Cyrillic alphabets used by
Slavic languages can be divided into two categories: • West
South Slavic languages, such as all varieties of
Serbo-Croatian, often share the following letters, among others: Ј, Љ, Њ •
East South Slavic languages and
East Slavic languages, such as
Bulgarian and
Russian, often share the following letters, among others: Й, Щ, Ь (soft sign), Ю, Я
South Slavic Bulgarian , 9th century (850) The
Bulgarian alphabet shows the following features: • The Bulgarian names for the consonants are , , (bǔ, kǔ, lǔ) etc. instead of , , (be, ka, el) etc. • Е represents and is called "е" . Unlike in other Slavic languages, the sound does not exist in native words, being replaced with Е in most cases. • The sounds () and () are represented by the digraphs and respectively, as in Belarusian and Ukrainian. •
Short I () represents , as in Russian. • Щ represents () and is called "" (). • Ъ represents the vowel , and is called "" (IPA: ) ('big er'). Despite the official name being "big er", the letter is only referred to as that in the context of the alphabet, and is usually called in common speech. The vowel Ъ is sometimes approximated to the (
schwa) sound found in many languages for easier comprehension of its Bulgarian pronunciation for foreigners, but it is actually a back vowel, not a central vowel. • Ь is used on rare occasions (only after a consonant [and] before the vowel "о"), such as in the words
(canyon), (driver/chauffeur), etc. It represents the sound , unless after Г, К and Л, in which case it palatalizes them to . It is called "" ('small er'). • Before 1945, the letter Ѣ (yat) was used. In eastern dialects, the letter would be pronounced as or depending on the context, while in western dialects, it would be pronounced almost exclusively as . This led to cases in which words such as (Modern Bulgarian: ) would be pronounced as "mlyako" in the east, but as "mleko" in the west. In 1945, the letter was abolished and replaced by Я or Е, depending on its use in the eastern dialects. The letter is also referred to as "" (double e). • Before 1945, the letter Ѫ (big yus) was used. In early Bulgarian, the letter represented the nasal vowel . By the late 18th century however, the sound had shifted to , the same sound as Ъ, and was mostly used in its etymological locations. There are no differences between the two, apart from the fact that Ѫ can be used at the end of words. In 1945, the letter was abolished along with Ѣ (yat) and was replaced by А or Ъ. It is sometimes referred to as "" (big nasal sign) and "" (wide ъ). • For a brief period, the letter Ѭ (iotated big yus) was used, during the use of the
Drinov Orthography, and represented the sound in words verb conjugations, for example in (IPA: ). The letter Ѫ was also used for the same purpose alongside its normal usage. In 1899, both letters replaced in verb conjugations by Я and А in all cases as part of the new
Ivanchov Orthography. The Cyrillic alphabet was originally developed in the
First Bulgarian Empire during the 9th – 10th century AD at the
Preslav Literary School. It has been used in
Bulgaria (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 script overtook its use as a written script for the
Bulgarian language. The Cyrillic alphabet was used in the then much bigger territory of
Bulgaria (including most of today's Serbia),
North Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania, Northern Greece (Macedonia region),
Romania and
Moldova, officially from 893. It was also transferred from
Bulgaria and adopted by the
East Slavic languages in
Kievan Rus' and evolved into the
Russian alphabet and the alphabets of many other Slavic (and later non-Slavic) languages. Later, some Slavs modified it and added/excluded letters from it to better suit the needs of their own language varieties.
Serbian South Slavic Cyrillic alphabets (with the exception of Bulgarian) are generally derived from
Serbian Cyrillic. It, and by extension its descendants, differs from the East Slavic ones in that the alphabet has generally been simplified: Letters such as Й, Я, Ю, and Щ representing /j/, /ja/, /ju/, and /ɕ(ː)/ in Russian, respectively, have been removed. Instead, these are represented by the letter and digraphs , , and , respectively. Additionally, the letter Е, representing in Russian, is instead pronounced or , with being represented by . Alphabets based on the Serbian that add new letters often do so by adding an acute accent over an existing letter. The
Serbian alphabet shows the following features: • E represents . • Between Д and E is the letter
Dje (Ђ, ђ), representing , which 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), representing , which looks like the Latin letter J. • Between Л and М is the letter
Lje (Љ, љ), representing , which looks like a ligature of Л and the Soft Sign. • Between Н and О is the letter
Nje (Њ, њ), representing , which looks like a ligature of Н and the Soft Sign. • Between Т and У is the letter
Tshe (Ћ, ћ), representing 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 , which looks like Tse but with the descender 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 adjacent image.
Montenegrin The
Montenegrin alphabet differs from Serbian in the following ways: • Between Ze (З з) and I (И и) is the letter
З́, which represents (
voiced alveolo-palatal fricative). It is written in the corresponding Montenegrin Latin alphabet, previously written or . • Between Es (С с) and Te (Т т) is the letter
С́, which represents (
voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative). It is written in the corresponding Montenegrin Latin alphabet, previously written or . • The letter Dze (Ѕ ѕ), from Macedonian, is used in scientific literature when representing the phoneme, although it is not officially part of the alphabet. A Latin equivalent was proposed that looks identical to Ze (З з).
Macedonian 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 . • Dje (Ђ ђ) is replaced by Gje (Ѓ ѓ), which represents (
voiced palatal stop). In some dialects, it represents instead, like Dje. It is written in the corresponding Macedonian Latin alphabet. • Tshe (Ћ ћ) is replaced by Kje (Ќ ќ), which represents (
voiceless palatal stop). In some dialects, it represents instead, like Tshe. It is written in the corresponding Macedonian Latin alphabet. • Lje (Љ љ) often represents the consonant cluster instead of . • Certain letters are handwritten differently, as seen in the adjacent image.
Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian Ćiro Truhelka claimed
Serbo-Croatian language briefly used the Cyrillic script in areas with large
Croatian or
Bosnian speaking populations. There is a
controversy in naming.
Bosniak scholars call it
Bosnian Script.
Serb scholars call it
Serbian script, as part of variant of
Serbian Cyrillic and deem the term "bosančica"
Anti-Serb Austro-Hungarian
propaganda.
Croat scholars call it
Croatian Cyrillic East Slavic Russian The Russian alphabet shows the following features: • Yo (Ё ё) indicates . • As is not a native phoneme, the letter Ef (Ф ф) is generally restricted to loanwords/borrowed words. • Zhe (Ж ж) and Sha (Ш ш) indicate sounds that are
retroflex. • Shcha (Щ щ) indicates . • The hard sign¹ (Ъ ъ), called “твёрдый знак” in Russian, indicates the lack of palatalization in a context where the consonant would usually be palatalized². • Yery (Ы ы) indicates (an allophone of ). • E (Э э) indicates . Notes: • 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. • When an iotated vowel (vowel whose sound begins with ) follows a consonant, the consonant is palatalized. The hard sign indicates that this does not happen, and the sound will appear only in front of the vowel. The soft sign indicates that the consonant should be palatalized in addition to a 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 (); тя (); тья (); тъя (); т (); ть (). 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 The
Belarusian alphabet shows the following features: • He or Ge (Г г) represents a
voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ (rarely also a
voiced velar plosive /ɡ/). • Yo (Ё ё) represents , just like in Russian. • I (І і), also known as the
dotted I or
decimal I, resembles the Latin letter I. Unlike most Cyrillic alphabets, "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 , 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) represents , similarly to in Russian. • E (Э э) represents , just like in Russian. • An apostrophe (’) is used to indicate the lack of palatalization of the preceding consonant. This orthographical symbol is 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 the affricates Дж and Дз correspondingly. • Before 1933, the letter
Ґ ґ (Ge) was used for /ɡ/, although its use was optional.
Ukrainian The
Ukrainian alphabet shows the following features: •
Ve (В в) represents (which may be pronounced in a word final position and before consonants). •
He (Г г) represents a
breathy-voiced glottal transition, (), similar to the respective sound in Belarusian. •
Ge (Ґ ґ) appears after He, representing . It looks like He with an "upturn" pointing up from the right side of the top bar. This letter is generally restricted to loanwords/borrowed words. (This letter was removed in
Soviet Ukraine in 1933–1990, so it may be missing from older Cyrillic fonts.) • E (Е е) represents . •
Ye (Є є) appears after E and represents the sound . • I (И и) represents the sound , unlike in Russian. •
Dotted I (І і) appears after И and represents the sound , as in Belarusian. •
Yi (Ї ї) appears after I and represents the sound . •
Jot (Й й) represents , as in Russian •
Shcha (Щ, щ) represents the cluster . • An
apostrophe (’) is used to mark the lack of palatalization of the preceding consonant before Ya (Я, я), Yu (Ю, ю), Ye (Є, є), Yi (Ї, ї), the same as how it is used in Belarusian. • Before 1990, Ь was positioned at the end of the alphabet rather than in its current position after Щ; the original order may still show up in historic documents. • As in
Belarusian Cyrillic, the sounds , are represented by digraphs Дж and Дз respectively.
Carpathian Rusyn The
Carpathian Rusyn language is spoken by the
Carpatho-Rusyns in
Carpathian Ruthenia, Slovakia, and Poland. The Carpathian Rusyn alphabet differs from Ukrainian in that the letters Ё, Ы, and the hard sign (Ъ), from Russian, are also used, and the order is slightly different.
West Slavic Pannonian Rusyn The
Pannonian Rusyn language is spoken by the
Pannonian Rusyns. This alphabet uses all the letters of the Ukrainian alphabet except Dotted I (І і). Note that
Pannonian Rusyn is a
West Slavic language despite its name. == Non-Slavic Indo-European languages ==