Relationship of Cyrillic and Glagolitic Scripts - Chernorizets Hrabar's Account

Chernorizets Hrabar's Account

Further information: Chernorizets Hrabar and Pre-Christian Slavic writing

In his famous treatise On the Letters (O pismenexъ), written as early as the end of the ninth or beginning of the tenth century, monk Hraber states the following:

Prěžde ubo slověne ne iměaxǫ kъńigъ nъ črьtami i rězami čьtěaxǫ i gataaxǫ pogani sǫšte. Krьstivъše že sę rimьskyjimi i grьčьskyjimi pismeny nǫždaaxǫ sę pьsati slověnьskǫ rěčь bez ustrojenьja. Nъ kako možetъ sę pьsati dobrě grьčьskyjimi pismeny bogъ ili životъ ili ğělo ili crьky ili čajanьje ili širota ili ědъ ili ǫdu ili ili junostь ili ęzykъ i ina podobьnaja simъ. I tako běšę mъnoga lěta. "Earlier the Slavs did not have books but by strokes and notches read and divined, being heathen. And when they were baptized, they had to write their Slavic speech with Roman and Greek letters without design. Because how could one write with Greek letters:

• богъ bog (meaning - 'god', English uses b for this sound )
• or живѡтъ život (meaning - 'life', contemporary meaning in East Slavic languages - 'stomach')
• or ѕело dzělo ('very much', Polish uses dz for this sound)
• or церковь crьky ('church')
• or чаание čajanie ('expectation', English uses ch for this sound)
• or широта širota ('width', English uses sh for this sound)
• or ꙗдъ іадъ ědъ ('poison')
• or ѫдоу ǫdu ('where', no Slavic language of today except Polish uses this sound; Polish uses ą)
• or юность junostь ('youth', English uses you for this sound)
• or ѫзыкъ ęzykъ ('tongue', may be here Hrabar mistaken it ѧзыкъ not ѫзыкъ, no Slavic language of today except Polish uses this sound; Polish uses ę)

or other similar words? And so it was for many years."

Hrabar's črьtami i rězami have long puzzled scholars. Various suggestions have been made, ranging to simple wood-marks used for aid in counting, to adaptations of Turkic (such as the ones occurring in Proto-Bulgar epigraphy) and Germanic (such as of the Gothic alphabet created by the Visigothic bishop Wulfila) runes. However, despite the proximity of Bulgar and Gothic tribes to presumed location of Slavic tribe and Proto-Slavic Urheimat, obvious contacts of which have otherwise left clear linguistic traces, not only has no authentic Slavic runic writing been discovered, but it cannot furthermore be shown that Constantine's Glagolitic alphabet contains any runic elements at all.

According to Schenker (1995), Hrabar's account is most likely to pertain to the possible pre-Constantine usage of Greek and Roman alphabet for writing by the Slavs, which was a very difficult task. The initial letters of the example words he cites are meant to illustrate that – the initial consonants in životъ, ğělo, crьky, čajanie and širota were completely absent in the contemporary Byzantine Greek phonology, as well as the initial nasal vowels illustrated by ǫdu and ęzykъ. Same is valid for the initial syllable of junostь which was either or, yat in ědъ (Greek letter η had acquired phonetic value of in Byzantine Greek), as well as for b and g in bogъ which could not be represented by Greek letters β and γ which were pronounced as labial and velar fricatives, respectively.

Bulgarian scholar Emil Georgiev is the most vocal supporter of the theory that there was indeed a Greek-based pre-Constantine writing alphabet, out of which Cyrillic developed and of which no extant examples have been preserved. He does not deny that the Glagolitic script was Constantine's creation—but Cyrillic is still the older script, according to him, deriving from cursive Greek.

Hrabar's account further describes how Constantine-Cyrill was sent by God to Slavs "to compose 38 letters, some according to the shape of Greek letters, some according to the Slavic word". This particular statement, as well as some other details, have led some philologists to the conclusion that Hrabar actually speaks about Cyrillic script. However, that theory has been dispelled by the meticulous analysis of St. M. Kuljbakin in a study Beleške o Hrabrovoj apologiji (Glas SKA, Beograd, 1935). The twice cited number of 38 letters of the Constantine's alphabet Hrabar writes about corresponds to the number of letter in the Glagolitic alphabet (iotated yus letters apart, which were absent in the original alphabet), while the Early Cyrillic script has many more graphemes. According to I. Gošev, Hrabar mentions another fact that undoubtedly corroborates the Glagolitic character of Constantine's alphabet—Hrabar writes that the first пнсмѧ of the alphabet compiled by Constantine the Philosopher, азъ, was "God's gift" to the Slavs, and by that it was markedly different from pagan Greek alpha. This "God's gift" is explicable only in terms of Glagolitic a, which represents the cross, i.e. the symbolic invocation with God's blessing.