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Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education vocational education"Moscow State Engineering University (MAMI)"

Essay

by discipline" Russian language and culture of speech"

Subject:" OriginRussian alphabet"

Completed by: Beletsky I.M.

Checked by: Zmazneva O.A.

Moscow 2012

Introduction

When conveying speech in writing, letters are used, each of which has a specific meaning. A set of letters arranged in a prescribed order is called an alphabet or alphabet.

The word alphabet comes from the name of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: b-- alpha; c-- beta (in modern Greek - vita).

The word alphabet comes from the name of the first two letters of the ancient Slavic alphabet - Cyrillic: A - az; B - beeches.

Alphabet, a writing system based on more or less strict adherence to the so-called phonetic principle, according to which one symbol (one letter) corresponds to one sound of a language.

In the 1st century AD, our ancestors lived on the territory of Europe - tribes of Slavs who spoke an ancient language (scientists gave it the name Proto-Slavic language). Over time, these tribes settled in different territories, and their mutual language also began to disintegrate: the Proto-Slavic language formed various branches. One such branch was the Old Russian language - the predecessor of the Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian languages.

The need for writing arose among the Slavs in the 9th century with the advent of states such as Serbia, Bulgaria, Poland, Croatia, and the Czech Republic. And when Christianity replaced ancient paganism (Rus adopted Christianity in 988), the need for writing increased even more (there was a need for economic and cultural ties with other states).

Our distant ancestors, the Slavs, formed the Old Russian people, which included the East Slavic tribes of the Polyans, Drevlyans, Krivichi, Vyatichi. On the territory adjacent to the middle reaches of the Dnieper, populated by glades, a powerful state appeared - Kievan Rus. The first church books written in Old Church Slavonic began to arrive in Kievan Rus. This language was formed on the basis of translations from Greek of the first Christian books and has had big influence for the development of many Slavic languages. The continuation of the Old Church Slavonic language as a literary language was Church Slavonic.

People already used some letters of the Greek alphabet for counting and writing, but it had to be streamlined, systematized, and adapted for use in new conditions. The first Slavic alphabet - the Cyrillic alphabet - was created on the basis of the Greek alphabet in 863. We still use this alphabet (of course, in a modified version).

The purpose of the work is to find out how and under what conditions the Russian alphabet originated, developed and changed. The abstract uses as sources of information: numerous Orthodox forums, encyclopedias and dictionaries.

Story

At the beginning of the second half of the 9th century, the Great Moravian state was one of the largest Slavic state entities. Since 846, Great Moravia was ruled by Prince Rostislav, who enjoyed special fame and courageously guarded the freedom of his people. Weighed down by his dependence on the Germans and realizing that the Slavs could not get rid of the influence of their dangerous neighbors on their own, he decided, together with his nephew Svyatopolk, to seek help from those who could help their needs, both spiritual and civil. at the same time would not be dangerous.

At that time, Christian preachers from Greece, Wallachia and Germany were already active in Moravia, and Prince Rostislav received holy baptism from some of them. Being enlightened by the light of Christ's faith, the noble prince cared about the spiritual awakening of his people.

At the same time, he perfectly understood that the preaching of Christianity could not be successful if missionaries replaced its lofty goals with political interests and, moreover, taught the people in a foreign, incomprehensible language.

At first, Prince Rostislav turned with his needs to Pope Nicholas I, who was then on the Roman throne, but he, being an ally of the German king Louis, did not respond to the prince’s request. Then Rostislav in 862 sent an embassy to the Byzantine Emperor Michael III. In his letter the prince wrote: " Our people rejected paganism and accepted the Christian law; but we do not have a teacher who would reveal to us in our native language true faith Christian, so that other countries follow our example. Therefore, we ask you, sovereign Sovereign, to send us such a bishop and teacher. From you always comes good law to all countries".

Emperor Michael did not hesitate to answer: the best of the best were sent to the Great Moravian mission - the Thessalonica brothers Cyril and Methodius. These were unusually educated people for their time, ascetics, prayer books, men with rich experience in missionary work.

Cyril and Methodius came to the Great Moravian Empire through Bulgaria in 863 and handed over to Prince Rostislav a letter from St. Photius. In it, the patriarch wrote, addressing the prince: " God, who commands every nation to come to the knowledge of righteousness and to achieve the honor of the highest calling, has looked upon your faith and efforts. Having arranged this now in our years, He also revealed writings in your language, which previously did not exist, but now have recently existed, so that you too could be counted among the great nations who praise God forhisnative language. Therefore we have sent to you the one to whom they were revealed, a precious and illustrious man, veryscientist, philosopher. Behold, accept this gift, better and more worthy than all gold, silver and gems and all transitory wealth. Try together with him to boldly establish the matter and seek God with all your heart and not close off salvation for the whole people, but encourage in every possible way so that they do not be lazy, but take the path of righteousness, so that you too, ifbring youtheir efforts towards the knowledge of God, accepted the reward both in this and in the future life for all souls who believe in Christ our God from now to eternity, and left behind a bright memory for future generations, just like great king Konstantin".

Prince Rostislav provided the brothers with all possible assistance. First of all, he gathered many youths and ordered them to learn the Slavic alphabet from translated books, then, under the leadership of the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius, he began to build churches. A year later, the first church in the city of Olomouc was completed, then several more churches were built.

The successful missionary activity of Saints Cyril and Methodius, supported by the holy prince Rostislav, laid the foundations for the independence of the Great Moravian state, and therefore aroused sharp opposition from the German princes and clergy who pursued their interests in the Slavic states.

Latin missionaries accused the brothers of using “unsanctified language” in worship and spreading false teaching about the Holy Spirit. Having consecrated the books of Holy Scripture translated by the holy brothers into the Slavic language, Orthodox Pope Adrian II composed a message to Holy Prince Rostislav: " If anyone dares to reproach these teachers and seduce you from the truth to fables, or, corrupting you, will blaspheme the books of your language, let him beexcommunicatedand is presented to the court of the church and will not receive forgiveness until he corrects himself. For these are wolves, not sheep, and we must recognize them by their fruits and beware of them...".

Formation

The mission of the brothers was to explain the Christian faith to people in their native language. And for this it was necessary to first translate liturgical books from Greek into Slavic. That is why Cyril and Methodius began developing a new alphabet. They even created 2 alphabets - Cyrillic and Glagolitic, but Glagolitic was forgotten over time (in Rus' it was used only in the very first years of the development and spread of writing). Our Russian alphabet comes from the Cyrillic alphabet. On its basis, the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Bulgarian alphabets were also created - that’s why these languages are so similar.

Of course, the alphabet we use now bears little resemblance to the ancient one. Old Church Slavonic alphabet. And the modern Russian language is also very different from the Old Church Slavonic and Old Russian languages.

The Cyrillic alphabet is in many ways similar to our modern script. If you look at the letters of this alphabet, you will see that many letters have disappeared from our modern use:

· yus big and yus small (they denoted nasal vowels; these sounds remained in Polish and French);

· instead of fita and fert we use the letter f;

· instead of zelo and earth - the letter z;

· instead of yat and is - the letter e;

· xi and psi.

And of course, many Cyrillic letters have changed their style over time. The names of modern letters have also become shorter.

Cyrillic letters originally also had a numerical meaning, that is, they were used instead of numbers.

The Cyrillic alphabet had several types of styles. For a long time (especially among the Eastern Slavs) the charter letter, or charter, was preserved: Cyrillic letters were written directly, one separately from the other. The charter was used to write mainly liturgical books. Over time, the charter was replaced by a semi-statutory, which is found in books of the 15th-17th centuries. The font of the first Russian printed books was cast on the model of the semi-charter.

Poluustav was replaced by cursive writing, in which the original style of Cyrillic letters changed significantly. Starting from the time of Peter I, the Cyrillic alphabet, from which some letters were excluded, received the name of the Russian civil alphabet. Thus, a slightly modified Cyrillic alphabet formed the basis of our modern alphabet.

Literacy was highly valued in Rus'. From the depths of centuries, monuments of ancient Russian writing have reached us: church books, codes of laws, business documents, chronicles, literary works. The oldest surviving Russian handwritten books date back to the 11th century. Copying by hand in Ancient Rus' was the only way to “replicate” a book and distribute it among literate people.

The emergence of printing in Rus' marked the beginning of a new era

Glagolitic

" The Life of Cyril" tells about the creation of the Slavic alphabet: " With the help of his brother, Saint Methodius (Michael) and the disciples Gorazd, Clement, Sava, Naum and Angelyar, he compiled the Slavic alphabet and translated books into Slavic, without which Divine services could not be performed".

A number of facts indicate that the Glagolitic alphabet was created before the Cyrillic alphabet, which in turn was created on the basis of the Glagolitic alphabet and the Greek alphabet. The oldest surviving Glagolitic inscription with precise dating dates back to 893, made in the church of the Bulgarian Tsar Simeon in Preslav. And the oldest handwritten monuments (including the “Kyiv Leaves”, dating back to the 10th century) are written in the Glagolitic alphabet, and they are written in a more archaic language, similar in phonetic composition to the language of the South Slavs.

Palimpsests (manuscripts on parchment in which the old text has been scraped off and a new one written on it) also indicate the great antiquity of the Glagolitic alphabet. On all surviving palimpsests, the Glagolitic alphabet has been scraped off, and the new text is written in Cyrillic. There is not a single palimpsest in which the Cyrillic alphabet has been scraped off and the Glagolitic alphabet written on it. In the treatise “On Writing,” Chernorizets Khrabr (beginning of the 10th century) emphasizes the difference in the writing of Greek letters and the Slavic alphabet of Cyril and Methodius, apparently Glagolitic:

“There is more holiness and honor in the Slavic writings that a holy man created them, and the Greek ones are filthy Hellenes. If anyone says that they did not make them good because they are still finishing them, in response we will say this: the Greeks also finished them many times.”

From the above quote we can conclude that there is a certain dissatisfaction with the alphabet of Cyril and Methodius, which may have led to the transition to the Cyrillic alphabet.

Late Glagolitic alphabet

Figure 1 - Late Glagolitic alphabet.

In popular literature, there is an opinion that the Glagolitic alphabet was founded by Constantine (Kirill) the Philosopher on some ancient Slavic, which was allegedly used for sacred pagan and secular purposes before the adoption of Christianity in the ancient Slavic states; clear evidence of this (as well as the existence in general " Slavic runes") no. The Roman Catholic Church, in the fight against services in the Slavic language among the Croats, called the Glagolitic alphabet "Gothic letters." At the council of bishops of Dalmatia and Croatia in 1059:

"They said that the Gothic letters were invented by a certain heretic Methodius, who in this very Slavic language wrote many false things against the teachings of the Catholic faith; because of this, they say, he was punished by God's court with a quick death" alphabet phonetic letter

The appearance of the letters of the early (round) Glagolitic alphabet somewhat coincides with the Khutsuri, the Georgian church alphabet created before the 9th century, possibly on the basis of the Armenian. In addition, the number of letters in the khutsuri, 38, coincides with the number of letters in the Slavic alphabet, counted by Chernorizets the Brave in his treatise. In some letters (and in general in the system of drawing small circles at the ends of lines) there is a striking resemblance to medieval Jewish Kabbalistic fonts and Icelandic “runic” cryptography. All this may not be accidental, since it is recognized that St. Constantine the Philosopher was familiar with Eastern alphabets (he read Hebrew texts in the original), which is also mentioned in the life of the saint. The style of most Glagolitic letters is usually derived from Greek cursive, and for non-Greek sounds the Hebrew alphabet is used, but there are no indisputable explanations for the shape of almost any letter.

The Glagolic and Cyrillic alphabets in their oldest versions are almost completely identical in composition, differing only in the shape of the letters. When reprinting Glagolitic texts in a typographical manner, Glagolitic letters are usually replaced with Cyrillic (since today few people can read Glagolitic). However, the numerical value of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic letters does not match, which sometimes leads to misunderstandings. In the Glagolitic alphabet, the numerical values of the letters are ordered according to the order of the letters, and in the Cyrillic alphabet they are tied to the numerical values of the corresponding letters of the Greek alphabet.

Usually there are two types of Glagolitic alphabet: the older “round” one, also known as Bulgarian, and the later “angular” one, Croatian (so called because until the middle of the 20th century it was used by Croatian Catholics when performing services according to the Glagolitic rite). The latter's alphabet was gradually reduced from 41 to 30 characters. Along with the statutory book, there was also Glagolitic cursive writing (cursive writing).

In Ancient Rus', the Glagolitic alphabet was practically not used; there are only isolated inclusions of Glagolitic letters in texts written in Cyrillic. The Glagolitic alphabet was the alphabet for transmitting primarily church texts; the surviving ancient Russian monuments of everyday writing before the baptism of Rus' (the earliest: an inscription on a pot from the Gnezdovo mound, dating back to the 1st half of the 10th century) use the Cyrillic alphabet. The Glagolitic alphabet is also used as a cryptographic script.

Cyrillic

The appearance of the Cyrillic alphabet, reproducing the Greek statutory (solemn) letter, 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, Eastern Slavs, as well as Romanians (see the article “Romanian Cyrillic”); 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.

Cyrillic alphabet

Figure 2 - Cyrillic.

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, but some purely Greek letters (xi, psi, fita, izhitsa) are not in their original place, but are moved to the end. 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 letter, Ethiopic letter, Coptic letter, Hebrew letter, 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 - sampi and stigma - which are not even included in the classical 24-letter Greek alphabet, other Slavic letters are adapted - Ts (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.

The emergence of the Russian alphabet

The Russian alphabet comes from the Old Russian Cyrillic, which, in turn, was borrowed from the Bulgarians and became widespread in Rus' after the adoption of Christianity (988).

At this point, it apparently had 43 letters. Later 4 new letters were added, and 14 old ones were in different time excluded as unnecessary, since the corresponding sounds disappeared. The first to disappear was the iotized yus (?, ?), then the large yus (?), which returned in the 15th century, but disappeared again at the beginning of the 17th century, and the iotized E (?); the remaining letters, sometimes slightly changing their meaning and form, have been preserved to this day as part of the alphabet of the Church Slavonic language, which for a long time was considered identical with the Russian alphabet.

Spelling reforms of the second half of the 17th century (related to the “correction of books” under Patriarch Nikon) fixed the following set of letters: A, B, C, D, D, E (with a spelling different variant Є, which was sometimes considered a separate letter and placed in the alphabet on place of the current E, that is, after?), Zh, S, Z, I (with a spelling different variant Y for the sound [j], which was not considered a separate letter), I, K, L, M, N, O (in two orthographically different styles: “narrow” and “wide”), P, R, S, T, U (in two orthographically different styles:), F, X, ? (in two orthographically different styles: “narrow” and “wide”, as well as as part of the ligature “ot” (?), usually considered a separate letter), Ts, Ch, Sh, Shch, b, ы, b, ?, Yu , I (in two styles: IA and ?, which were sometimes considered different letters, sometimes not), ?, ?, ?, ?. Sometimes the big yus (?) and the so-called “ik” (in the form of the current letter “u”) were also included in the alphabet, although they had no sound meaning and were not used in any word.

The Russian alphabet remained in this form until the reforms of Peter I of 1708-1711. (and Church Slavonic is still the same today), when superscripts were eliminated (which incidentally “cancelled” the letter Y) and many doublet letters and letters used to write numbers were abolished (which became irrelevant after the transition to Arabic numerals). In the 19th century, separate alphabets began to be developed for the Ukrainian and Belarusian dialects, slightly different from the main one. Subsequently, some abolished letters were restored and abolished again. By 1917, the alphabet came in a 34-letter (officially; in fact there were 37 letters) composition: A, B, C, D, D, E, (E was not considered a separate letter), ZH, Z, I, (Y was not considered a separate letter considered), I, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, F, X, C, Ch, Sh, Shch, b, S, b, ?, E, Yu, Z , ?, (? was considered no longer part of the Russian alphabet).

The last major reform of writing was carried out in 1917-1918 - as a result, the current Great Russian alphabet, consisting of 33 letters, appeared. This alphabet also became the basis of many newly written languages (writing for which was absent or lost before the 20th century and was introduced in the republics of the USSR after the Great October Socialist Revolution).

Letter reforms

§ Psi (?)- canceled by Peter I (replaced by the combination PS), was not restored (although the use of this letter was noted in the alphabet of 1717).

§ Xi (?) - abolished by Peter I (replaced by the combination KS), later restored, finally abolished in 1735. In the civilian font it looked like an Izhitsa with a tail.

§ Omega (?) and from(?) - canceled by Peter I (replaced by ABOUT and combination FROM accordingly), were not restored.

§ Fert (F) and fita (?) - Peter I in 1707--1708. canceled it was fert F(leaving fita ? ), but returned it in 1710, restoring the Church Slavonic rules for the use of these letters; fita was abolished by the reform of 1917-1918.

§ Izhitsa (?) - abolished by Peter I (replaced by I or IN, depending on pronunciation), later restored, again abolished in 1735, again restored in 1758... It was used less and less and from the 1870s was usually considered abolished and no longer part of the Russian alphabet, although until 1917-1918 gg. sometimes used in individual words (usually in m?ro with derivatives, less often - in s?nod with derivatives, even less often - in ?fast and so on.). In the documents of the spelling reform of 1917-1918. not mentioned.

§ І And AND AND, but then returned it, changing the rules for the use of these letters in comparison with Church Slavonic ones (later the Church Slavonic rules were restored). The rules regarding the number of points over І : Peter canceled them; then it was prescribed to put two dots over І before vowels, and one before consonants; finally, since 1738 the dot has become the same everywhere. Letter І abolished by reforms of 1917-1918.

§ Y- this sign, canceled by Peter I, was returned to the civil press in 1735 (they usually say that it was then that it was introduced); was not considered a separate letter until the 20th century.

§ Z And Ѕ - Peter I initially abolished the letter Z, but then returned it, canceling Ѕ .

§ I.A. and small yus (?) - replaced by Peter I with the mark I(used earlier and originating from the cursive form of the small yusa).

§ - replaced by Peter I with an outline in the form of the current letter U.

§ Yat (?) - abolished by the reform of 1917-1918.

§ E- used since the middle of the 17th century (considered borrowed from the Glagolitic alphabet), officially introduced into the alphabet in 1708.

§ Yo- proposed in 1783 by Princess E.R. Dashkova, used since 1795, popular since 1797 at the suggestion of N.M. Karamzin (it should be noted that he used the letter Yo only in works of art, but in the famous “History of the Russian State” he made do with traditional spellings through E). Previously (since 1758) instead of the letter Yo lettering was used IO under a common cover. Separate alphabet letter sign Yo officially became in the middle of the 20th century. Mandatory for use in print from 1942 until the death of I.V. Stalin.

Composition of the Russian alphabet

There are 33 letters in the Russian alphabet, of which 10 represent vowels, 21- consonants and 2 letters do not indicate special sounds, but serve to convey certain sound features. The Russian alphabet, shown in Table 1, has uppercase (capital) and lowercase (small) letters, printed and handwritten letters.

Table 1

Conclusion

So, we saw that the appearance of the Russian alphabet was marked by a very significant step for the Slavic group of peoples. It is difficult to imagine what language we would now communicate in, and what alphabet we would use.

After researching this topic, you can see that the formation of the Russian alphabet was not only difficult and long, but also required many human sacrifices. Due to its “youth”, the alphabet still has to undergo modifications, and I hope that all these changes will help raise the level of the Russian language as a whole.

Literature

1. Grinevich G.E. Proto-Slavic writing. M., 1993.

2. Zinoviev A.V. Cyrillic cryptography. The solution to the logical-mathematical system of the Slavic alphabet. Vladimir, 1991.

3. Minin Yu.P. "The solution to the Russian alphabet." / Ed. Kitaygorodsky M.V., Shiryaeva E.N. - M.: Science, 1981

4. http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%F3%F1%F1%EA%E8%E9_%E0%EB%F4%E0%E2%E8%F2

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Kubansky State University

Faculty of Management and Psychology

on document management on the topic:

"History of the Russian alphabet: from antiquity to the present day"

Completed by a student

2nd year preschool educational institution:

Teterleva Elena

Krasnodar 2010

Introduction

1. The emergence of the Slavic alphabet

2. Cyrillic letters and their names

3. Composition of the Russian alphabet

Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

When conveying speech in writing, letters are used, each of which has a specific meaning. A set of letters arranged in a prescribed order is called alphabet or ABC.

Word alphabet comes from the name of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: α- alpha; β- beta(in modern Greek - vita).

Word ABC comes from the name of the first two letters of the ancient Slavic alphabet - Cyrillic: A - az; B - beeches.

How did the alphabet come about? How did it develop in Rus'? The answers to these questions can be found in this abstract.

1. THE APPEARANCE OF THE SLAVIC ABC

Alphabet is a system of letters that convey the sounds or phonemes of a language. Almost all known alphabetic writing systems have a common origin: they go back to the Semitic writing of Phenicia, Syria, Palestine of the 2nd millennium BC.

Phoenicians who lived on the east coast Mediterranean Sea, in ancient times were famous sailors. They conducted active trade with the states of the Mediterranean. In the 9th century. BC e. The Phoenicians introduced their writing to the Greeks. The Greeks slightly modified the styles of Phoenician letters and their names, while maintaining the order.

In the 1st millennium BC. e. Southern Italy was colonized by the Greeks. As a result of this, various peoples of Italy became acquainted with the Greek letter, including the Latins, the Italic tribe that founded Rome. The classical Latin alphabet was finally formed in the 1st century. BC e. Some Greek letters were not included in the Latin alphabet. During the era of the Roman Empire, the Latin language and writing became widespread. Its influence intensified in the Middle Ages due to the transition to. Christianity of all peoples of Europe. The Latin language became the liturgical language in all states of Western Europe, and the Latin script became the only acceptable script for liturgical books. As a result, Latin has been an international language for centuries.

On the territory of Central Eastern Europe, inhabited by the Slavs, starting from the 6th-7th centuries. Separate unions of Slavic tribes and state associations appear.

19th century the state union of the Western Slavs was known - the Moravian Principality, located on the territory of present-day Slovakia. German feudal lords sought to subjugate Moravia politically, economically, and culturally. German missionaries were sent to Moravia to preach Christianity in Latin. This threatened the political independence of the state. In an effort to maintain independence, the far-sighted Moravian prince Rostislav sent an embassy to the Byzantine Emperor Michael III with a request to send teachers (preachers of Christianity according to the Byzantine rite) to Moravia who would teach the inhabitants of Moravia Christianity in their native language. Michael III entrusted the Moravian mission to Constantine (monastic name - Cyril) and his brother Methodius. The brothers were natives of the city of Thessaloniki (now Thessaloniki), which at that time was part of the Slavic (Bulgarian) territory and was cultural center Macedonia, Ancient Thessaloniki was a bilingual city, in which, in addition to the Greek language, a Slavic dialect was heard.

Konstantin was a very educated man for his time. Even before his trip to Moravia, he compiled the Slavic alphabet and began to translate the Gospel into the Slavic language. In Moravia, Constantine and Methodius continued to translate church books from Greek into the Slavic language, teaching the Slavs to read, write and conduct worship in the Slavic language. The brothers stayed in Moravia for more than three years, and then went with their disciples to Rome to the Pope. There they hoped to find support in the fight against the German clergy, who did not want to give up their positions in Moravia and hindered the spread of Slavic writing. On the way to Rome, they visited another Slavic country - Pannonia (the area of Lake Balaton, Hungary). And here the brothers taught the Slavs books and worship in the Slavic language.

In Rome, Constantine became a monk, taking the name Cyril. There, in 869, Cyril was poisoned. Before his death, he wrote to Methodius: “You and I are like two oxen; one fell from a heavy burden, the other must continue the journey.” Methodius with his disciples, who received the priesthood, returned to Pannonia, and later to Moravia.

By that time, the situation in Moravia had changed dramatically. After the death of Rostislav, his captive Svyatopolk became the Moravian prince, who submitted to German political influence. The activities of Methodius and his disciples took place in very difficult conditions. The Latin-German clergy in every way prevented the spread of the Slavic language as the language of the church.

Methodius was sent to prison, where he dies in 885, and after that his opponents managed to achieve the ban on Slavic writing in Moravia. Many students were executed, some moved to Bulgaria and Croatia. In Bulgaria, Tsar Boris converted to Christianity in 864. Bulgaria becomes the center of the spread of Slavic writing. Here Slavic schools are created, the original Cyril and Methodius liturgical books (Gospel, Psalter, Apostle, church services) are copied, new Slavic translations from Greek are made, original works appear in the Old Slavonic language (“0 writings of the Chrnoritsa Brave”).

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

The Old Church Slavonic alphabets with which monuments that have survived to this day are written are called Glagolitic And Cyrillic. The first Old Church Slavonic monuments were written in the Glagolitic alphabet, which was supposedly created by Constantine based on the Greek cursive script of the 9th century. with the addition of some letters from other eastern alphabets. This is a very unique, intricate, loop-shaped letter, which was used by the Croats for a long time in a slightly modified form (until the 17th century). The appearance of the Cyrillic alphabet, which dates back to the Greek statutory (solemn) letter, is associated with the activities of the Bulgarian school of scribes. Cyrillic is the Slavic alphabet that underlies the modern Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian alphabet.

2. CYRILLIC LETTERS AND THEIR NAMES

Figure 1 – “Cyrillic letters and their names”

The Cyrillic alphabet, shown in Figure 1, has undergone gradual improvement as it has been used in the Russian language.

The development of the Russian nation at the beginning of the 18th century and the emerging needs for the printing of civil books necessitated the need to simplify the lettering of the Cyrillic alphabet.

In 1708, a Russian civil font was created, and Peter I himself took an active part in making sketches of letters. In 1710, a sample of a new alphabet font was approved. This was the first reform of Russian graphics. The essence of Peter's reform was to simplify the composition of the Russian alphabet by excluding from it such outdated and unnecessary letters as “psi”, “xi”, “omega”, “izhitsa”, “earth”, “izhe”, “yus small”. However, later, probably under the influence of the clergy, some of these letters were restored to use. The letter E (“E” is reverse) was introduced in order to distinguish it from the yotized letter E, as well as the letter Y instead of the small yotized yus.

In the civil font, uppercase (capital) and lowercase (small) letters are established for the first time.

Letter Y ( and short) was introduced by the Academy of Sciences in 1735. The letter Yo was first used by N.M. Karamzin in 1797 to designate the sound [o] under stress after soft consonants, for example: palate, dark.

In the 18th century in a literary language, a sound denoted by the letter Ъ ( yat), coincided with the sound [ uh ]. Bush, Kommersant, thus, practically turned out to be unnecessary, but according to tradition, it was kept in the Russian alphabet for a long time, until 1917-1918.

Spelling reform of 1917-1918. two letters that duplicated each other were excluded: “yat”, “fita”, “and decimal”. Letter b ( er) was saved only as a delimiter, b ( er) - as a dividing sign and to indicate the softness of the preceding consonant. Regarding Yo, the decree contains a clause on the desirability, but not obligatory nature, of using this letter. Reform 1917-1918 simplified Russian writing and thereby facilitated learning to read and write.

3. COMPOSITION OF THE RUSSIAN ALPHABET

The Russian alphabet has 33 letters, of which 10 indicate vowels, 21 consonants, and 2 letters do not indicate special sounds, but serve to convey certain sound features. The Russian alphabet, shown in Table 1, has uppercase (capital) and lowercase (small) letters, printed and handwritten letters.

Table 1 – Russian alphabet and letter names

CONCLUSION

Throughout the history of the Russian alphabet, there was a struggle with “extra” letters, culminating in a partial victory during the reform of graphics by Peter I (1708-1710) and a final victory during the spelling reform of 1917-1918.

Alphabet.

The Guinness Book of Records considers...

Ancient

The earliest example of alphabetic writing was found in Ugarit (now Ras Sharma, Syria). It dates from approximately 1450 BC. e. and is a clay tablet with 32 wedge-shaped letters printed on it.

The oldest letter

The oldest letter “o” remained unchanged in the same form in which it was adopted in the Phoenician alphabet (about 1300 BC). There are currently 65 alphabets in use.

The longest and shortest alphabets

The largest number of letters - 72 - is contained in the Khmer language, the smallest - 11 (a, b, e, g, i, k, o, p, t, u) - in the Rotokas language from the island of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea.

Origin of the Russian alphabet.

The alphabet in the 33-letter form we are familiar with did not always exist. Its prototype was the alphabet called Old Slavonic, or Church Slavonic.

The appearance of the Cyrillic alphabet, which dates back to the Greek language, is traditionally associated with the activities of the famous enlighteners Cyril and Methodius.

The Old Church Slavonic language, being the language of the church in Rus', was influenced by the Old Russian language. Thus, the Russian alphabet originated from the Old Russian Cyrillic alphabet, which was borrowed from the Greeks and became widespread in Kievan Rus after the adoption of Christianity (988).

At that time, it apparently had 43 letters. He looked like this:

It is easy to notice that some Cyrillic letters sound like ours modern words: “good”, “earth”, “people”. Others - az, beeches, lead... What do they mean and what is their origin?

A3 is the personal pronoun of the first person singular.

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

VEDI is a form of the verb “vedeti” - to know.

VERB - a form of the verb “verb” - to speak.

GOOD – the meaning is clear.

IS – third person singular present tense from the verb “to be”.

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

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

IZHE (AND OCTAL) is 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.

AND (AND DECIMAL) - so called because of its numerical value - 10.

KAKO – interrogative adverb “how”.

PEOPLE – the meaning is self-explanatory.

MYSLETE is a form of the verb “to think.”

OUR is a possessive pronoun.

OH is a third person singular personal pronoun.

RTSY is a form of the verb “speech”, to speak.

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 THE GREAT is a Greek omega, which we got its name from the letter “he”.

TSY is an onomatopoeic name.

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

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.

ERY - the compound name of this letter - “er” plus “and” - was, as it were, a “description” of its shape. We renamed it “s” a long time ago.

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 Θ came to Rus', which was called 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 “g”. 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 “Kyuros” - lord, was usually rendered as “Kirill”, but the pronunciation “Kurill” was also possible. In the epics “Kurill” was changed into “Chyurilo”. Until recently, in the west of Ukraine there was a place called “Kurilovtsi” - the descendants of “Kuril”.

Time rushes forward rapidly and makes its own adjustments. Some letters disappeared, and new ones appeared in their place.

Subsequently, some abolished letters were restored and abolished again. By 1917, the alphabet came in a 35-letter (officially; in fact there were 37 letters) composition: A, B, C, D, D, E, (E was not considered a separate letter), ZH, Z, I, (Y was not considered a separate letter considered), I, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, F, X, C, Ch, Sh, Shch, b, S, b, Ѣ, E, Yu, I , Ѳ, Ѵ. (The last letter was formally listed in the Russian alphabet, but de facto its use came to an almost nonexistent level, and it was found in only a few words).

The last major reform of writing was carried out in 1917-1918 - as a result, the current Russian alphabet, consisting of 33 letters, appeared. This alphabet also became the written basis for most languages of the USSR, for which writing was absent before the 20th century or was replaced during the years of Soviet power.

The importance of writing in the development of mankind is difficult to overestimate. Even in that era, when there was no trace of the alphabet, ancient people tried to express their thoughts in the form of rock inscriptions.
ABC of Elisabeth Boehm

First they drew figures of animals and humans, then - various signs and hieroglyphs. Over time, people managed to create easy-to-understand letters and put them into an alphabet. Who was the creator of the Russian alphabet? To whom do we owe the opportunity to express ourselves freely through writing?

Who laid the foundation of the Russian alphabet?

The history of the appearance of the Russian alphabet dates back to the 2nd millennium BC. Then the ancient Phoenicians came up with consonant letters and used them for quite a long time to compose documents.

In the 8th century BC, their discovery was borrowed by the ancient Greeks, who significantly improved the letter by adding vowels to it. Subsequently, it was the Greek alphabet, with the help of which statutory (solemn) letters were compiled, that formed the basis of the Russian alphabet.

Who created the Russian alphabet?

IN Bronze Age In Eastern Europe lived pre-Slavic peoples who spoke the same language.

Primer Slavonic writings of the Greatest Teacher B. Hieronymus of Stridon
Around the 1st century AD, they began to break up into separate tribes, as a result of which several states were created in these territories, inhabited Eastern Slavs. Among them was Great Moravia, which occupied the lands of modern Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, partly Ukraine and Poland.

With the advent of Christianity and the construction of temples, people had a need to create a writing system that would allow them to record church texts. To learn to write, the Moravian prince Rostislav turned to the Byzantine emperor Michael III for help, and he sent Christian preachers Cyril and Methodius to Moravia. In 863, they came up with the first Russian alphabet, which was named after one of the preachers - the Cyrillic alphabet.

Who are Cyril and Methodius?

Cyril and Methodius were brothers originally from Thessaloniki (now Greek Thessaloniki). In those days, in their hometown, in addition to Greek, they spoke the Slavic-Thessalonica dialect, which formed the basis of the Church Slavonic language.

Initially, Cyril’s name was Konstantin, and he received his middle name just before his death, having taken a monastic vow. In his youth, Constantine studied with the best Byzantine teachers of philosophy, rhetoric, and dialectics, and later taught at Magnavra University in Constantinople.

Monument to Saints Cyril and Methodius in Saratov. Photo by Vasily Zimin.
In 863, going to Moravia, with the help of his brother Methodius, he created. Bulgaria became the center of the spread of Slavic writing. In 886, the Preslav Book School was opened on its territory, where they translated from Greek and rewrote the Cyril and Methodius originals. Around the same time, the Cyrillic alphabet came to Serbia, and at the end of the 10th century it reached Kievan Rus.

Initially, the first Russian alphabet had 43 letters. Later, 4 more were added to it, and the previous 14 were removed as unnecessary. At first, some of the letters appearance resembled Greek ones, but as a result of spelling reform in the 17th century, they were replaced with those that we know today.

By 1917, there were 35 letters in the Russian alphabet, although in fact there were 37 of them, since E and J were not considered separate. Additionally, the alphabet contained the letters I, Ѣ (yat), Ѳ (fita) and V (Izhitsa), which later disappeared from use.

When did the modern Russian alphabet appear?

In 1917–1918, a major spelling reform was carried out in Russia, thanks to which the modern alphabet appeared. Its initiator was the Ministry of Public Education under the Provisional Government. The reform began before the revolution, but was continued after the transfer of power to the Bolsheviks.

Wikimedia Commons/Jimmy Thomas ()
In December 1917, the Russian statesman Anatoly Lunacharsky issued a decree according to which all organizations were ordered to use a new alphabet consisting of 33 letters.

Although the spelling reform was prepared before the revolution and did not have any political background, at first it was criticized by opponents of Bolshevism. However, over time, the modern alphabet took root and is used to this day.

Letters are the basis of any language in the world, because we use their combination when we think, speak or write. The alphabet of the Russian language is interesting not only as a “ building material", but also the history of his education. In this regard, the question arises: who created the alphabet of the Russian language? Most people, without hesitation, will say that the main authors of the Russian alphabet are Cyril and Methodius. However, only a few know that they not only created the letters of the alphabet, but began to use signs in writing, and also translated a huge number of church books.

How did the Russian alphabet appear?

From the 9th to the 10th centuries, one of the largest states was Great Moravia. At the end of 862, her prince Rostislav wrote a letter to the Emperor of Byzantium, Michael, asking for permission to conduct services in the Slavic language. At that time, the inhabitants of Moravia had a common language, but there was no written language. The Greek script or Latin was used. Emperor Michael granted the prince's request and sent a mission to Moravia in the person of two learned brothers. Cyril and Methodius were well educated and belonged to a noble family. It was they who became the founders of Slavic culture and writing. However, one should not think that until this moment people remained illiterate. They used letters from the Veles book. It is still not known who invented the letters or signs in it.

An interesting fact is that the brothers created the letters of the alphabet even before arriving in Moravia. It took them about three years to create the Russian alphabet and arrange the letters into the alphabet. The brothers managed to translate the Bible and liturgical books from Greek, and from now on the liturgy in the church was conducted in a language understandable to local population. Some letters in the alphabet were very similar to Greek and Latin characters. In 863, an alphabet consisting of 49 letters was created, but later it was abolished to 33 letters. The originality of the created alphabet is that each letter conveys one sound.

I wonder why the letters in the Russian alphabet have a certain sequence? The creators of the Russian alphabet considered letters from the point of view of ordering numbers. Each letter defines a number, so the letter-numbers are arranged in an increasing direction.

Who invented the Russian alphabet?

In 1917-1918 The first reform was carried out aimed at improving the spelling of the Slavic language. The Ministry of Public Education decided to correct the books. The alphabet or Russian alphabet regularly underwent changes, and this is how the Russian alphabet that we use now appeared.

The history of the Russian language is fraught with numerous discoveries and secrets:

There is a letter “Ё” in the Russian alphabet. It was introduced by the Academy of Sciences in 1783 by Princess Vorontsova-Dashkova, who headed it at that time. She asked the academicians why in the word “iolka” the first syllable is represented by two letters. Having not received an answer that satisfied her, the princess created an order to use the letter “Y” in writing.
The one who invented the Russian alphabet left no explanation for the silent letter “er”. It was used until 1918 after hard consonants. The country's treasury spent more than 400 thousand rubles on writing “er”, so the letter was very expensive.
Another difficult letter in the Russian alphabet is “i” or “i”. Reforming philologists could not decide which sign to leave, so significant was the evidence of the importance of their use. This letter in the Russian alphabet was read the same way. The difference between “and” and “i” is in the semantic load of the word. For example, “mir” in the meaning of “universe” and “peace” in the meaning of the absence of war. After decades of controversy, the creators of the alphabet left the letter “i”.
The letter “e” in the Russian alphabet was previously called “e reverse”. M.V. Lomonosov did not recognize it for a long time, as he considered it borrowed from other languages. But it successfully took root among other letters in the Russian alphabet.

The Russian alphabet is complete interesting facts, almost every letter has its own story. But the creation of the alphabet affected only scientific and educational activities. The innovators had to teach new letters to people and, above all, the clergy. Dogmatics was closely intertwined with the clergy and politics. Unable to withstand the endless persecution, Cyril dies, and a few years later Methodius dies. The gratitude of descendants cost the brothers dearly.

The alphabet has not changed for a long time. In the last century, children studied at school using the old Russian alphabet, so we can say that modern letter names came into general use only during the reign of Soviet power. The order of letters in the Russian alphabet has remained the same since its creation, since the signs were used to form numbers (although we have been using Arabic numerals for a long time).

The Old Church Slavonic alphabet, created in the ninth century, became the basis for the formation of writing among many peoples. Cyril and Methodius made a tremendous contribution to the history of the development of Slavic languages. Already in the ninth century it was understood that not every nation has the honor of using its own alphabet. We still use the brothers' legacy to this day.