20 Facts About Cyrillic alphabet

Cyrillic alphabet script, otherwise known as the Slavonic script or simply the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia.

Early Cyrillic alphabet was developed during the 9th century AD at the Preslav Literary School in the First Bulgarian Empire during the reign of tsar Simeon I the Great, probably by disciples of the two Byzantine brothers Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius, who had previously created the Glagolitic script.

Some Bulgarian intellectuals, notably Stefan Tsanev, have expressed concern over this, and have suggested that the Cyrillic script be called the "Bulgarian alphabet" instead, for the sake of historical accuracy.

In Czech and Slovak, which have never used Cyrillic alphabet, "azbuka" refers to Cyrillic alphabet and contrasts with "abeceda", which refers to the local Latin script and is composed of the names of the first letters .

The Cyrillic script is derived from the Greek uncial script letters, augmented by ligatures and consonants from the older Glagolitic alphabet for sounds not found in Greek.

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Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet were formalized by the Byzantine Saints Cyril and Methodius and their disciples, such as Saints Naum, Clement, Angelar, and Sava.

Cyrillic alphabet spread among other Slavic peoples, as well as among non-Slavic Vlachs.

The earliest datable Cyrillic alphabet inscriptions have been found in the area of Preslav, in the medieval city itself and at nearby Patleina Monastery, both in present-day Shumen Province, as well as in the Ravna Monastery and in the Varna Monastery.

The Cyrillic alphabet script came to dominate Glagolitic in the 12th century.

Paleographers consider the earliest features of Bosnian Cyrillic alphabet script had likely begun to appear between the 10th or 11th century, with the Humac tablet to be the first such document using this type of script and is believed to date from this period.

Bosnian Cyrillic alphabet was used continuously until the 18th century, with sporadic usage even taking place in the 20th century.

However, over the course of the following millennium, Cyrillic alphabet adapted to changes in spoken language, developed regional variations to suit the features of national languages, and was subjected to academic reform and political decrees.

Cyrillic alphabet script spread throughout the East Slavic and some South Slavic territories, being adopted for writing local languages, such as Old East Slavic.

Development of Cyrillic alphabet typography passed directly from the medieval stage to the late Baroque, without a Renaissance phase as in Western Europe.

Late Medieval Cyrillic alphabet letters show a marked tendency to be very tall and narrow, with strokes often shared between adjacent letters.

Similarly to Latin fonts, italic and cursive types of many Cyrillic alphabet letters are very different from their upright roman types.

Cyrillic alphabet script has been used for languages of Alaska, Slavic Europe, the Caucasus, the languages of Idel-Ural, Siberia, and the Russian Far East.

The Russian government has mandated that Cyrillic alphabet must be used for all public communications in all federal subjects of Russia, to promote closer ties across the federation.

Cyrillic alphabet is nominally the official script of Serbia's administration according to the Serbian constitution; however, the law does not regulate scripts in standard language, or standard language itself by any means.

Punctuation for Cyrillic text is similar to that used in European Latin-alphabet languages.