vedeti" - to know.

VERB - a form of the verb "glagolati" - to speak.

GOOD - the meaning is clear.

IS - third person singular present tense from the verb "to be".

LIVE is the second person plural of the present tense from the verb “to live.”

ZELO is an adverb meaning “very”, “strongly”, “very”.

IZHE (AND OCTAL) - a pronoun with the meaning “that”, “which”. In Church Slavonic the conjunction is "what". This letter was called “octal” because it had the numerical value of the number 8. In connection with the name “like,” one recalls the witticism of Pushkin the lyceum student: “Blessed is he who sits closer to the porridge.”

And (AND DECIMAL) - it was called so because of its numerical value - 10. It is curious that the sign for the number 9 in the Cyrillic alphabet, as in the Greek alphabet, remained “fita”, which was placed penultimate in our alphabet.

KAKO - interrogative adverb "how". “Kako-on - kon, buki-erik - bull, verb-az - eye” is a teaser showing the inability to read words correctly.

PEOPLE - the meaning is self-explanatory. “If it weren’t for the beeches and the people-az-la, I would have taken it far” - a proverb about something unthinkable, impracticable.

MISLETE - form of the verb “to think.” In the language, based on the shape of the letter, this word received the meaning “the erratic gait of a drunken person.”

OUR is a possessive pronoun.

OH is a third person singular personal pronoun.

RTSY is a form of the verb “speech”, to speak. It is curious that until very recent times in the navy, a flag with a white inner and two blue outer stripes, meaning in the flag alphabet the letter P and the signal “ship on duty”, and an armband of the same colors - “on duty”, have been called since the time of Peter the Great’s naval regulations “ rtsy".

THE WORD - the meaning is beyond doubt.

SOLID - also does not require comments.

UK - in Old Slavonic - teaching.

FERT - the etymology of this letter name has not been reliably clarified by scientists. From the outline of the sign came the expression “stand on the fence,” that is, “hands on hips.”

CHER - it is believed that this is an abbreviation of the word "cherub", the name of one of the ranks of angels. Since the letter is “cruciform”, the meaning of the verb “to take away” has developed - to cross out, abolish, destroy.

HE IS THE GREAT - Greek omega, which we got the name from the letter “he”.

TSY is an onomatopoeic name.

WORM - in the Old Church Slavonic and Old Russian languages ​​the word “worm” meant “red paint”, and not just “worm”. The name of the letter was given an acrophonic name - the word “worm” began with “h”.

SHA, SHA - both letters are named according to a principle already familiar to us: the sound itself signified by the letter plus any vowel sound before and after it. We still call the United States of America “eS-Sha-A”. (Of course, not “Sy-Shy-A”!)

ERY - the name of this letter is a compound - "er" plus "and" - was, as it were, a "description" of its shape. We renamed it “s” a long time ago. Seeing our current changed spelling Y, our ancestors would undoubtedly have called the letter “eri,” since we replaced “er” (“hard sign”) in its elements with “er” — “soft sign.” In the Cyrillic alphabet it consisted precisely of “era” and “and decimal”.

ER, ER - conventional names of letters that have ceased to express the sounds of incomplete education and have become simply “signs”.

YAT - it is believed that the name of the letter "yat" may be associated with "yad" - food, food.

Yu, Ya - these letters were called according to their sound: “yu”, “ya”, as well as the letter “ye”, meaning “iotated e”.

YUS - the origin of the name is unclear. They tried to derive it from the word “us”, which in the Old Bulgarian language sounded with a nasal sound at the beginning, or from the word “yusenitsa” - caterpillar. The explanations do not seem uncontroversial.

FITA - in this form the name of the Greek letter O came to Rus', which was called there at different times either “theta” or “fita” and, accordingly, meant either a sound close to “f”, or a sound that is now expressed in Western alphabets with the letters TH . We hear it close to our “t”. The Slavs adopted "fita" at a time when it was read as "f". That is why, for example, we wrote the word “library” as “vivliofika” until the 18th century.

IZHITSA is the Greek “upsilon”, which conveys a sound that seems to stand between our “i” and “yu” in the surname “Hugo”. The Slavs originally conveyed this sound differently, imitating the Greeks. Thus, the Greek name "Kirillos", a diminutive of "Kuros" - lord, was usually rendered as "Kirill", but the pronunciation "Kurill" was also possible. In epics, “Kyu-rill” was transferred to “Chyurilo”. In the west of Ukraine, until recently there was a place called “Kurilovtsi” - the descendants of “Kuril”.

We will not sequentially study all the writing options that arose during this process. On what material should we consider them? If you take the French alphabet, the British will be offended... Let's better stick to the alphabet dead language - Latin. It’s impossible to do otherwise. Starting our consideration with the modern Latin alphabets, we would experience difficulties with each letter. In some cases, a Frenchman will read the Latin letter C as " With", in others as " To"and will call her " se"The German will protest: he is calling the same letter." tse"and never like her" With"doesn't pronounce it. He pronounces it like " To", and in the meaning " tse", alone, does not apply at all, very often but using it as one of the three elements for expressing sound" w" - SCH.

An Italian would call the same sign "chi".

Let's list the letters of the Greek alphabet again in parallel with the Latin alphabet.

As you can see, in both alphabets the composition and order of letters is different.

For the Greeks, “gamma” is in third place. The Romans replaced it with the letter WITH- “tse” and “ka”.

Why did I write "tse" and "ka"?

This letter was not always pronounced the same way. My childhood textbooks taught me to pronounce it as " ts"before the sounds" e", "i", "at", but how " To" before " A", "O".

To this day, when faced with Latin borrowings, we adhere to these schoolboy rules, read “Cicero” and not “Kikero”, as the Romans themselves pronounced it, “censor”, not “censor”, etc.

The alphabet (Cyrillic and Glagolitic) is a collection in a certain order of all the signs that express the individual sounds of the language. This system of written symbols developed quite independently in the territory inhabited by ancient peoples. "Glagolitic" was presumably created first. What is the secret of the ancient collection of written signs? What were the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet? What is the meaning of the main symbols? More on this later.

The Mystery of the Written Symbol System

As you know, Cyrillic and Glagolitic are Slavic alphabets. The name of the collection itself was derived from the combination of “az” and “buki”. These symbols stood for the first two letters "A" and "B". A rather interesting historical fact should be noted. Ancient letters were originally scratched on the walls. That is, all the symbols were presented in the form of graffiti. Around the 9th century, the first symbols appeared on the walls of Pereslavl churches. Two centuries later, the Cyrillic alphabet (pictures and interpretations of signs) was inscribed in the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv.

Russian Cyrillic

It should be said that this collection of ancient written symbols still corresponds well to the phonetic structure of the Russian language. This is primarily due to the fact that the sound composition of modern and ancient vocabulary did not have many differences, and all of them were insignificant. In addition, credit should be given to the compiler of the system, Konstantin. The author carefully took into account the phonemic (sound) composition of the old speech. The Cyrillic alphabet contains only a variety of characters - uppercase and lowercase characters - which were first introduced by Peter in 1710.

Basic signs

The Cyrillic letter "az" was the initial letter. She used the pronoun "I". But the root meaning of this symbol is the word “initially”, “beginning” or “begin”. In some writings you can find “az”, used in the meaning of “one” (as a numeral). The Cyrillic letter "buki" is the second character in the collection of symbols. Unlike "az", it has no numerical value. "Bukki" is "to be" or "will be." But, as a rule, this symbol was used in the future tense. For example, “boudi” means “let it be,” and “upcoming or future” means “boudushchy.” The Cyrillic letter "vedi" is considered one of the most interesting of the entire collection. This symbol corresponds to the number 2. “Lead” has several meanings - “to own”, “to know” and “to know”.

The highest part of the written sign system

It should be said that researchers, studying the outlines of the symbols, came to the conclusion that they were quite simple and understandable, which made it possible to widely use them in cursive writing. In addition, any Slav could depict them quite easily, without much difficulty. Many philosophers, meanwhile, see the principle of harmony and triad in the numerical arrangement of symbols. It is precisely this that a person must achieve, striving to know truth, goodness and light.

Constantine's message to descendants

It should be said that the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet were an invaluable creation. Constantine, together with his brother Methodius, not only structured written signs, but created a unique collection of knowledge that calls for striving for knowledge, improvement, love and wisdom, avoiding enmity, anger, envy, and leaving only the bright in oneself. At one time it was believed that the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet were created almost simultaneously. However, this turned out not to be the case. According to a number of ancient sources, the Glagolitic alphabet became the first. It was this collection that was first used in the translation of church texts.

Glagolitic and Cyrillic. Comparison. Data

Cyrillic and Glagolitic were created at different times. Several facts indicate this. The Glagolitic alphabet, along with the Greek alphabet, became the basis for the subsequent compilation of the Cyrillic alphabet. When studying the first collection of written characters, scientists note that the style is more archaic (in particular, when studying the “Kyiv Leaflets” of the 10th century). While the Cyrillic alphabet, as mentioned above, is phonetically closer to the modern language. The first records in the form of graphic representations of written symbols are dated 893 and are close to the sound and lexical structure of the language of the southern ancient peoples. The great antiquity of the Glagolitic alphabet is also indicated by palimpsests, which were manuscripts on parchment, where the old text was scraped off and a new one was written on top. They had the Glagolitic alphabet scraped off everywhere and then the Cyrillic alphabet written on top of it. In no palimpsest was it the other way around.

Attitude of the Catholic Church

There is information in the literature that the first collection of written symbols was compiled by Constantine the Philosopher on one ancient runic script. It is believed that it could have been used by the Slavs for secular and sacred pagan purposes before Christianity was adopted. But, however, there is no evidence of this, nor, in fact, confirmation of the existence of runic writing. Rimskaya, who opposed holding services in the Slavic language for the Croats, characterized the Glagolitic alphabet as a “Gothic letter.” Some ministers openly opposed the new alphabet, saying that it was invented by the heretic Methodius, who “in that Slavic language wrote many lies against the Catholic religion.”

The appearance of the symbols

The letters of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet differed from each other in style. In the earlier written system, the appearance of the signs in some points coincides with the khutsuri created before the 9th century, possibly based on the Armenian). The number of letters in both alphabet is the same - 38. Some individual symbols and the entire system of “finishing” small circles at the ends of lines, in general, have a pronounced resemblance to Jewish medieval Kabbalistic fonts and “runic” Icelandic cryptography. All these facts may not be accidental at all, since there is information that Constantine the Philosopher read ancient Jewish texts in the original, that is, he was familiar with Eastern writings (this is stated in his “life”). The style of almost all Glagolitic letters, as a rule, is derived from Greek cursive. For non-Greek characters, the Hebrew system is used. But meanwhile, there are no exact and specific explanations for the outline of forms for almost any symbol.

Similarities and differences

The Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets in their oldest versions are almost completely identical in composition. Only the forms of the characters are different. When reprinting Glagolitic texts by typography, the characters are replaced with Cyrillic ones. This is primarily due to the fact that today few people can recognize the more ancient mark. But when replacing one alphabet with another, the digital values ​​of the letters do not match. In some cases this leads to misunderstandings. So, for example, in the Glagolitic alphabet the numbers correspond to the order of the letters themselves, and in the Cyrillic alphabet the numbers are tied to those in the Greek alphabet.

The purpose of ancient writing

As a rule, they talk about two types of Glagolitic writing. A distinction is made between the older “round” one, also known as “Bulgarian”, and the later “angular” or “Croatian” (so named because it was used in worship by Croatian Catholics until the very middle of the 20th century). The number of characters in the latter was gradually reduced from 41 to 30 characters. In addition, there was (together with the statutory book) cursive writing. The Glagolitic alphabet was practically not used - in some cases there are separate “interspersions” of Glagolitic text fragments into Cyrillic ones. The ancient letter was primarily intended for the transmission (translation) of church meetings, and the surviving early Russian monuments of everyday writing before the adoption of Christianity (the oldest inscription is considered to be the inscription of the 1st half of the 10th century on a pot found on the Gnezdovo mound) are written in Cyrillic .

Theoretical assumptions about the primacy of the creation of ancient writing

Several facts support the fact that the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets were created at different times. Moreover, the first was created on the basis of the second. The oldest monument is written in Glagolitic alphabet. Later finds contain more advanced texts. Cyrillic manuscripts, in addition, are copied from Glagolitic ones in a number of ways. In the first, grammar, spelling and syllables are presented in a more perfect form. When analyzing handwritten texts, a direct dependence of the Cyrillic alphabet on the Glagolitic alphabet is visible. Thus, the letters of the latter were replaced by similar ones in sound. When studying more modern texts, chronological errors are observed. This is due to the fact that the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets assumed a different system of numerical correspondences. The digital values ​​of the first were focused on Greek writing.

What system of written signs did Constantine compose?

According to a number of authors, it was believed that the Philosopher first composed the Glagolitic alphabet, and then, with the help of his brother Methodius, the Cyrillic alphabet. However, there is information that refutes this. Konstantin knew and loved the Greek language very much. In addition, he was a missionary of the Orthodox Eastern Church. At that time, his tasks included attracting the Slavic people to the Greek Church. In this regard, it made no sense for him to create a written system that would alienate nationalities and complicate the perception and understanding of Scripture by those who were already familiar with the Greek language. After the creation of a new, more advanced writing system, it was difficult to imagine that ancient archaic writing would become more popular. The Cyrillic alphabet was more understandable, simple, beautiful and clear. It was convenient for most people. While the Glagolitic alphabet had a narrow focus and was intended for the interpretation of sacred liturgical books. All this indicates that Constantine was engaged in compiling a system based on the Greek language. And subsequently, the Cyrillic alphabet, as a more convenient and simpler system, replaced the Glagolitic alphabet.

Opinions of some researchers

Sreznevsky in 1848 wrote in his writings that, evaluating the features of many Glagolitic symbols, one can conclude: this letter is more archaic, and the Cyrillic alphabet is more perfect. The relationship of these systems can be traced in some letterforms and sounds. But at the same time, the Cyrillic alphabet has become simpler and more convenient. In 1766, Count Klement Grubisich published a book about the origin of written sign systems. In his work, the author claims that the Glagolitic alphabet was created long before Christmas and is therefore a much more ancient collection of characters than the Cyrillic alphabet. Around 1640, Rafail Lenakovich wrote a “dialogue”, where he states almost the same as Grubisich, but almost 125 years earlier. There are also statements by Chernoriz the Brave (early 10th century). In his work “On Writing,” he emphasizes that the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets have significant differences. In his texts, Chernoriz the Brave testifies to the existing dissatisfaction with the system of written signs created by the brothers Constantine and Methodius. At the same time, the author quite clearly indicates that it was a Cyrillic alphabet, not a Glagolitic alphabet, saying that the first was created before the second. Some researchers, assessing the outline of some characters ("ш", for example), draw conclusions different from those described above. So, according to some authors, the Cyrillic alphabet was created first, and only then the Glagolitic alphabet.

Conclusion

Despite the fairly large number of controversial opinions regarding the appearance of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet, the significance of the compiled system of written characters is enormous. Thanks to the appearance of a collection of handwritten signs, people were able to read and write. In addition, the work of the brothers Constantine and Methodius was an invaluable source of knowledge. Together with the alphabet, a literary language was formed. Many words are still found today in various related dialects - Russian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian and other languages. Along with the new system of written symbols, the perception of the people of antiquity also changed - after all, the creation of the Slavic alphabet was closely connected with the adoption and spread of the Christian faith and the rejection of ancient primitive cults.

Cyrillic alphabet- linguistic In the 9th century AD, Saints Cyril and Methodius created two alphabets, Glagolitic and Cyrillic, to write the Old Church Slavonic language. The Cyrillic alphabet, based on the Glagolitic and Greek alphabets, eventually became the system of choice... ... Universal additional practical explanatory dictionary by I. Mostitsky

Cyrillic alphabets Slavic: Belarusian alphabet Bulgarian alphabet Serbian alphabet ... Wikipedia

Cyrillic alphabets ... Wikipedia

Cyrillic alphabets Slavic: Belarusian alphabet Bulgarian alphabet Serbian alphabet ... Wikipedia

ALPHABET- [Greek ἀλφάβητος from the names of the first 2 letters of the Greek. alphabet: “alpha” and “beta” (“vita”)], a system of written letter signs that reflects and records the sound structure of the language and is the basis of writing. A. includes: 1) letters in their basic styles,... ... Orthodox Encyclopedia

Alphabet- (alphabet), a phonological writing system in which graphic signs (letters) indicate the corresponding sounds of the language. In one type of A., so-called. consonantal, letters indicate only consonant sounds, and vowels are expressed as diacritics... ... Peoples and cultures

Alphabet- from the name the first two letters of the Greek. A. alpha and beta (modern Greek vita), a set of letters adopted in the class. writing and located in the installation. ok; the same as the alphabet. In letters in monuments the word has been used since the 16th century, in modern times. lit. language b.... ... Russian humanitarian encyclopedic dictionary

- (Chuvash. chӑvash alphavichӗ) the general name of the alphabets, the letters of which were used to convey elements of sound speech in the writing of the ancient Chuvash and modern Chuvash languages. In the Chuvash writing system, only alphabetic ones were used... ... Wikipedia