Cyrillic Script

Letters

Cyrillic script spread throughout the East and South Slavic territories, being adopted for writing local languages, such as the Old East Slavic. Its adaptation to local languages produced a number of Cyrillic alphabets, discussed hereafter.

The early Cyrillic alphabet
А	Б	В	Г	Д	Е	Ж	Ѕ	Z	З	И	І	К	Л	М	Н	О	П	Р	С	Т	Ȣ	Ѹ
Ф	Х	Ѿ	Ц	Ч	Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы	Ь	Ѣ	Ꙗ	Ѥ	Ю	Ѧ	Ѫ	Ѩ	Ѭ	Ѡ	Ѻ	Ѯ	Ѱ	Ѳ	Ѵ

Capital and lowercase letters were not distinguished in old manuscripts.

Yeri (Ы) was originally a ligature of Yer and I (Ъ + I = Ы). Iotation was indicated by ligatures formed with the letter I: Ꙗ (not ancestor of modern Ya, Я, which is derived from Ѧ), Ѥ, Ю (ligature of I and ОУ), Ѩ, Ѭ. Many letters had variant forms and commonly used ligatures, for example И = І = Ї, Ѡ = Ѻ, ѠТ = Ѿ.

The letters also had numeric values, based not on Cyrillic alphabetical order, but inherited from the letters' Greek ancestors.

Cyrillic numerals
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
А	В	Г	Д	Є	Ѕ	З	И	Ѳ

10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90
І	К	Л	М	Н	Ѯ	Ѻ	П	Ч (Ҁ)

100	200	300	400	500	600	700	800	900
Р	С	Т	Ѵ	Ф	Х	Ѱ	Ѿ	Ц

The early Cyrillic alphabet is difficult to represent on computers. Many of the letterforms differed from modern Cyrillic, varied a great deal in manuscripts, and changed over time. Few fonts include adequate glyphs to reproduce the alphabet. In accordance with Unicode policy, the standard does not include letterform variations or ligatures found in manuscript sources unless they can be shown to conform to the Unicode definition of a character.

The Unicode 5.1 standard, released on 4 April 2008, greatly improves computer support for the early Cyrillic and the modern Church Slavonic language.

Letters of the Cyrillic alphabet (see also Cyrillic digraphs)
А	Б	В	Г	Ґ	Д	Ђ	Ѓ	Е	Ё	Є	Ж
З	З́	Ѕ	И	І	Ї	Й	Ј	К	Л	Љ	М
Н	Њ	О	П	Р	С	С́	Т	Ћ	Ќ	У	Ў
Ф	Х	Ц	Ч	Џ	Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы	Ь	Э	Ю
Я
Cyrillic non-Slavic letters
Ӏ	Ә	Ғ	Ҙ	Ҫ	Ҡ	Қ	Ң	Ө	Ү	Ұ	Һ

Cyrillic letters used in the past
Ꙗ	Ѥ	Ѧ	Ѫ	Ѩ	Ѭ	Ѯ	Ѱ	Ѳ	Ѵ	Ѷ	Ҁ
Ѹ	Ѡ	Ѿ	Ѣ

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Famous quotes containing the word letters:

“Deafness produces bizarre effects, reversing the natural order of things; the interchange of letters is the conversation of the deaf, and the only link with society. I would be in despair, for instance, over seeing you speak, but, instead, I am only too happy to hear you write.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)

“American thinking, when it concerns itself with beautiful letters as when it concerns itself with religious dogma or political theory, is extraordinarily timid and superficial ... [I]t evades the genuinely serious problems of art and life as if they were stringently taboo ... [T]he outward virtues it undoubtedly shows are always the virtues, not of profundity, not of courage, not of originality, but merely those of an emasculated and often very trashy dilettantism.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)

“A man who publishes his letters becomes a nudist—nothing shields him from the world’s gaze except his bare skin. A writer, writing away, can always fix himself up to make himself more presentable, but a man who has written a letter is stuck with it for all time.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)

А	Б	В	Г	Д	Е	Ж	Ѕ	Z	З	И	І	К	Л	М	Н	О	П	Р	С	Т	Ȣ	Ѹ
Ф	Х	Ѿ	Ц	Ч	Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы	Ь	Ѣ	Ꙗ	Ѥ	Ю	Ѧ	Ѫ	Ѩ	Ѭ	Ѡ	Ѻ	Ѯ	Ѱ	Ѳ	Ѵ

А	Б	В	Г	Д	Е	Ж	Ѕ	Z	З	И	І	К	Л	М	Н	О	П	Р	С	Т	Ȣ	Ѹ
Ф	Х	Ѿ	Ц	Ч	Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы	Ь	Ѣ	Ꙗ	Ѥ	Ю	Ѧ	Ѫ	Ѩ	Ѭ	Ѡ	Ѻ	Ѯ	Ѱ	Ѳ	Ѵ

Cyrillic Script - Letters

Famous quotes containing the word letters:

А	Б	В	Г	Д	Е	Ж	Ѕ	Z	З	И	І	К	Л	М	Н	О	П	Р	С	Т	Ȣ	Ѹ
Ф	Х	Ѿ	Ц	Ч	Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы	Ь	Ѣ	Ꙗ	Ѥ	Ю	Ѧ	Ѫ	Ѩ	Ѭ	Ѡ	Ѻ	Ѯ	Ѱ	Ѳ	Ѵ