And it is written in all history textbooks who were the first to create the alphabet for the Russian language - these are the brothers Cyril (Constantine) the Philosopher and Methodius (Mikhail) of Thessaloniki, Greek missionaries, later recognized as saints equal to the apostles. In 862, by order of the Byzantine Emperor Michael III, they went on a mission to Great Moravia. This early feudal Slavic state occupied the territory where today Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and part of Ukraine are located. The main task that Patriarch Photius of Constantinople set for the brothers was the translation of sacred texts from Greek into Slavic dialects. However, in order for the records not to be forgotten, it was necessary to record them on paper, and this cannot be done in the absence of our own Slavic alphabet.
The basis for its creation was the Greek alphabet. However, phonetically, ancient Slavic dialects were much richer than Greek speech. Because of this, the educational missionaries of this country were forced to come up with 19 new letters to display on paper the sounds and phonetic combinations that were missing in their language. Therefore, the first alphabet (alphabet), which has survived to this day among Belarusians, Bulgarians, Russians, Serbs and Ukrainians, with minor changes, included 43 letters. Today it is known as the “Cyrillic alphabet”, and the writing of these peoples belongs to the Cyrillic alphabet.
Who was the first to create the Russian alphabet?
However, when considering the question of who was the first to create the Slavic alphabet, it is necessary to take into account that in the 9th century there were two alphabets (two alphabets) - Cyrillic and Glagolitic, and which of them appeared earlier is impossible to answer. Unfortunately, the original texts written during the time of Cyril and Methodius have not survived. According to most researchers, the 38-letter Glagolitic, but more complex in writing characters, has a more ancient history. It was called in the ancient Slavic language “Kirillovitsa”, and its authorship is attributed to the “creative team” led by Cyril and Methodius, which included their students Clement, Naum and Angelarius. The alphabet was created starting in 856, before Cyril’s first educational campaign in the Khazar Kaganate.
Palimpsests - texts written in it, later scraped off from parchment and replaced with Cyrillic writing - also speak in favor of the originality of the Glagolitic alphabet. In addition, its ancient spelling is quite close in appearance to the Georgian church alphabet - “khutsuri”, which was used until the 9th century.
According to supporters of the above hypothesis, the first Russian alphabet - the Cyrillic alphabet - was developed by Kirill's student, Kliment Ohritsky and named after the teacher. The alphabet got its name from the names of its first two letters - “az” and “buki”.
The most ancient Slavic alphabet
However, the question of who first created the alphabet is not so simple, and Cyril and Methodius are only the first enlighteners who brought writing to the early Slavic states, the historicity of which is not in doubt. The same Cyril, describing his journey to the Great Khaganate, points to the presence in the churches of Chersonese (Korsun) of “the Gospel and Psalter written in Roussian writing.” It was acquaintance with these texts that led the Greek enlightener to the idea of dividing the letters of his alphabet into vowels and consonants.
Veles’s book, written in “strange” letters called “v(e)lesovitsy,” is still controversial. According to the discoverers (hoaxers) of this book, they were carved on wooden tablets before both the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet became widespread.
Unfortunately, the alphabet for the Russian language, “v(e)lesovitsy”, and the authorship of the “Russian letters” cannot be established today.
The Khmer alphabet has the largest number of letters in the Guinness Book of Records. It has 72 letters. This language is spoken in Cambodia.
However, the Ubykh alphabet contains the largest number of letters - 91 letters. The Ubykh language (the language of one of the Caucasian peoples) is considered one of the record holders for sound diversity: according to experts, it has up to 80 consonant phonemes.
Under Soviet rule, serious changes were made to the alphabets of all peoples living on the territory of the USSR: in the Russian language towards reducing the number of letters, and in other languages, mainly towards increasing them. After perestroika, the number of letters in the alphabets of many peoples living on the territory of the former Soviet republics decreased.
In modern Russian there are 33 letters. According to official sources, before the reform of Cyril and Methodius, the Russian language had 43 letters, and according to unofficial sources - 49.
The first 5 letters were thrown out by Cyril and Methodius, because there were no corresponding sounds in the Greek language, and for four they were given Greek names. Yaroslav the Wise removed one more letter, leaving 43. Peter I reduced it to 38. Nicholas II to 35. As part of Lunacharsky’s reform, the letters “yat”, “fita” and “and decimal” were excluded from the alphabet (E, F should be used instead , И), and also the hard sign (Ъ) at the end of words and parts of complex words would be excluded, but retained as a dividing sign (rise, adjutant).
In addition, Lunacharsky removed images from the Initial Letter, leaving only phonemes, i.e. the language has become unimaginative = ugly. So instead of the Primer, the Alphabet appeared.
Until 1942, it was officially believed that there were 32 letters in the Russian alphabet, since E and E were considered to be variants of the same letter.
The Ukrainian alphabet includes 33 letters: compared to Russian, Ёё, Ъъ, ыы, Ее are not used, but Ґґ, Єє, Іі and Її are present.
The Belarusian alphabet currently has 32 letters. Compared to Russian alphabet i, ь, ъ are not used, but the letters i and ў are added, and the digraphs j and d are also sometimes considered to have the status of letters.
The Yakut language uses an alphabet based on Cyrillic, which contains the entire Russian alphabet, plus five additional letters and two combinations. 4 diphthongs are also used.
The Kazakh and Bashkir Cyrillic alphabet contains 42 letters.
The current Chechen alphabet contains 49 letters (compiled on a graphical basis Russian alphabet in 1938). In 1992, the Chechen leadership decided to introduce an alphabet based on the Latin script of 41 letters. This alphabet was used to a limited extent in parallel with the Cyrillic alphabet in the period from 1992 to 2000.
The Armenian alphabet contains 38 letters, however, after the reform in 1940, the ligature "
և “undeservedly received the status of a letter that does not have a capital letter - thus the number of letters became, as it were, “thirty-eight and a half.”The Tatar alphabet after the translation of Tatar writing in 1939 from Latinized alphabet on alphabet based on Russian graphics contained 38 letters, and after 1999 an alphabet based on the Latin script of 34 letters was widely used.
The Kyrgyz Cyrillic alphabet, adopted in 1940, contains 36 letters.
The modern Mongolian alphabet contains 35 letters and differs from Russian by two additional letters: Ө and Ү.
In 1940, the Uzbek alphabet, like the alphabets of other peoples of the USSR, was translated into Cyrillic and contained 35 letters. In the 90s of the last century, the Uzbek authorities decided to translate the Uzbek language into the Latin alphabet and the alphabet became 28 letters.
The modern Georgian alphabet consists of 33 letters.
There are 31 letters in the Macedonian and Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet. The Finnish alphabet also consists of 31 letters.
The Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet includes 30 letters - compared to Russian, it lacks the letters Y, E and E.
The Tibetan alphabet consists of 30 letter-syllables, which are considered consonants. Each of them, constituting the initial letter of a syllable and not having another vowel sign, is accompanied by the sound “a” when pronounced.
The Swedish and Norwegian alphabet has 29 letters.
The Arabic alphabet contains 28 letters. The Spanish alphabet has 27 letters.
There are 26 letters in the Latin, English, German and French alphabet.
The Italian alphabet “officially” consists of 21 letters, but in reality it has 26 letters.
The Greek alphabet has 24 letters, and the standard Portuguese alphabet has 23 letters.
There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet; there is no difference between uppercase and lowercase letters.
The least number of letters in the alphabet is the Rotokas tribe from the island of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. There are only eleven of them (a, b, e, g, i, k, o, p, t, u) - 6 of them are consonants.
Considering how many letters there are in the language of one of the Papuan tribes, it is interesting that in all alphabets the number of letters gradually changes, usually downward.
A change in the number of letters in the alphabet in all countries of the world, as a rule, occurs with the advent of a new government so that the younger generation finds itself cut off from the language, literature, culture and traditions of their ancestors, and after some time speaks a completely different language.
Thus, the Proto-Slavic alphabet is a Message - a set of coding phrases that allow each sound of the language system to be given an unambiguous graphic correspondence (i.e., a letter).
And now - ATTENTION! Let's look at the first three letters of the alphabet - az, buki, vedi. Az - “I”. Buki (beeches) - “letters, writing.” Vedi (vede) - “knew”, perfect past tense of “vediti” - to know, to know.
Combining the acrophonic names of the first three letters of the alphabet, we get the following:
“az buki vede” - “I know letters.”
All subsequent letters of the alphabet are combined into phrases:
A verb is a “word”, not only spoken, but also written.
Good - “property, acquired wealth.”
There is (este) - the third person singular of the verb “to be.”
We read: “the verb is good” - “the word is an asset.”
Live - imperative mood, plural of “live” - “live in labor, and not vegetate.”
Zelo - “zealously, with zeal” (cf. English zeal - persistent, zealous, jealous - jealous, as well as the biblical name Zealot - “zealous”). Earth - “planet Earth and its inhabitants, earthlings.”
And - the conjunction "and".
Izhe - “those who, they are the same.”
Kako - “like”, “like”.
People are “reasonable beings.”
We read: “live well, earth, and like people” - “live, working hard, earthlings, and as befits people.” Think - imperative mood, plural of “to think, to comprehend with the mind.”
Nash - “ours” in the usual meaning.
On - “that one” in the meaning of “single, united”.
Chambers (peace) - “the basis (of the universe).” Wed. “to rest” - “to be based on something.”
We read: “think about our chambers” - “comprehend our universe.”
Rtsy (rtsi) - imperative mood: “speak, utter, read aloud.”
Wed. "speech". The word is “transmitting knowledge.”
Firmly - “confidently, confidently.”
We read: “say your word firmly” - “carry knowledge with conviction.”
Uk is the basis of knowledge, doctrine. Wed. science, teach, skill, custom.
Fert, f(b)ret - “fertilizes.”
Her - “divine, given from above” (cf. German herr - lord, God, Greek “hiero” - divine, English hero - hero, as well as the Russian name of God - Horse).
We read: “uk fret Her” - “knowledge is fertilized by the Almighty,” “knowledge is a gift of God.”
Tsy (qi, tsti) - “sharpen, penetrate, delve, dare.”
Worm (worm) - “he who sharpens, penetrates.”
Ш(т)а (Ш, Ш) - “what” in the meaning “to”.
Ъ, ь (еръ/ерь, ъръ) are variants of one letter, meaning an indefinite short vowel close to “e”.
The variant “ь” arose later from “iъ” (this is how the letter “yat” was displayed in writing until the 20th century).
Yus (yus small) - “light”, Old Russian “yas”. In modern Russian, the root “yas” is preserved, for example, in the word “clear”.
Yat (yati) - “to comprehend, to have.”
“Tsy, cherve, shta ЪRA yus yati!”
It stands for “Dare, sharpen, worm, in order to comprehend the light of God!”
The combination of the above phrases constitutes the elementary Message:
“Az buki vede. The verb is good.
Live well, earth, and people like you,
think of our chambers.
Rtsy’s word is firm - uk fret Her.
Tsy, cherve, shta ЪRA yus yati!”
And if we give this message a modern twist, it would look something like this:
I know the letters. Writing is an asset.
Work hard, people of earth,
As befits reasonable people.
Comprehend the universe!
Carry the word with conviction: Knowledge is a gift of God!
Dare, delve deeply in order to comprehend the Light of Being!
Why are the letters in the alphabet arranged in this order? June 23rd, 2016
I often come across the answer to this question on the Internet in the following form: “this is an inexplicable fact.” But I still found some explanations that I want to convey to you. Now tell me if you have heard the other version.
Everything is simple with the Russian alphabet. Slavic writing is only a little over a thousand years old, and its history is known. In the second half of the 9th century, the brothers Cyril and Methodius decided to bring Christianity to the Slavic world, and since Christianity is the religion of the book, Cyril came up with an alphabet for the Slavs, the Glagolitic alphabet.
Kirill came up with original styles (albeit based on the Greek minuscule, which was widespread at that time), and retained the order in general terms. Maybe so that it is still convenient to use letters to denote numbers. Maybe because I didn’t know any other order. Maybe because the alphabetical order of the language of the Bible is sacred - it is said in the Bible: “I am alpha and omega,” that is, the beginning and the end.
The only thing was that it was necessary to give some place to the letters that denoted sounds that were absent in Greek: B, Zh, Ts, Ch, Sh, etc. And they were placed either next to the letters that denoted the most similar sounds (B - next to V, Zh - next to Z), or at the end of the alphabet. When the Cyrillic alphabet, which was more similar to Greek letters, began to be used instead of the Glagolitic alphabet, the alphabetical order was generally preserved, although some rare letters occupy different places in different lists, and some are present only in part of the lists.
The Greek alphabet took its order of letters from the Semitic script. There is a legend about the Phoenician Cadmus, who taught the Greeks writing. Like the Slavs, the Greeks needed additional letters, so at the end of the Greek alphabet we see phi (Φ), chi (Χ), psi (Ψ) and omega (Ω), which were absent from the Phoenicians. By the way, these letters are not in the early lists; the alphabet ends either with ipslon (Y) or even with tau (T).
Ultimately, the Latin alphabet also goes back to the same source, which is why the order of the letters in it differs so little from the Russian one we are used to. Perhaps the most noticeable thing is that in place of G in front of the letter D (D) we see C (read as “k”). But if you look at the Latin letter G, you can see that it is derived from C (and was produced quite late - that is why the name Guy was abbreviated for a long time by the letter C - have you ever heard of “Caius” by Julius Caesar?).
But where the order of letters in the Semitic script came from is not known exactly. The signs themselves most likely arose not without the influence of Egyptian writing, but the Semites came up with the order themselves. Moreover, even before the appearance of the Semitic letter itself: it was first found in the Ugaritic letter, and it was cuneiform.
If the Europeans simply copied the order of the letters (perhaps in order to preserve, at least basically, their numerical values for the letters), then the ancient Indians, who had a good linguistic tradition, having received the Semitic letter at their disposal, arranged the letters in accordance with pronunciation: first vowels, then consonants, and within these groups the order is also not random. But the Indians came up with separate numbers for themselves. Then, through the Arabs, these numbers reached Europe, and we know them under the name “Arab” - but that’s another story.
Here's another opinion: The fact is that the current alphabet system comes from the old Russian alphabet. And to remember it, the method of mental images was used. After all, it’s easier to remember meaningful text than to cram a set of characters. So this is the order that emerged and no other. Of course, it changed over time, some letters left, some were added, but the skeleton, so to speak, remained.
“Az buki vede. The verb is good. Live well, earth, and, like people, think about our peace. Rtsy’s word is firm - uk färt dick. Tsy, worm, shta ra yus yati.”
One translation of this text is:
“I know letters: writing is a property. Work hard, earthlings, as reasonable people should - comprehend the universe!
Carry the word with conviction: knowledge is a gift of God! Dare, delve deeply in order to comprehend the light of existence!”
or here's something else interesting:
In a 7 by 7 square
On the first line:
I know God, I say good things, that means I exist.
On the second line:
Life is abundant on Earth when the universal truth in the community is from God.
On the third line:
For all thinking people, only He (God) speaks peace.
On the fourth line:
The Word, approved from above, calls to confidently adhere to the foundations of the wisdom of goodness in order to complete the path, to come into harmony for a new beginning.
On the fifth line:
Protecting our land's borders and growth ensures God's protection and our unity.
On the sixth line:
The harmonious development and growth potential of my family and me, as part of it, depends on the Almighty source and the history of the family.
On the seventh line:
The meaning of life is the desire to improve the spirit and soul until they fully mature into a perfect personality in eternity.
1 column vertically:
My life is like a thought clothed in sound, striving for harmony, the smallest particle of mind in the universe.
2nd column:
God creates a strong boundary around people and guides them towards self-improvement.
3 column:
Knowledge of the Earth and reflection on it bring peace to the spirit of our race (people).
4th column:
Speaking the truth is our tradition, our protection, part of our soul. (What is strength brother? - In Truth!)
5th column:
The blessing of the Universe is that God the Creator confidently and firmly creates the growth of everything, for the complete ripening of the seed.
6th column:
The essence of the existence of human society is peace, tranquility, balance, harmony, unity from the Supreme Source to the perfect soul.
7th column:
The existing heavenly Source brings into our world both the beginning of everything and the growth of everything, and the experience of people in time.
Diagonal from top to bottom and left to right:
I think a lot and the basis of my creativity is always the Supreme Source.
sources
Real Russian Alphabet.
Grigori Ovanesov.
Grigory Tevatrosovich Ovanesov.
ALPHABET OF A SINGLE LANGUAGE.
No.
1__1___a___10__10____w____19___100____w____28__1000____r
2__2___b___11__20____i_____20__200____m_____29__2000____s
3__3___g____12__30___l_____21__300____j____30___3000___v
4__4___d____13__40___x_____22__400____n____31__4000____t
5__5___e____14__50___s______23__500____w____32__5000____r
6__6___z____15__60___k______24__600____o____33__6000____c
7__7___e____16__70___h______25__700____h____34__7000___y
8__8___y____17__80___z______26__800____p___35___8000____f
9__9___t____18___90___g____27__900____j____36___9000___q
_____________________________________________________________________________
No. - Letter number. h.z. – the numeric value of the letter. r. - Russian alphabet.
To indicate the beginning of a sentence, you must use the same letters with an increased size. It also means that the letter h is a soft voicing of the letter G, which is used in the Russian language, but is not recorded and is used in dialects (adverbs), especially by shepherds when they drive cows, reproducing the sound he (ge). This pronunciation of the letter G as h is considered unliterary. In addition, the same letter G, as a thin throaty wheezing sound, is written in the form g. Moreover, the letters “e” are pronounced as “yyy”, “t” as “thx”, “s” as “ts”, “z” as “dz”, “j” as “j”, r as hard (English) “ p” and “q” as “kh”. The alphabet does not contain the diphtones Ya (ya), Yu (yu), E (ye) and Yo (yo) since their voicing with separate mono sounds is already in the alphabet. Of course, b and b signs are not letters, since they are not voiced and cannot be used in the alphabet. In the process of voicing the letters of the alphabet, people actively used a wide range of sounds that animals and birds make, imitating them. Of course, the predecessors of the alphabet in graphic notation are two interconnected alphabets compiled millions of years ago. I restored them for the first time in the world, with the same number of letters, which ensured upright walking, practicing grasping movements and creating the semantic content of words with voicing of letters. Moreover, having restored two ancient ABCs, I turned out to be their modern creator. In addition, with the help of ABCs, the concepts of counting and numbers were introduced with letter-by-letter notation and notation with the fingers, a decimal system of counting units, the concepts of length and time were arranged. The actual number of fingers with spaces between them on the hands and feet are four nines, which together make up the number 36.
Thus, with the help of the Unified Alphabet, a letter-by-letter way of writing numbers was created. For example, the number 9999 was originally written letter by letter as q j g t or 3446 as vnkhz (see alphabet above). In fact, it was not easy for me to figure out on my own the mechanism for writing numbers and numbers letter by letter. For this I used only the alphabet with numeric letter values. In principle, this is a very serious topic, so I highlighted it separately.
Moreover, for the first time in the world, I gave a definition to DIGIT and NUMBER.
In this case, the Number is the quantity voiced by a letter or word in a record.
So a Number is a quantity written in letters or numbers.
Of course, quantity is HOW MUCH.
It should be borne in mind that the number 0 is voiced by the word “zero, zero”, the number 1 is voiced by the word “one, one”, the number 2 is voiced by the word “two, two”, etc., and in different languages in your own words.
Moreover, the reflection of the Unified Alphabet in the form of the positions of the fingers and their grasping movements made it possible to substantiate how all numbers were created up to the largest from 10,000 onwards, which are now used for counting.
In the alphabet, the numerical values of letters determine the order of distribution into columns (groups). In the first nine (first column), the digital recording of letter numbers and their numerical values are written in the same way. In this case, the numbers of the other three columns of letters are written in two-digit numbers. Moreover, the numerical values in each column include significant figures from 1 to 9. Moreover, in the second column one zero is added to each of these numbers, in the third column two zeros and in the fourth column three zeros. There is also a complete correspondence between each digital entry of a two-digit letter number and its numerical value.
It should be borne in mind that Russian-speaking people, due to the absence of a significant number of letters (mono-sounds) of the world's first alphabet with the help of which the semantic content of words and their pronunciation were created, have serious problems with studying other adverbs of the common language of the peoples of the world.
