The Cyrillic alphabet

There are a lot of languages that are based on the Cyrillic alphabet. They are usually languages of the Eastern Europe. The most spread languages that use this alphabet are Russian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian. There are also non Slavic languages that use Cyrillic alphabet.

Till the 9th century there was no unique or at least the spread Slavic written language. There are attempts of the reproduction of Slavic names with the Latin alphabet and with Greek letters. Besides, there are also several doubtful messages about the proper Slavic written languages. There were also versions according to which Slavic used runes or similar to runes signs for writing.

In about 863 year the brothers Constantin (Cyrill) and Mephodyi ordered the written language for Slavic language by the order of the imperator. After this fact there were a lot of discussions on the point of whether Glagolitic alphabet was existing before or after Cyrillic alphabet or it existed simultaneously and Glagolitic alphabet was playing the same role as runes. Nowadays the most spread opinion is that Glagolitic alphabet was the first and the Cyrillic alphabet was the second one that was improved.

This alphabet was based on the base of the Greek alphabet adding the Jewish letters. This alphabet is spread in all Southern Slavic lands thanks to activity of brothers-inventors. This provoked the prohibition to use this alphabet in 885 by the Church and Roman Priests.

The wide spread of Slavic written language refers to the time of reigning of the king Simeon the Great that was the son of the king Boris.