The Cyrillic Alphabet

[Tangra]

Hi, Thomas

As far as I know, there are only three versions of the Cyrillic alphabet - Russian, Bulgarian, and Serbian. Respectively, the countries that use it are all the Russian-speaking countries, Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia, and Montenegro. The Bulgarian one has 30 letters, no idea about the Serbian. They are basically the same, with the exception of two or three letters.
We read it from left to right, just like the Latin one. I don't know how to explain the differences between Cyrillic and Latin. The order of letters is different, or the same letters are pronounced diffrently (like "y").
About the posts that are in Russian but written with Latin letters - no there isn't a corresponding Latin letter for all the Cyrillic ones, but this is how it goes: you write Russian, the way you pronounce it, using the Latin alphabet. I know it sounds strange and confusing, maybe someone else can explain it better.

Why don't you check out this site :
http://russian.about.com/homework/russian/library/blalphabet.htm

Regards - Tangra

[This message has been edited by Tangra (edited 29 May 2000).]

[Dr_Woland]

Hi Tangra!

>> there are only three versions of the Cyrillic alphabet <<

There is one more, but it's a bit obscure - Mongolian. Mongolian has 36 characters - it does not have the "tvordy znak" of Russian, plus it has 4 extra characters to represent sounds specific to Mongolian.

Mongolian was originally written using bar-script, until 1911. Then they threw-out the Chinese occupying army, declared independence, and for about 1-2 years only, used latin characters - in a move towards "westernisation". However, the Chinese came back, and in 1924 Sukhe-Bator made his famous ride to Moscow to ask help from Lenin, to expel the Chinese. (There is a plaque on the Metropol Hotel, on Ploschad' Revolutsii side, about the meeting, although maybe it is a piece of soviet fiction :-).

The Russians came, and the alphabet was changed to Cyrillic - soviet linguistics experts invented the new characters.

Mongolia had a big plan to return to bar-script in 1994, but since only 6% of the population can read it, and it cannot be implemented on computers, the idea was unofficially abandoned, and they still use their own version of cyrillic.

Áàÿòàé! Áàÿðëàëà! (as they say "goodbye" in Ulaanbaatar... :-)

Dr W.

[Tangra]

Hi, Dr. Woland!

Thanks for clearing this up - I must admit that I really didn't know about that fourth Mongolian version, but it's always good to learn something new!

Regards - Tangra

[Wendist]

Hello Tangra

Thank you for your answers and the link, i will visit the site and then maybe come back with some more questions.

Thomas

[Lorisa]

On the origins of the word "slavic" from the German...
check out the origins (older slavic meaning) of the word "german" (nyemyenski) in Russian! Not much more flattering!

But, yes, I agree, where as it's important to remember the past, it is not good to hold grudges.

Oh, and, Tangra, about Bulgaria! I'd be intersted in talking to you some more! My future sister-in-law is Bulgarian. I really wanted to drop by Sofia on my way back from Russia this last time, but it didn't work out. I'm thinking of scrapping my study of Russian to study Bulgarian for the summer. Does anyone out there know of a good English-Bulgarian self-teaching book/tape/etc?

[Yaro]

Hi all,
They can tell about national alphabets based on Cyrillic only. So there is more than three or four versions – some of tens may be. Don’t forget what Russia is a federation, remember those nations which had no their own alphabet until the one third of XX – all Northern Caucasian, northern nations…
Alphabet is very interesting topic. It moves the national language and culture. I hope to be excused for misstopic, but the Chechen question can be viewed from such point too. Chechens had no their own written language, they were highlanders and cattle-breeders and were too militant. So there was the policy to resettle them at plane. I’d post already what mountain Chechens didnt’t like from the plane ones always. Number of high-educated Chechens among plain clans is higher and plain clans prevailed over mountain till 1991. Nobody will dispute what education governs human’s behaviour, I think. Education’s that thing which must expand boundaries of the closed clannish Chechen society. By the way, Chechen language has three forms of the word ‘no’ – one for human’s male, one for human’s female and animals and one for subjects.

[Homenuck]

Unfortunately, I only have experience with Russian, but I think I can add just a bit to this topic.

If somebody with experience in these languages can add (or verify) anything I say, that'd be very helpful.

Ukrainian and Belarusian have alphabets similar to Russian Cyrillic. From what I have read, though, there are a couple letters that only exist in one of the languages and not the other (such as the "i"), as well there are a couple letters that look the same but have slightly different sounds ("e").

I don't know if anybody's interested, but I think I've got a book somewhere that has a side-by-side comparison between Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian alphabets. I can scan it and post it on my webspace if anybody wants to see the nitty-gritty.

Dave