Cyrillic alphabets

(in English)

Numerous alphabets are based on the Cyrillic script.  While these languages by and large have phonemic orthographies, there are occasional exceptions—for example, Russian ⟨г⟩ represents /v/ in a number of words, a relic from when they were pronounced /ɡ/ (e.g. его yego 'him/his', is pronounced [jɪˈvo] rather than [jɪˈɡo]).

Note that transliterated spellings of names may vary, especially y/j/i, but also gh/g/h and zh/j.

Non-Slavic alphabets are generally modelled after Russian, but often bear striking differences, particularly when adapted for Caucasian languages. The first few of them were generated by Orthodox missionaries for the Finnic and Turkic peoples of Idel-Ural (Mari, Udmurt, Mordva, Chuvash, Kerashen Tatars) in the 1870s. Later such alphabets were created for some of the Siberian and Caucasus peoples who had recently converted to Christianity. In the 1930s, some of those alphabets were switched to the Uniform Turkic Alphabt. All of the peoples of the former Soviet Union who had been using an Arabic or other Asian script (Mongolia script, etc.) also adopted Cyrillic alphabets, and during the Great Purge in the late 1930s, all of the Latin alphabets of the peoples of the Soviet Union were switched over to Cyrillic as well (the Baltic Republics were annexed later, and weren't affected by this change). The Abkhazian alphabet was switched to Georgian script, but after the death of Joseph Stalin, Abkhaz also adopted Cyrillic. The last language to adopt Cyrillic was the Gagauz language, which had used Greek script before.

In Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, the use of Cyrillic to represent local languages has often been a politically controversial issue since the collapse of the Soviet Union, as it evokes the era of Soviet rule and Russification. Some of Russia's peoples such as the Tatars have also tried to drop Cyrillic, but the move was halted under Russian law. A number of languages have switched from Cyrillic to other orthographies—either Roman‐based or returning to a former script.

Unlike the Latin script, which is usually adapted to different languages by using additions to existing letters such as accents, umlauts, tildes and cedillas, the Cyrillic script is usually adapted by the creation of entirely new letter shapes. In some alphabets invented in the nineteenth century, such as Mari, Udmurt and Chuvash, umlauts and breves also were used.

Common letters

The following table lists the Cyrillic letters which are used in the alphabets of most of the national languages which use a Cyrillic alphabet. Exceptions and additions for particular languages are noted below.

Common Cyrillic letters
Upright	Italic/Cursive	Name	Sound (in IPA)
А а	А а	A	/a/
Б б	Б б	Be	/b/
В в	В в	Ve	/v/
Г г	Г г	Ge	/ɡ/
Д д	Д д	De	/d/
Е е	Е е	Ye	/je/, /ʲe/
Ж ж	Ж ж	Zhe	/ʒ/
З з	З з	Ze	/z/
И и	И и	I	/i/, /ʲi/
Й й	Й й	Short I	/j/
К к	К к	Ka	/k/
Л л	Л л	El	/l/
М м	М м	Em	/m/
Н н	Н н	En	/n/
О о	О о	O	/o/
П п	П п	Pe	/p/
Р р	Р р	Er	/r/
С с	С с	Es	/s/
Т т	Т т	Te	/t/
У у	У у	U	/u/
Ф ф	Ф ф	Ef	/f/
Х х	Х х	Kha	/x/
Ц ц	Ц ц	Tse	/ts/ (t͡s)
Ч ч	Ч ч	Che	/tʃ/ (t͡ʃ)
Ш ш	Ш ш	Sha	/ʃ/
Щ щ	Щ щ	Shcha, Shta	/ʃtʃ/, /ɕː/, /ʃt/
Ь ь	Ь ь	Soft sign or Small yer	/ʲ/
Ю ю	Ю ю	Yu	/ju/, /ʲu/
Я я	Я я	Ya	/ja/, /ʲa/

1.      Russian: и краткое, i kratkoye; Bulgarian: и кратко, i kratko

2.      See the notes for each language for details

3.      Russian: мягкий знак, myagkiy znak

4.      Bulgarian: ер малък, er malâk

5.      The soft sign ⟨ь⟩ usually does not represent a sound, but modifies the sound of the preceding letter, indicating palatalization ("softening"), also separates the consonant and the following vowel. Sometimes it does not have phonetic meaning, just orthographic; e.g. Russian туш, tush [tuʂ] 'flourish after a toast'; тушь, tushʹ [tuʂ] 'India ink'. In some languages, a hard sign ⟨ъ⟩ or apostrophe ⟨’⟩ just separates consonant and the following vowel (бя [bʲa], бья [bʲja], бъя = б’я [bja]).

Slavic languages

Cyrillic alphabets used by Slavic languages can be divided into two categories used to divide the languages:

• East Slavic languages, such as Russian, share common features such as Й and ь
• South Slavic languages, such as Serbian, share common features such as Ј.

East Slavic

Russian

Main article: Russian alphabet

The Russian alphabet
А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Д д	Е е	Ё ё	Ж ж	З з	И и	Й й
К к	Л л	М м	Н н	О о	П п	Р р	С с	Т т	У у	Ф ф
Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч	Ш ш	Щ щ	Ъ ъ	Ы ы	Ь ь	Э э	Ю ю	Я я

• Yo (Ё ё) /jo/
• The Hard Sign¹ (Ъ ъ) indicates no palatalization²
• Yery (Ы ы) indicates [ɨ] (an allophone of /i/)
• E (Э э) /e/
• Ж and Ш indicate sounds that are retroflex

Notes:

1. In the pre-reform Russian orthography, in Old Russian and in Old Church Slavonic the letter is called yer. Historically, the "hard sign" takes the place of a now-absent vowel, which is still preserved as a distinct vowel in Bulgarian (which represents it with ъ) and Slovene (which is written in the Latin alphabet and writes it as e), but only in some places in the word.
2. When an iotated vowel (vowel whose sound begins with [j]) follows a consonant, the consonant is palatalized. The Hard Sign indicates that this does not happen, and the [j] sound will appear only in front of the vowel. The Soft Sign indicates that the consonant should be palatalized in addition to a [j] preceding the vowel. The Soft Sign also indicates that a consonant before another consonant or at the end of a word is palatalized. Examples: та ([ta]); тя ([tʲa]); тья ([tʲja]); тъя ([tja]); т (/t/); ть ([tʲ]).

Before 1918, there were four extra letters in use: Іі (replaced by Ии), Ѳѳ (Фита "Fita", replaced by Фф), Ѣѣ (Ять "Yat", replaced by Ее), and Ѵѵ (ижица "Izhitsa", replaced by Ии); these were eliminated by reforms of Russian orthography.

Belarusian

Main article: Belarusian alphabet

А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Д д	Е е	Ё ё	Ж ж	З з	І і	Й й
К к	Л л	М м	Н н	О о	П п	Р р	С с	Т т	У у	Ў ў
Ф ф	Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч	Ш ш	Ы ы	Ь ь	Э э	Ю ю	Я я	’

The Belarusian alphabet displays the following features:

• Ge (Г г) represents a voiced glottal fricative /ɦ/.
• Yo (Ё ё) /jo/
• I (І і), also known as the dotted I or decimal I, resembles the Latin letter I. Unlike Russian and Ukrainian, "И" is not used.
• Short I (Й й), however, uses the base И glyph.
• Short U (Ў ў) is the letter У with a breve and represents /w/, or like the u part of the diphthong in loud. The use of the breve to indicate a semivowel is analogous to the Short I (Й).
• A combination of Sh and Ch (ШЧ шч) is used where those familiar only with Russian and or Ukrainian would expect Shcha (Щ щ).
• Yery (Ы ы) /ɨ/
• E (Э э) /ɛ/
• An apostrophe (’) is used to indicate depalatalization of the preceding consonant. This orthographical symbol used instead of the traditional Cyrillic letter Yer (Ъ), also known as the hard sign.
• The letter combinations Dzh (Дж дж) and Dz (Дз дз) appear after D (Д д) in the Belarusian alphabet in some publications. These digraphs represent consonant clusters Дж /dʒ/ and Дз /dz/ correspondingly.

Ukrainian

Main article: Ukrainian alphabet

The Ukrainian alphabet
А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Ґ ґ	Д д	Е е	Є є	Ж ж	З з	И и
І і	Ї ї	Й й	К к	Л л	М м	Н н	О о	П п	Р р	С с
Т т	У у	Ф ф	Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч	Ш ш	Щ щ	Ь ь	Ю ю	Я я

The Ukrainian alphabet displays the following features:

• Ve represents /ʋ/ (which may be pronounced [w] in a word final position and before consonants).
• He (Г, г) represents a voiced glottal fricative, (/ɦ/).
• Ge (Ґ, ґ) appears after He, represents /ɡ/. It looks like He with an "upturn" pointing up from the right side of the top bar. (This letter was not officially used in Soviet Ukraine in 1933—1990, so it may be missing from older Cyrillic fonts.)
• E (Е, е) represents /ɛ/.
• Ye (Є, є) appears after E, represents /jɛ/.
• Y (И, и) represents /ɪ/.
• I (І, і) appears after Y, represents /i/.
• Yi (Ї, ї) appears after I, represents /ji/.
• Yot (Й, й) represents /j/.
• Shcha (Щ, щ) represents ʃtʃ.
• An apostrophe (’) is used to mark nonpalatalization of the preceding consonant before Ya (Я, я), Yu (Ю, ю), Ye (Є, є), Yi (Ї, ї).
• Like in Belarusian Cyrillic, the sounds /dʒ/, /dz/ are represented by digraphs Дж and Дз respectively.
• Until reforms in 1990, Soft sign (Ь, ь) appeared at the end of the alphabet, after Yu (Ю, ю) and Ya (Я, я), rather than before them, as in Russian. Many native speakers continue to ignore this reform.

Rusyn

Further information: Rusyn language

The Rusyn language is spoken by the Lemko Rusyns in Carpathian Ruthenia, Slovakia, and Poland, and the Pannonian Rusyns in Croatia and Serbia.

The Rusyn alphabet
А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Ґ ґ	Д д	Е е	Є є	Ё ё*	Ж ж	З з
И и	І і*	Ы ы*	Ї ї	Й й	К к	Л л	М м	Н н	О о	П п
Р р	С с	Т т	У у	Ф ф	Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч	Ш ш	Щ щ	Ѣ ѣ*
Ю ю	Я я	Ь ь	Ъ ъ*

*Letters absent from Pannonian Rusyn alphabet.

South Slavic

The Western section of the South Slavic language alphabets are generally derived from the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet. It, and by extension its descendants, differs from the East Slavic ones in that the alphabet has generally been simplified: Letters such as Я, Ю, and Ё, representing /ja/, /ju/, and /jo/ in Russian, respectively, have been removed. Instead, these are represented by the digraphs ⟨ја⟩, ⟨ју⟩, and ⟨јо⟩, respectively. Additionally, the letter Е, representing /je/ in Russian, is instead pronounced /e/ or /ɛ/, with /je/ being represented by ⟨јe⟩. Alphabets based on the Serbian that add new letters often do so by adding an acute accent ⟨´⟩ over an existing letter.

Bulgarian

Further information: Bulgarian language

The Bulgarian alphabet
А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Д д	Е е	Ж ж	З з	И и	Й й
К к	Л л	М м	Н н	О о	П п	Р р	С с	Т т	У у
Ф ф	Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч	Ш ш	Щ щ	Ъ ъ	Ь ь	Ю ю	Я я

Although a South Slavic language, the Bulgarian alphabet is closer to the East Slavic language alphabets. It displays following features:

• Тhe Bulgarian names for the consonants are [bɤ], [kɤ], [ɫɤ] etc. instead of [bɛ], [ka], [ɛl] etc.
• Е represents /ɛ/ and is called "е" [ɛ].
• The sounds /dʒ/ (/d͡ʒ/) and /dz/ (/d͡z/) are represented by дж and дз respectively.
• Yot (Й, й) represents /j/.
• Щ represents /ʃt/ (/ʃ͡t/) and is called "щъ" [ʃtɤ] ([ʃ͡tɤ]).
• Ъ represents the vowel /ɤ/, and is called "ер голям" [ˈɛr ɡoˈljam] ('big er'). In spelling however, Ъ is referred to as /ɤ/ where its official label "ер голям" (used only to refer to Ъ in the alphabet) may cause some confusion. The vowel Ъ /ɤ/ is sometimes approximated to the /ə/ (schwa) sound found in many languages for easier comprehension of its Bulgarian pronunciation for foreigners, but it is actually a much harder-sounding vowel.
• Ь is used on rare occasions (only after a consonant [and] before the vowel "о"), such as in the words 'каньон' (canyon), 'шофьор' (driver), etc. It is called "ер малък" ('small er').

The Cyrillic alphabet was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School. The Cyrillic script was originally developed in Bulgaria and has been used there (with modifications and exclusion of certain archaic letters via spelling reforms) continuously since then, superseding the previously used Glagolitic alphabet, which was also invented and used there before the Cyrillic alphabet overtook its use as a written script for Bulgarian. The Cyrillic alphabet was then borrowed by neighboring countries (e.g. Serbia and later Romania) and their peoples by the spread of Orthodox Christianity, who later modified it and added/excluded letters from it to better suit the needs of their own language. It was later adapted to write Russian and evolved into the Russian alphabet and the alphabets of many other Slavic (and later non-Slavic) languages.

Serbian

The Serbian alphabet
А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Д д	Ђ ђ	Е е	Ж ж	З з	И и
Ј ј	К к	Л л	Љ љ	М м	Н н	Њ њ	О о	П п	Р р
С с	Т т	Ћ ћ	У у	Ф ф	Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч	Џ џ	Ш ш

The Serbian alphabet shows the following features:

• E represents /ɛ/.
• Between Д and E is the letter Dje (Ђ, ђ), which represents /dʑ/, and looks like Tshe, except that the loop of the h curls farther and dips downwards.
• Between И and К is the letter Je (Ј, ј), represents /j/, which looks like the Latin letter J.
• Between Л and М is the letter Lje (Љ, љ), representing /ʎ/, which looks like a ligature of Л and the Soft Sign .
• Between Н and О is the letter Nje (Њ, њ), representing /ɲ/, which looks like a ligature of Н and the Soft Sign.
• Between Т and У is the letter Tshe (Ћ, ћ), representing /tɕ/ and looks like a lowercase Latin letter h with a bar. On the uppercase letter, the bar appears at the top; on the lowercase letter, the bar crosses the top at half of the vertical line.
• Between Ч and Ш is the letter Dzhe (Џ, џ), representing /dʒ/, which looks like Ts but with the downturn moved from the right side of the bottom bar to the middle of the bottom bar.
• Ш is the last letter.
• Certain letters are handwritten differently, as seen in the image to the right. Lowercase Be (б) has this form even in non-italic type.

Macedonian

The Macedonian alphabet
А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Д д	Ѓ ѓ	Е е	Ж ж	З з	Ѕ ѕ	И и
Ј ј	К к	Л л	Љ љ	М м	Н н	Њ њ	О о	П п	Р р	С с
Т т	Ќ ќ	У у	Ф ф	Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч	Џ џ	Ш ш

The Macedonian alphabet differs from Serbian in the following ways:

• Between Ze (З з) and I (И и) is the letter Dze (Ѕ ѕ), which looks like the Latin letter S and represents /d͡z/.
• Dje (Ђ ђ) is replaced by Gje (Ѓ ѓ), which represents /ɟ/ (voiced palatal stop). In some dialects, it represents /d͡ʑ/ instead, like Dje. It is written ⟨Ǵ ǵ⟩ in the corresponding Macedonian Latin alphabet.
• Tshe (Ћ ћ) is replaced by Kje (Ќ ќ), which represents /c/ (voiceless palatal stop). In some dialects, it represents /t͡ɕ/ instead, like Tshe. It is written ⟨Ḱ ḱ⟩ in the corresponding Macedonian Latin alphabet.
• Lje (Љ љ) often represents the consonant cluster /lj/ instead of /ʎ/.
• Lowercase Be (б), as in Serbian, looks different, as do several handwritten forms of other letters (see above and the image to the right)

Montenegrin

Main article: Montenegrin alphabet

The Montenegrin alphabet
А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Д д	Ђ ђ	Е е	Ж ж	З з	З́ з́	И и
Ј ј	К к	Л л	Љ љ	М м	Н н	Њ њ	О о	П п	Р р	С с
С́ с́	Т т	Ћ ћ	У у	Ф ф	Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч	Џ џ	Ш ш

The Montenegrin alphabet differs from Serbian in the following ways:

• Between Ze (З з) and I (И и) is the letter З́, which represents /ʑ/ (voiced alveolo-palatal fricative). It is written ⟨Ź ź⟩ in the corresponding Montenegrin Latin alphabet, previously written ⟨Zj zj⟩ or ⟨Žj žj⟩.
• Between Es (С с) and Te (Т т) is the letter С́, which represents /ɕ/ (voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative). It is written ⟨Ś ś⟩ in the corresponding Montenegrin Latin alphabet, previously written ⟨Sj sj⟩ or ⟨Šj šj⟩.
• The letter Dze (Ѕ ѕ), from Macedonian, is used in scientific literature when representing the /d͡z/ phoneme, although it is not officially part of the alphabet. A Latin equivalent was proposed that looks identical to Ze (З з).

Bosnian

Further information: Bosnian language

The Bosnian language uses Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, although the Latin is more common. A Bosnian Cyrillic script (Bosančica) was used in the Middle Ages, along with other scripts, but has no connection to the modern Bosnian language.

 

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillic_alphabets