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Cyrillic script | |
---|---|
Script type | |
Time period | Earliest variants exist c. 893[1] – c. 940 |
Direction | Left-to-right |
Official script | 8 sovereign states 5 intergovernmental organizations Co-official script in: 5[i] sovereign states and 2* disputed territories |
Languages | See Languages using Cyrillic |
Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Egyptian hieroglyphs[4]
|
Child systems | Old Permic script |
Sister systems | |
ISO 15924 | |
ISO 15924 | Cyrl (220), Cyrillic Cyrs (Old Church Slavonic variant) |
Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Cyrillic |
| |
Names: Belarusian: кірыліца, Bulgarian: кирилица [ˈkirilit͡sɐ], Macedonian: кирилица Macedonian pronunciation: [[kiˈrilit͡sa]], Russian: кириллица [kʲɪˈrʲilʲɪtsə], Serbian: ћирилица Serbian pronunciation: [[t͡ɕiˈrilit͡sa]], Ukrainian: кирилиця [keˈrɪɫet͡sʲɐ] | |
The Cyrillic script (/sɪˈrɪlɪk/ sih-RIL-ik), Slavonic script or simply Slavic script is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, North Asia, and East Asia, and used by many other minority languages.
As of 2019[update], around 250 million people in Eurasia use Cyrillic as the official script for their national languages, with Russia accounting for about half of them.[5] With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of the European Union, following the Latin and Greek alphabets.[6]
The 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 the disciples of the two Byzantine brothers Cyril and Methodius, who had previously created the Glagolitic script. Among them were Clement of Ohrid, Naum of Preslav, Constantine of Preslav, Joan Ekzarh, Chernorizets Hrabar, Angelar, Sava and other scholars.[7][8][9][10] The script is named in honor of Saint Cyril.
The Psalter and the Book of Prophets were adapted or "modernized" with special regard to their use in Bulgarian churches and it was in this school that the Glagolitic script was replaced by the so-called Cyrillic writing, which was more akin to the Greek uncial, simplified matters considerably and is still used by the Orthodox Slavs.
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