Cyrillic script

"Cyrillic" and "Cyrillic Alpha bet" redirect here. For the national variants of the Cyrillic script, seeCyrillic Alpha bets.For other uses, seeCyrillic (disambiguation).

TheCyrillic script(/sɪˈrɪlɪk/sih-RIL-ik),Slavonic scriptor simplySlavic scriptis awriting systemused for various languages acrossEurasia.It is the designated national script in variousSlavic,Turkic,Mongolic,Uralic,CaucasianandIranic-speaking countries inSoutheastern Europe,Eastern Europe,theCaucasus,Central Asia,North Asia,andEast Asia,and used by many other minority languages.

Cyrillic script
1850s Romanian text (Lord's Prayer), written with the Cyrillic script
Script type	Alphabet
Time period	Earliest variantsexistc. 893–c. 940
Direction	Left-to-right
Official script	8 sovereign states Belarus Bulgaria Kyrgyzstan North Macedonia Russia Serbia Ukraine Tajikistan 5 intergovernmental organizations Commonwealth of Independent States Eurasian Economic Union European Union Shanghai Cooperation Organisation United Nations Co-official script in: 5sovereign states and 2* disputed territories Abkhazia* Bosnia and Herzegovina Kosovo* Kazakhstan Uzbekistan Mongolia Montenegro
Languages	SeeLanguages using Cyrillic
Related scripts
Parent systems	Egyptian hieroglyphs Proto-Sinaitic Phoenician Greek scriptaugmented byGlagolitic Early Cyrillic script Cyrillic script
Child systems	Old Permic script
Sister systems	Armenian Coptic Latin
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Cyrl(220),​Cyrillic Cyrs(Old Church Slavonicvariant)
Unicode
Unicode alias	Cyrillic
Unicode range	U+0400–U+04FFCyrillic U+0500–U+052FCyrillic Supplement U+2DE0–U+2DFFCyrillic Extended-A U+A640–U+A69FCyrillic Extended-B U+1C80–U+1C8FCyrillic Extended-C U+1E030–U+1E08FCyrillic Extended-D
Names:Belarusian:кірыліца,Bulgarian:кирилица[ˈkirilit͡sɐ],Macedonian:кирилицаMacedonian pronunciation:[[kiˈrilit͡sa]],Russian:кириллица[kʲɪˈrʲilʲɪtsə],Serbian:ћирилицаSerbian pronunciation:[[t͡ɕiˈrilit͡sa]],Ukrainian:кирилиця[keˈrɪɫet͡sʲɐ]

As of 2019,around 250 million people in Eurasia use Cyrillic as the official script for their national languages, withRussiaaccounting for about half of them.With theaccession of Bulgaria to the European Unionon 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of theEuropean Union,following theLatinandGreekAlpha bets.

TheEarly Cyrillic Alpha betwas developed during the 9th century AD at thePreslav Literary Schoolin theFirst Bulgarian Empireduring the reign ofTsarSimeon I the Great,probably by the disciples of the twoByzantinebrothersCyril and Methodius,who had previously created theGlagolitic script.Among them wereClement of Ohrid,Naum of Preslav,Constantine of Preslav,Joan Ekzarh,Chernorizets Hrabar,Angelar,Savaand other scholars.The script is named in honor ofSaint Cyril.

Etymology

Since the script was conceived and popularised by the followers ofCyril and Methodiusin Bulgaria, rather than by Cyril and Methodius themselves,its name denotes homage rather than authorship.

History

Main article:Early Cyrillic Alpha bet

Biblioteca Apostolica VaticanaattributedCyrillic scripttoSaint Cyril and Methodius,14th century

View of the cave monastery near the village ofKrepcha,Opaka Municipalityin Bulgaria. Here is found the oldest Cyrillic inscription, dated 921.

A page from Буквар (ABC (Reader)), the first Old Slavonic textbook, printed byIvan Fyodorovin 1574 in Lviv. This page features the Cyrillic Alpha bet.

The Cyrillic script was created during theFirst Bulgarian Empire.Modern scholars believe that theEarly Cyrillic Alpha betwas created at thePreslav Literary School,the most important early literary and cultural center of the First Bulgarian Empire and of allSlavs:

Unlike the Churchmen in Ohrid, Preslav scholars were much more dependent upon Greek models and quickly abandoned theGlagolitic scriptsin favor of an adaptation of the Greek uncial to the needs of Slavic, which is now known as the Cyrillic Alpha bet.

A number of prominent Bulgarian writers and scholars worked at the school, includingNaum of Preslavuntil 893;Constantine of Preslav;Joan Ekzarh(also transcr. John the Exarch); andChernorizets Hrabar,among others. The school was also a center of translation, mostly ofByzantineauthors. The Cyrillic script is derived from theGreek uncial scriptletters, augmented byligaturesand consonants from the older Glagolitic Alpha bet for sounds not found in Greek. Glagolitic and Cyrillic were formalized by the ByzantineSaints Cyril and Methodiusand their Bulgarian disciples, such as SaintsNaum,Clement,Angelar,andSava.They spread and taught Christianity in the whole of Bulgaria.Paul Cubberley posits that although Cyril may have codified and expanded Glagolitic, it was his students in the First Bulgarian Empire under TsarSimeon the Greatthat developed Cyrillic from the Greek letters in the 890s as a more suitable script for church books.

Cyrillic spread among other Slavic peoples, as well as among non-SlavicRomanians.The earliest datable Cyrillic inscriptions have been found in the area ofPreslav,in the medieval city itself and at nearbyPatleina Monastery,both in present-dayShumen Province,as well as in theRavna Monasteryand in theVarna Monastery.The new script became the basis ofAlpha betsused in various languages inOrthodox Church-dominated Eastern Europe, both Slavic and non-Slavic languages (such asRomanian,until the 1860s). For centuries, Cyrillic was also used by Catholic and Muslim Slavs.

Cyrillic and Glagolitic were used for theChurch Slavonic language,especially theOld Church Slavonicvariant. Hence expressions such as "И is the tenth Cyrillic letter" typically refer to the order of the Church Slavonic Alpha bet; not every Cyrillic Alpha bet uses every letter available in the script. The Cyrillic script came to dominate Glagolitic in the 12th century.

The literature produced in Old Church Slavonic soon spread north from Bulgaria and became thelingua francaof the Balkans and Eastern Europe.

Cyrillic in modern-day Bosnia,is an extinct and disputed variant of theCyrillic Alpha betthat originated inmedieval period. Paleographers consider the earliest features of script had likely begun to appear between the 10th or 11th century, with theHumac tabletto be the first such document using this type of script and is believed to date from this period.Was weak used continuously until the 18th century, with sporadic usage even taking place in the 20th century.

With the orthographic reform of SaintEvtimiy of Tarnovoand other prominent representatives of theTarnovo Literary Schoolof the 14th and 15th centuries, such asGregory TsamblakandConstantine of Kostenets,the school influenced Russian, Serbian, Wallachian and Moldavian medieval culture. This is known in Russia as the secondSouth-Slavicinfluence.

In 1708–10, the Cyrillic script used in Russia was heavily reformed byPeter the Great,who had recently returned from hisGrand EmbassyinWestern Europe.The new letterforms, called theCivil script,became closer to those of the Latin Alpha bet; several archaic letters were abolished and several new letters were introduced designed by Peter himself. Letters became distinguished between upper and lower case. West European typography culture was also adopted.The pre-reform letterforms, called 'Полуустав', were notably retained in Church Slavonic and are sometimes used in Russian even today, especially if one wants to give a text a 'Slavic' or 'archaic' feel.

The Alpha bet used for the modern Church Slavonic language in Eastern Orthodox andEastern Catholicrites still resembles early Cyrillic. However, over the course of the following millennium, Cyrillic 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. A notable example of such linguistic reform can be attributed toVuk Stefanović Karadžić,who updated theSerbian Cyrillic Alpha betby removing certain graphemes no longer represented in the vernacular and introducing graphemes specific to Serbian (i.e. Љ Њ Ђ Ћ Џ Ј), distancing it from the Church Slavonic Alpha bet in use prior to the reform. Today,many languagesin theBalkans,Eastern Europe, andnorthern Eurasiaare written in Cyrillic Alpha bets.

Letters

Example of the Cyrillic script. Excerpt from the manuscript "Bdinski Zbornik". Written in 1360.

Cyrillic script spread throughout the East Slavic and some South Slavic territories, being adopted for writing local languages, such asOld East Slavic.Its adaptation to local languages produced a number of Cyrillic Alpha bets, discussed below.

Theearly Cyrillic Alpha bet

А

Б

В

Г

Д

Є

Ж

Ꙃ

Ꙁ

И

І

К

Л

М

Н

О

П

Р

С

Т

Ꙋ

ОУ

Ф

Х

Ѡ

Ц

Ч

Ш

Щ

Ъ

ЪІ

Ь

ѢҌ

Ꙗ

Ѥ

Ю

Ѫ

Ѭ

Ѧ

Ѩ

Ѯ

Ѱ

Ѳ

Ѵ

Ҁ

Majuscule and minuscule

Capital and lowercase letters were not distinguished in old manuscripts.

A page from theChurch Slavonic GrammarofMeletius Smotrytsky(1619)

Yeri (Ы) was originally aligatureof Yer and I (Ъ+І=Ы).Iotationwas indicated by ligatures formed with the letter І:Ꙗ(not an ancestor of modern Ya, Я, which is derived fromѦ),Ѥ,Ю(ligature ofІandОУ),Ѩ,Ѭ.Sometimes different letters were used interchangeably, for exampleИ=І=Ї,as were typographical variants likeО=Ѻ.There were also commonly used ligatures likeѠТ=Ѿ.

Numbers

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

Cyrillic numerals

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
А	В	Г	Д	Є(Е)	Ѕ(Ꙃ,Ꙅ)	З(Ꙁ)	И	Ѳ
10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90
І(Ї)	К	Л	М	Н	Ѯ(Ч)	Ѻ(О)	П	Ч(Ҁ)
100	200	300	400	500	600	700	800	900
Р	С	Т	Ѵ(Ѵ,Оу,Ꙋ)	Ф	Х	Ѱ	Ѡ(Ѿ,Ꙍ)	Ц(Ѧ)

Computer support

Computer fontsfor early Cyrillic Alpha bets are not routinely provided. Many of the letterforms differ from those of modern Cyrillic, varied a great deal betweenmanuscripts,and changed over time. In accordance withUnicodepolicy, the standard does not include letterform variations orligaturesfound in manuscript sources unless they can be shown to conform to the Unicode definition of a character: this aspect is the responsibility of the typeface designer.

The Unicode 5.1 standard, released on 4 April 2008, greatly improved computer support for the early Cyrillic and the modernChurch Slavoniclanguage. In Microsoft Windows, theSegoe UIuser interface font is notable for having complete support for the archaic Cyrillic letters since Windows 8.

SlavicCyrillic letters
А A	А́ A with acute	А̀ A with grave	А̂ A with circumflex	А̄ A with macron	Ӓ A with diaeresis	Б Be	В Ve	Г Ge (Ghe)	Ґ Ghe upturn	Д De	Ђ Dje
Ѓ Gje	Е Ye	Е́ Ye with acute	Ѐ Ye with grave	Е̂ Ye with circumflex	Е̄ Ye with macron	Ё Yo	Є Ukrainian Ye	Ж Zhe	З Ze	З́ Zje	Ѕ Dze
И I	І Dotted I	Ї Yi	Ꙇ Iota	И́ I with acute	Ѝ I with grave	И̂ I with circumflex	Ӣ I with macron	Ӥ I with diaeresis	Й Short I	Ј Je	К Ka
Л El	Љ Lje	М Em	Н En	Њ Nje	О O	О́ O with acute	О̀ O with grave	О̂ O with circumflex	О̄ O with macron	Ӧ O with diaeresis	П Pe
Р Er	Р̌ Er with caron	С Es	С́ Sje	Т Te	Ћ Tje	Ќ Kje	У U	У́ U with acute	У̀ U with grave	У̂ U with circumflex	Ӯ U with macron
Ў Short U	Ӱ U with diaeresis	Ф Ef	Х Kha	Ц Tse	Ч Che	Џ Dzhe	Ш Sha	Щ Shcha	Ꙏ Neutral Yer	Ъ Hard sign (Yer)	Ъ̀ Hard sign with grave
Ы Yery	Ы́ Yery	Ь Soft sign (Yeri)	Ѣ Yat	Э E	Э́ E with acute	Ю Yu	Ю́ Yu with acute	Ю̀ Yu with grave	Я Ya	Я́ Ya with acute	Я̀ Ya with grave
Examples of non-Slavic Cyrillic letters (seeList of Cyrillic lettersfor more)
Ӑ A with breve	Ә Schwa	Ӛ Schwa with diaeresis	Ӕ Ae	Ғ Ghayn	Ҕ Ge with middle hook	Ӻ Ghayn with hook	Ӷ Ge with descender	Ӂ Zhe with breve	Ӝ Zhe with diaeresis	Ҙ Dhe	Ӡ Abkhazian Dze
Ҡ Bashkir Qa	Ҟ Ka with stroke	Ӊ En with tail	Ң En with descender	Ӈ En with hook	Ҥ En-ge	О̆ O with breve	Ө Oe	Ҩ O-hook	Ҏ Er with tick	Ҫ The	Ҭ Te with descender
Ӳ U with double acute	Ү Ue	Ұ Kazakh Short U	Ҳ Kha with descender	Ӽ Kha with hook	Ӿ Kha with stroke	Һ Shha (He)	Ҵ Te Tse	Ҷ Che with descender	Ӌ Khakassian Che	Ҹ Che with vertical stroke	Ҽ Abkhazian Che
Ҍ Semisoft sign	Ӏ Palochka
Cyrillic letters used in the past
Ꙗ Iotated A	Ѥ Iotated E	Ѧ Small yus	Ѫ Big yus	Ѩ Iotated small yus	Ѭ Iotated big yus	Ѯ Ksi	Ѱ Psi	Ꙟ Yn	Ѳ Fita	Ѵ Izhitsa	Ѷ Izhitsa okovy
Ҁ Koppa	ОУ Uk	Ѡ Omega	Ѿ Ot

Currency signs

Somecurrency signshave derived from Cyrillic letters:

• The Ukrainianhryvnia sign(₴) is from thecursiveminusculeUkrainian Cyrillic letterHe(г).
• The Russianruble sign(₽) from the majuscule Р.
• TheKyrgyzstani somsign (⃀) from the majuscule С (es)
• TheKazakhstani tengesign (₸) from Т
• TheMongolian tögrögsign (₮) from Т

Letterforms and type design

The development of Cyrillicletter formspassed directly from themedievalstage to the lateBaroque,without aRenaissancephase as inWestern Europe.Late Medieval Cyrillic letters (categorized asvyaz'and still found on manyiconinscriptions today) show a marked tendency to be very tall and narrow, with strokes often shared between adjacent letters.

Peter the Great,Tsar of Russia, mandated the use ofwesternized letter forms(ru) in the early 18th century.Over time, these were largely adopted in the other languages that use the script. Thus, unlike the majority of modern Greek typefaces that retained their own set of design principles for lower-case letters (such as the placement ofserifs,the shapes of stroke ends, and stroke-thickness rules, although Greek capital letters do use Latin design principles), modern Cyrillictypesare much the same as modern Latin types of the same typeface family. The development of some Cyrilliccomputer fontsfrom Latin ones has also contributed to a visual Latinization of Cyrillic type.

Lowercase forms

LettersGe,De,I,Short I,Em,Te,Tse,BeandVein upright (printed) and cursive (handwritten) variants. (Top is set in Georgia type, bottom in Odesa Script.)

Cyrillicuppercaseandlowercaseletter forms are not as differentiated as in Latin typography. Upright Cyrillic lowercase letters are essentiallysmall capitals(with exceptions: Cyrillic⟨а⟩,⟨е⟩,⟨і⟩,⟨ј⟩,⟨р⟩,and⟨у⟩adopted Latin lowercase shapes, lowercase⟨ф⟩is typically based on⟨p⟩from Latin typefaces, lowercase⟨б⟩,⟨ђ⟩and⟨ћ⟩are traditional handwritten forms), although a good-quality Cyrillic typeface will still include separate small-caps glyphs.

Cyrillic typefaces, as well as Latin ones, haveromananditalicforms (practically all popular modern computer fonts include parallel sets of Latin and Cyrillic letters, where many glyphs, uppercase as well as lowercase, are shared by both). However, the native typeface terminology in most Slavic languages (for example, in Russian) does not use the words "roman" and "italic" in this sense.Instead, the nomenclature follows German naming patterns:

Alternate variants of lowercase (cursive) Cyrillic letters: Б/б, Д/д, Г/г, И/и, П/п, Т/т, Ш/ш.

Default Russian (Eastern) forms on the left.

Alternate Bulgarian (Western) upright forms in the middle.

Alternate Serbian/Macedonian (Southern) italic forms on the right.

See also:

• Roman type is calledpryamoy shrift( "upright type" ) – compare withNormalschrift( "regular type" ) in German
• Italic type is calledkursiv( "cursive" ) orkursivniy shrift( "cursive type" ) – from the German wordKursive,meaning italic typefaces and not cursive writing
• Cursivehandwriting isrukopisniy shrift( "handwritten type" ) – in German:KurrentschriftorLaufschrift,both meaning literally 'running type'
• A (mechanically) sloped oblique type ofsans-seriffaces isnaklonniy shrift( "sloped" or "slanted type" ).
• A boldfaced type is calledpoluzhirniy shrift( "semi-bold type" ), because there existed fully boldfaced shapes that have been out of use since the beginning of the 20th century.

Italic and cursive forms

Similarly to Latin typefaces, italic and cursive forms of many Cyrillic letters (typically lowercase; uppercase only for handwritten or stylish types) are very different from their upright roman types. In certain cases, the correspondence between uppercase and lowercase glyphs does not coincide in Latin and Cyrillic types: for example, italic Cyrillic⟨т⟩is the lowercase counterpart of⟨Т⟩not of⟨М⟩.

Differences between upright and italic Cyrillic letters of theRussian Alpha bet;italic forms significantly different from their upright analogues, or especially confusing to users of a Latin Alpha bet, are highlighted; also available as agraphical image.

upright	а	б	в	г	д	е	ё	ж	з	и	й	к	л	м	н	о	п	р	с	т	у	ф	х	ц	ч	ш	щ	ъ	ы	ь	э	ю	я
italic	а	б	в	г	д	е	ё	ж	з	и	й	к	л	м	н	о	п	р	с	т	у	ф	х	ц	ч	ш	щ	ъ	ы	ь	э	ю	я

Note: in some typefaces or styles,⟨д⟩,i.e. the lowercase italic Cyrillic⟨д⟩,may look like Latin⟨g⟩,and⟨т⟩,i.e. lowercase italic Cyrillic⟨т⟩,may look like small-capital italic⟨T⟩.

In Standard Serbian, as well as in Macedonian,some italic and cursive letters are allowed to be different, to more closely resemble the handwritten letters. The regular (upright) shapes are generally standardized insmall capsform.

Mandatory (blue) and optional (green) italic lowercase variants, alongside unique letters (red), in South-European orthography

Russian	а	б	в	г	д	—	е	ж	з	и	й	—	к	л	—	м	н	—	о	п	р	с	т	—	у	ф	х	ц	ч	—	ш	щ	ъ	ы	ь	э	ю	я
Serbian	а	б	в	г	д	ђ	е	ж	з	и	—	ј	к	л	љ	м	н	њ	о	п	р	с	т	ћ	у	ф	х	ц	ч	џ	ш	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Simulation	а	δ	в	ī	ɡ	ђ	е	ж	з	и	—	ј	к	л	љ	м	н	њ	о	ū	р	с	ш̄	ћ	у	ф	х	ц	ч	џ	ш̱	—	—	—	—	—	—	—

Notes: Depending on fonts available, the Serbian row may appear identical to the Russian row. Unicode approximations are used in thefauxrow to ensure it can be rendered properly across all systems.

In theBulgarian Alpha bet,many lowercase letterforms may more closely resemble the cursive forms on the one hand and Latin glyphs on the other hand, e.g. by having an ascender or descender or by using rounded arcs instead of sharp corners.Sometimes, uppercase letters may have a different shape as well, e.g. more triangular, Д and Л, like Greek delta Δ and lambda Λ.

Differences between Russian and Bulgarian glyphs of upright Cyrillic lowercase letters; Bulgarian glyphs significantly different from their Russian analogues or different from their italic form are highlighted

default	а	б	в	г	д	е	ж	з	и	й	к	л	м	н	о	п	р	с	т	у	ф	х	ц	ч	ш	щ	ъ	ь	ю	я
Bulgarian	а	б	в	г	д	е	ж	з	и	й	к	л	м	н	о	п	р	с	т	у	ф	х	ц	ч	ш	щ	ъ	ь	ю	я
Simulation	а	б	ϐ	ƨ	ɡ	е	жl	ȝ	u	ŭ	k	ʌ	м	н	o	n	р	с	m	у	ɸ	х	u̡	ч	ɯ	ɯ̡	ъ	ƅ	lo	я

Notes: Depending on fonts available, the Bulgarian row may appear identical to the Russian row. Unicode approximations are used in thefauxrow to ensure it can be rendered properly across all systems; in some cases, such as ж withk-like ascender, no such approximation exists.

Accessing variant forms

Computer fonts typically default to the Central/Eastern, Russian letterforms, and require the use ofOpenTypeLayout (OTL) featuresto display the Western, Bulgarian or Southern, Serbian/Macedonian forms. Depending on the choices made by the (computer) font designer, they may either be automatically activated by thelocal variantloclfeature for text tagged with an appropriatelanguage code,or the author needs to opt-in by activating astylistic setss##orcharacter variantcv##feature. These solutions only enjoy partial support and may render with default glyphs in certain software configurations, and the reader may not see the same result as the author intended.

Cyrillic Alpha bets

Main article:Cyrillic Alpha bets

Among others, Cyrillic is the standard script for writing the following languages:

Slavic languages:

• Belarusian
• Bulgarian
• Macedonian
• Russian

• Rusyn
• Serbo-Croatian(Standard SerbianandMontenegrin)
• Ukrainian

Non-Slavic languages of Russia:

• Abaza
• Adyghe
• Avar
• Azerbaijani(inDagestan)
• Bashkir
• Buryat
• Chechen
• Chuvash
• Erzya
• Ingush
• Kabardian
• Kalmyk
• Karachay-Balkar

• Kildin Sami
• Komi
• Mari
• Moksha
• Nogai
• Ossetian(inNorth Ossetia–Alania)
• Romani
• Sakha/Yakut
• Tatar
• Tuvan
• Udmurt
• Yuit(Yupik)

Non-Slavic languages in other countries:

• Abkhaz
• Aleut(now mostly in church texts)
• Dungan
• Kazakh(to be replaced by Latin script by 2031)
• Kyrgyz

• Mongolian(to also be written with traditionalMongolian scriptby 2025)
• Tajik
• Tlingit(now only in church texts)
• Turkmen(officially replaced by Latin script)
• Uzbek(also officially replaced by Latin script, but still in wide use)
• Yupik(inAlaska)

The Cyrillic script has also been used for languages of Alaska,Slavic Europe(except forWestern Slavicand someSouthern Slavic), theCaucasus,the languages ofIdel-Ural,Siberia,and theRussian Far East.

The first Alpha bet derived from Cyrillic wasAbur,used for theKomi language.Other Cyrillic Alpha bets include theMolodtsov Alpha betfor the Komi language and various Alpha bets forCaucasian languages.

Usage of Cyrillic versus other scripts

Cyrillic Script Monument inAntarcticanear the Bulgarian baseSt. Kliment Ohridski

Latin script

A number of languages written in a Cyrillic Alpha bet have also been written in aLatin Alpha bet,such asAzerbaijani,Uzbek,Serbian,andRomanian(in theMoldavian SSRuntil 1989 and in theDanubian Principalitiesthroughout the 19th century). After the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, some of the former republics officially shifted from Cyrillic to Latin. The transition is complete in most of Moldova (except the breakaway region ofTransnistria,whereMoldovan Cyrillicis official),Turkmenistan,andAzerbaijan.Uzbekistanstill uses both systems, andKazakhstanhas officially begun a transition from Cyrillic to Latin (scheduled to be complete by 2025). TheRussiangovernment has mandated that Cyrillic must be used for all public communications in allfederal subjects of Russia,to promote closer ties across the federation. This act was controversial for speakers of many Slavic languages; for others, such asChechenandIngushspeakers, the law had political ramifications. For example, the separatist Chechen government mandated a Latin script which is still used by many Chechens.

Countries with widespread use of the Cyrillic script:

Sole official script

Co-official with another script (either because the official language is biscriptal, or the state is bilingual)

Being replaced with Latin, but is still in official use

Legacy script for the official language, or large minority use

Cyrillic is not widely used

Cyrillic Script inEurope

StandardSerbianusesboth the Cyrillic and Latin scripts.Cyrillic 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. In practice the scripts are equal, with Latin being used more often in a less official capacity.

TheZhuang Alpha bet,used between the 1950s and 1980s in portions of the People's Republic of China, used a mixture of Latin, phonetic, numeral-based, and Cyrillic letters. The non-Latin letters, including Cyrillic, were removed from the Alpha bet in 1982 and replaced with Latin letters that closely resembled the letters they replaced.

Romanization

Main article:Romanization of Cyrillic

There are various systems forromanizationof Cyrillic text, includingtransliterationto convey Cyrillic spelling inLatinletters, andtranscriptionto conveypronunciation.

Standard Cyrillic-to-Latin transliteration systems include:

• Scientific transliteration,used in linguistics, is based on theSerbo-Croatian Latin Alpha bet.
• The Working Group on Romanization Systemsof theUnited Nationsrecommends different systems for specific languages. These are the most commonly used around the world.
• ISO 9:1995, from the International Organization for Standardization.
• American Library Association and Library of Congress Romanization tables for Slavic Alpha bets (ALA-LC Romanization), used in North American libraries.
• BGN/PCGN Romanization(1947), United States Board on Geographic Names & Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use).
• GOST 16876,a now defunct Soviet transliteration standard. Replaced byGOST 7.79-2000,which is based on ISO 9.
• Various informal romanizations of Cyrillic, which adapt the Cyrillic script to Latin and sometimes Greek glyphs for compatibility with small character sets.

See alsoRomanization of Belarusian,Bulgarian,Kyrgyz,Russian,MacedonianandUkrainian.

Cyrillization

Representing other writing systems with Cyrillic letters is calledCyrillization.

Summary table

Cyrillic Alpha bets comparison table

Early scripts
Church Slavonic	А		Б	В	Г		Д		(Ѕ)	Е			Ж		Ѕ/З		И	І				К		Л		М		Н			О		П		Р		С		Т		Оу		(Ѡ)	Ф	Х		Ц		Ч		Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы	Ѣ	Ь			Ю	Ꙗ			Ѥ	Ѧ	Ѩ	Ѫ	Ѭ	Ѯ	Ѱ	Ѳ	Ѵ	Ҁ
Most common shared letters
Common	А		Б	В	Г		Д			Е			Ж		З		И				Й	К		Л		М		Н			О		П		Р		С		Т		У			Ф	Х		Ц		Ч		Ш	Щ				Ь			Ю	Я
South Slavic languages
Bulgarian	А		Б	В	Г		Д		Дз	Е			Ж		З		И				Й	К		Л		М		Н			О		П		Р		С		Т		У			Ф	Х		Ц		Ч	Дж	Ш	Щ	Ъ			Ь			Ю	Я
Macedonian	А		Б	В	Г		Д	Ѓ	Ѕ	Е			Ж		З		И		Ј			К		Л	Љ	М		Н	Њ		О		П		Р		С		Т	Ќ	У			Ф	Х		Ц		Ч	Џ	Ш
Serbian	А		Б	В	Г		Д	Ђ		Е			Ж		З		И		Ј			К		Л	Љ	М		Н	Њ		О		П		Р		С		Т	Ћ	У			Ф	Х		Ц		Ч	Џ	Ш
Montenegrin	А		Б	В	Г		Д	Ђ		Е			Ж		З	З́	И		Ј			К		Л	Љ	М		Н	Њ		О		П		Р		С	С́	Т	Ћ	У			Ф	Х		Ц		Ч	Џ	Ш
East Slavic languages
Russian	А		Б	В	Г		Д			Е		Ё	Ж		З		И				Й	К		Л		М		Н			О		П		Р		С		Т		У			Ф	Х		Ц		Ч		Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы		Ь	Э		Ю	Я
Belarusian	А		Б	В	Г	Ґ	Д	Дж	Дз	Е		Ё	Ж		З			І			Й	К		Л		М		Н			О		П		Р		С		Т		У	Ў		Ф	Х		Ц		Ч		Ш		’	Ы		Ь	Э		Ю	Я
Ukrainian	А		Б	В	Г	Ґ	Д			Е	Є	Йо	Ж		З		И	І		Ї	Й	К		Л		М		Н			О		П		Р		С		Т		У			Ф	Х		Ц		Ч		Ш	Щ	’			Ь			Ю	Я
Rusyn	А		Б	В	Г	Ґ	Д			Е	Є	Ё	Ж		З		И	І		Ї	Й	К		Л		М		Н			О		П		Р		С		Т		У			Ф	Х		Ц		Ч		Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы	Ѣ	Ь			Ю	Я
Iranian languages
Kurdish	А		Б	В	Г	Г'	Д			Е	Ә	Ә'	Ж		З		И				Й	К	К'	Л		М		Н			О	Ö	П	П'	Р	Р'	С		Т	Т'	У			Ф	Х	Һ	Һ'		Ч	Ч'	Ш	Щ				Ь	Э				Ԛ	Ԝ
Ossetian	А	Ӕ	Б	В	Г	Гъ	Д	Дж	Дз	Е		Ё	Ж		З		И				Й	К	Къ	Л		М		Н			О		П	Пъ	Р		С		Т	Тъ	У			Ф	Х	Хъ	Ц	Цъ	Ч	Чъ	Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы		Ь	Э		Ю	Я
Tajik	А		Б	В	Г	Ғ	Д			Е		Ё	Ж		З		И		Ӣ		Й	К	Қ	Л		М		Н			О		П		Р		С		Т		У	Ӯ		Ф	Х	Ҳ			Ч	Ҷ	Ш		Ъ				Э		Ю	Я
Romance languages
Moldovan (Romanian)	А		Б	В	Г		Д			Е			Ж	Ӂ	З		И				Й	К		Л		М		Н			О		П		Р		С		Т		У			Ф	Х		Ц		Ч		Ш			Ы		Ь	Э		Ю	Я
Uralic languages
Komi-Permyak	А		Б	В	Г		Д			Е		Ё	Ж		З		И	І			Й	К		Л		М		Н			О	Ӧ	П		Р		С		Т		У			Ф	Х		Ц		Ч		Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы		Ь	Э		Ю	Я
Meadow Mari	А		Б	В	Г		Д			Е		Ё	Ж		З		И				Й	К		Л		М		Н	Ҥ		О	Ӧ	П		Р		С		Т		У	Ӱ		Ф	Х		Ц		Ч		Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы		Ь	Э		Ю	Я
Hill Mari	А	Ӓ	Б	В	Г		Д			Е		Ё	Ж		З		И				Й	К		Л		М		Н			О	Ӧ	П		Р		С		Т		У	Ӱ		Ф	Х		Ц		Ч		Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы	Ӹ	Ь	Э		Ю	Я
Kildin Sami	А	Ӓ	Б	В	Г		Д			Е		Ё	Ж		З		И		Й	Ҋ	Ј	К		Л	Ӆ	М	Ӎ	Н	Ӊ	Ӈ	О		П		Р	Ҏ	С		Т		У			Ф	Х	Һ	Ц		Ч		Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы	Ь	Ҍ	Э	Ӭ	Ю	Я
Udmurt	А		Б	В	Г		Д			Е		Ё	Ж	Ӝ	З	Ӟ	И	Ӥ	Й			К	(К̈)	Л		М		Н			О	Ӧ	П		Р		С		Т		У			Ф	Х		Ц		Ч	Ӵ	Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы		Ь	Э		Ю	Я
Turkic languages
Azerbaijani	А		Б	В	Г	Ғ	Д			Е	Ә	Ё	Ж		З	Ы	И	Ј			Й	К	Ҝ	Л		М		Н			О	Ө	П		Р		С		Т		У		Ү	Ф	Х	Һ	Ц		Ч	Ҹ	Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы		Ь	Э		Ю	Я
Bashkir	А	Ә	Б	В	Г	Ғ	Д		Ҙ	Е		Ё	Ж		З		И				Й	К	Ҡ	Л		М		Н	Ң		О	Ө	П		Р		С	Ҫ	Т		У		Ү	Ф	Х	Һ	Ц		Ч		Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы		Ь	Э	Ә	Ю	Я
Chuvash	А	Ӑ	Б	В	Г		Д			Е	Ё	Ӗ	Ж		З		И				Й	К		Л		М		Н			О		П		Р		С	Ҫ	Т		У	Ӳ		Ф	Х		Ц		Ч		Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы		Ь	Э		Ю	Я
Kazakh	А	Ә	Б	В	Г	Ғ	Д			Е		Ё	Ж		З		И	І			Й	К	Қ	Л		М		Н	Ң		О	Ө	П		Р		С		Т		У	Ұ	Ү	Ф	Х	Һ	Ц		Ч		Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы		Ь	Э		Ю	Я
Kyrgyz	А		Б		Г		Д			Е		Ё	Ж		З		И				Й	К		Л		М		Н	Ң		О	Ө	П		Р		С		Т		У		Ү		Х				Ч		Ш			Ы			Э		Ю	Я
Tatar	А	Ә	Б	В	Г		Д			Е		Ё	Ж	Җ	З		И				Й	К		Л		М		Н	Ң		О	Ө	П		Р		С		Т		У		Ү	Ф	Х	Һ	Ц		Ч		Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы		Ь	Э		Ю	Я
Uzbek	А		Б	В	Г	Ғ	Д			Е		Ё	Ж		З		И				Й	К	Қ	Л		М		Н			О		П		Р		С		Т		У	Ў		Ф	Х	Ҳ			Ч		Ш		Ъ				Э		Ю	Я
Mongolian languages
Buryat	А		Б	В	Г		Д			Е		Ё	Ж		З		И				Й			Л		М		Н			О	Ө	П		Р		С		Т		У		Ү		Х	Һ	Ц		Ч		Ш			Ы		Ь	Э		Ю	Я
Khalkha	А		Б	В	Г		Д			Е		Ё	Ж		З		И				Й	К		Л		М		Н			О	Ө	П		Р		С		Т		У		Ү	Ф	Х		Ц		Ч		Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы		Ь	Э		Ю	Я
Kalmyk	А	Ә	Б	В	Г	Һ	Д			Е			Ж	Җ	З		И				Й	К		Л		М		Н	Ң		О	Ө	П		Р		С		Т		У		Ү		Х		Ц		Ч		Ш					Ь	Э		Ю	Я
Caucasian languages
Abkhaz	А		Б	В	Г	Ҕ	Д	Дә	Џ	Е	Ҽ	Ҿ	Ж	Жә	З	ӠӠә	И			Й	К	Қ	Ҟ	Л		М		Н			О	Ҩ	П	Ҧ	Р		С		ТТә	ҬҬә	У			Ф	Х	ҲҲә	ЦЦә	ҴҴә	Ч	Ҷ	ШШә	Щ		Ы
Sino-Tibetan languages
Dungan	А		Б	В	Г		Д			Е		Ё	Ж	Җ	З		И				Й	К		Л		М		Н	Ң	Ә	О		П		Р		С		Т		У	Ў	Ү	Ф	Х		Ц		Ч		Ш	Щ	Ъ	Ы		Ь	Э		Ю	Я

• Ёin Russian is usually spelled asЕ;Ёis typically printed in texts for learners and in dictionaries, and in word pairs which are differentiated only by that letter (все–всё).

Computer encoding

Unicode

Main article:Cyrillic script in Unicode

As of Unicode version 16.0, Cyrillic letters, including national and historical Alpha bets, are encoded across severalblocks:

• Cyrillic:U+0400–U+04FF
• Cyrillic Supplement:U+0500–U+052F
• Cyrillic Extended-A:U+2DE0–U+2DFF
• Cyrillic Extended-B:U+A640–U+A69F
• Cyrillic Extended-C:U+1C80–U+1C8F
• Cyrillic Extended-D:U+1E030–U+1E08F
• Phonetic Extensions:U+1D2B, U+1D78
• Combining Half Marks:U+FE2E–U+FE2F

The characters in the range U+0400 to U+045F are essentially the characters fromISO 8859-5moved upward by 864 positions. The characters in the range U+0460 to U+0489 are historic letters, not used now. The characters in the range U+048A to U+052F are additional letters for various languages that are written with Cyrillic script.

Unicode as a general rule does not include accented Cyrillic letters. A few exceptions include:

• combinations that are considered as separate letters of respective Alpha bets, likeЙ,Ў,Ё,Ї,Ѓ,Ќ(as well as many letters of non-Slavic Alpha bets);
• two most frequent combinations orthographically required to distinguishhomonymsin Bulgarian and Macedonian:Ѐ,Ѝ;
• a few Old and New Church Slavonic combinations:Ѷ,Ѿ,Ѽ.

To indicate stressed or long vowels,combining diacritical markscan be used after the respective letter (for example,U+0301◌́COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT:е́ у́ э́ etc.).

Some languages, includingChurch Slavonic,are still not fully supported.

Unicode 5.1, released on 4 April 2008, introduces major changes to the Cyrillic blocks. Revisions to the existing Cyrillic blocks, and the addition of Cyrillic Extended A (2DE0... 2DFF) and Cyrillic Extended B (A640... A69F), significantly improve support for theearly Cyrillic Alpha bet,Abkhaz,Aleut,Chuvash,Kurdish,andMoksha.

Other

Othercharacter encodingsystems for Cyrillic:

• CP866– 8-bit Cyrillic character encoding established byMicrosoftfor use inMS-DOSalso known as GOST-alternative. Cyrillic characters go in their native order, with a "window" for pseudographic characters.
• ISO/IEC 8859-5– 8-bit Cyrillic character encoding established byInternational Organization for Standardization
• KOI8-R– 8-bit native Russian character encoding. Invented in the USSR for use on Soviet clones of American IBM and DEC computers. The Cyrillic characters go in the order of their Latin counterparts, which allowed the text to remain readable after transmission via a 7-bit line that removed themost significant bitfrom each byte – the result became a very rough, but readable, Latin transliteration of Cyrillic. Standard encoding of early 1990s forUnixsystems and the first Russian Internet encoding.
• KOI8-U– KOI8-R with addition of Ukrainian letters.
• MIK– 8-bit native Bulgarian character encoding for use inDOS.
• Windows-1251– 8-bit Cyrillic character encoding established by Microsoft for use inMicrosoft Windows.The simplest 8-bit Cyrillic encoding – 32 capital chars in native order at 0xc0–0xdf, 32 usual chars at 0xe0–0xff, with rarely used "YO" characters somewhere else. No pseudographics. Former standard encoding in someLinuxdistributions for Belarusian and Bulgarian, but currently displaced byUTF-8.
• GOST-main.
• GB 2312– Principally simplified Chinese encodings, but there are also the basic 33 Russian Cyrillic letters (in upper- and lower-case).
• JISandShift JIS– Principally Japanese encodings, but there are also the basic 33 Russian Cyrillic letters (in upper- and lower-case).

Keyboard layouts

See also:Keyboard layouts for non-Latin Alpha betic scripts

Each language has its own standardkeyboard layout,adopted from traditional nationaltypewriters.With the flexibility of computer input methods, there are also transliterating or phonetic/homophonic keyboard layouts made for typists who are more familiar with other layouts, like the common EnglishQWERTY keyboard.When practical Cyrillic keyboard layouts are unavailable, computer users sometimes use transliteration (translit) or look-alike (volapuk encoding) to type in languages that are normally written with the Cyrillic Alpha bet. Potentially, these proxy versions could be transformed programmatically into Cyrillic at a later date.

See also

• Cyrillic Alphabet Day
• Cyrillic digraphs
• Cyrillic script in Unicode
• Faux Cyrillic,real or fake Cyrillic letters used to give Latin- Alpha bet text a Soviet or Russian feel
• List of Cyrillic digraphs and trigraphs
• Russian Braille
• Russian cursive
• Russian manual Alpha bet
• Bulgarian Braille
• Vladislav the Grammarian
• Yugoslav Braille
• Yugoslav manual Alpha bet

Internet top-level domains in Cyrillic

• gTLDs
• .мон
• .бг
• .қаз
• .рф
• .срб
• .укр
• .мкд
• .бел

References

• Bringhurst, Robert(2002).The Elements of Typographic Style.2.5. Vancouver: Hartley & Marks. pp. 262–264.ISBN0-88179-133-4.
• Curta, Florin(2006).Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500–1250.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-81539-0.

Further reading

• Isailović, Neven G.; Krstić, Aleksandar R. (2015). "Serbian Language and Cyrillic Script as a Means of Diplomatic Literacy in South Eastern Europe in 15th and 16th Centuries".Literacy Experiences concerning Medieval and Early Modern Transylvania.Cluj-Napoca: George Bariţiu Institute of History. pp. 185–195.
• Nezirović, M. (1992).Jevrejsko-španjolska književnost[Jewish-Spanish literature]. Sarajevo: Svjetlost.[cited in Šmid, 2002]
• Prostov, Eugene Victor (1931). "Origins of Russian Printing".Library Quarterly.1(1 (January)): 255–77.doi:10.1086/612949.S2CID144864717.
• Šmid, Katja (2002)."Los problemas del estudio de la lengua sefardí"[The problems of studying the Sephardic language](PDF).Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 7 April 2008.inVerba Hispanica.Vol. X. Liubliana: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Liubliana.ISSN0353-9660..
• 'The Lives of St. Tsurho and St. Strahota', Bohemia, 1495, Vatican Library
• Ammon, Philipp (2016)."Tractatus slavonicus (in: Sjani (Thoughts) )"(PDF).Georgian Scientific Journal of Literary Theory and Comparative Literature(17): 248–256.

External links

• The Cyrillic Charset Soupoverview and history of Cyrillic charsets.
• Transliteration of Non-Roman Scripts,a collection of writing systems and transliteration tables
• History and development of the Cyrillic Alpha bet
• Cyrillic Alphabets of Slavic Languagesreview of Cyrillic charsets in Slavic Languages.
• data entry in Old Cyrillic / Стара Кирилица(archived 22 February 2014)
• Cyrillic and its Long Journey East – NamepediA Blog,article about the Cyrillic script
• Vladimir M. Alpatov(24 January 2013)."Latin Alphabet for the Russian Language".Soundcloud(Podcast). The University of Edinburgh.Retrieved28 January2016.
• Unicode collation charts—including Cyrillic letters, sorted by shape