Kuban State University

Faculty of Management and Psychology

on documentation on the topic:

"History of the Russian alphabet: from antiquity to the present day"

Completed by a student

2nd year preschool educational institution:

Elena Teterleva

Krasnodar 2010

Introduction

1. The emergence of the Slavic alphabet

2. Cyrillic letters and their names

3. The composition of the Russian alphabet

Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

Conveying speech in writing, letters are used, each of which has a specific meaning. A set of letters arranged in a prescribed order is called alphabet or alphabet.

Word alphabet comes from the name of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: α-alpha; β- beta(in modern Greek - vita).

Word ABC comes from the name of the first two letters of the ancient Slavic alphabet - Cyrillic: A - az; B - beeches.

How did the alphabet come about? How did it develop in Russia? The answers to these questions can be found in this abstract.

1. THE RISE OF THE SLAVIC ABC

Alphabet is a system of letters that convey sounds or phonemes of a language. Almost all known alphabetic writing systems have a common origin: they go back to the Semitic writing of Phenicia, Syria, Palestine in the 2nd millennium BC.

The Phoenicians, who lived on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, were famous sailors in ancient times. They were active in trade with the Mediterranean states. In the IX century. BC NS. the Phoenicians introduced their writing to the Greeks. The Greeks somewhat modified the outlines of the Phoenician letters and their names, preserving the order.

In the 1st millennium BC. NS. Southern Italy was colonized by the Greeks. As a result of this, various peoples of Italy got acquainted with the Greek letter, including the Latins - the Italic tribe that founded Rome. The classic Latin alphabet was finally formed in the 1st century. BC NS. Some Greek letters were not included in the Latin alphabet. In the era of the Roman Empire, the Latin language and writing were widely spread. Its influence increased in the Middle Ages due to the transition to. Christianity of all the peoples of Europe. Latin became a liturgical language in all states of Western Europe, and Latin writing became the only acceptable script for liturgical books. As a result, Latin has been the international language for centuries.

On the territory of Central Eastern Europe, inhabited by the Slavs, starting from the VI-VII centuries. there are separate unions of Slavic tribes, state associations.

ВIX century. the state union of the Western Slavs was known - the Moravian principality, located on the territory of present-day Slovakia. German feudal lords sought to subjugate Moravia politically, economically and culturally. German missionaries were sent to Moravia to preach Christianity in Latin. This threatened the political independence of the state. In an effort to preserve independence, the far-sighted Moravian prince Rostislav sent an embassy to the Byzantine emperor Michael III with a request to send teachers to Moravia (preachers of Christianity according to the Byzantine rite) who would teach the inhabitants of Moravia Christianity in their native language. Michael III entrusted the Moravian mission to Constantine (monastic name - Cyril) and his brother Methodius. The brothers were natives of the city of Soluni (now Thessaloniki), which at that time was part of the Slavic (Bulgarian) territory and was the cultural center of Macedonia, Ancient Solun was a bilingual city in which, in addition to the Greek language, the Slavic dialect sounded.

Constantine was a very educated person for his time. Even before his trip to Moravia, he compiled the Slavic alphabet and began to translate the Gospel into the Slavic language. In Moravia, Constantine and Methodius continued to translate church books from Greek into the Slavic language, taught the Slavs to read, write and conduct worship in the Slavic language. The brothers stayed in Moravia for more than three years, and then went with their disciples to Rome to the Pope. There they hoped to find support in the struggle against the German clergy, who did not want to give up their positions in Moravia and hindered the spread of Slavic writing. On the way to Rome, they visited another Slavic country - Pannonia (Lake Balaton region, Hungary). And here the brothers taught the Slavs to book and worship in the Slavic language.

In Rome, Constantine was tonsured a monk, taking the name Cyril. In the same place, in 869, Cyril was poisoned. Before his death, he wrote to Methodius: "You and I are like two oxen; one fell from a heavy burden, the other must continue on his way." Methodius, with his disciples who were ordained priests, returned to Pannonia, and later to Moravia.

By that time, the situation in Moravia had changed dramatically. After Rostislav's death, his prisoner Svyatopolk became the Moravian prince, who submitted to German political influence. The activity of Methodius and his disciples proceeded in very difficult conditions. The Latin-German clergy in every possible way prevented the spread of the Slavic language as the language of the church.

Methodius was imprisoned, where he dies in 885, and after that his opponents managed to achieve the prohibition of Slavic writing in Moravia. Many students were executed, some moved to Bulgaria and Croatia. In Bulgaria, Tsar Boris converted to Christianity in 864. Bulgaria becomes the center for the spread of Slavic writing. Here Slavic schools are created, Cyril and Methodius originals of liturgical books (Gospel, Psalter, Apostle, church services) are being copied "new Slavic translations from Greek are made, original works in Old Slavonic appear (" 0 writing of Chrnorizets the Brave ").

The widespread use of Slavic writing, its "golden age", dates back to the reign of Simeon in Bulgaria (893-927), the son of Boris. Later, the Old Slavonic language penetrates into Serbia, and at the end of the 10th century. becomes the language of the church in Kievan Rus.

The Old Church Slavonic language, being the language of the Church in Russia, was influenced by the Old Russian language. It was the Old Slavonic language of the Russian edition, as it included elements of lively East Slavic speech.

The Old Slavonic alphabets, which have written the monuments that have survived to this day, are called verb and Cyrillic... The first Old Church Slavonic monuments were written in the Glagolitic script, which is believed to have been created by Constantine on the basis of the Greek cursive script of the 9th century. with the addition of some letters from other oriental alphabets. This is a very peculiar, intricate, loop-shaped letter, which for a long time in a slightly modified form was used by the Croats (until the 17th century). The appearance of the Cyrillic alphabet, which goes back to the Greek statutory (solemn) letter, is associated with the activities of the Bulgarian school of scribes. Cyrillic is the Slavic alphabet that underlies the modern Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian alphabets.

2. LETTERS OF CYRILLIC AND THEIR NAMES

Figure 1 - "Cyrillic letters and their names"

The Cyrillic alphabet, shown in Figure 1, has undergone gradual improvement as it is used in Russian.

The development of the Russian nation at the beginning of the 18th century, the emerging needs for printing civilian books made it necessary to simplify the outlines of the letters of the Cyril alphabet.

In 1708, a Russian civil type was created, and Peter I himself took an active part in making the sketches of the letters. In 1710, a sample of the new alphabet was approved. This was the first reform of Russian graphics. The essence of the Peter's reform was to simplify the composition of the Russian alphabet by excluding from it such obsolete and unnecessary letters as "psi", "xi", "omega", "izhytsa", "earth", "ilk", "yus small". However, later, probably under the influence of the clergy, some of these letters were restored to use. The letter E ("E" is the reverse) was introduced in order to distinguish it from the letter E, as well as the letter I instead of the small iota.

For the first time, uppercase (large) and lowercase (small) letters are installed in civilian type.

Letter Y ( and short) was introduced by the Academy of Sciences in 1735. The letter E was first used by N.M. Karamzin in 1797 to denote the sound [o] under stress after soft consonants, for example: palate, dark.

In the XVIII century. in the literary language, the sound denoted by the letter b ( yat), coincided with the sound [ NS ]. Thus, Bush was practically unnecessary to Kommersant, but according to tradition, it remained in the Russian alphabet for a long time, until 1917-1918.

The spelling reform of 1917-1918. two letters were excluded that duplicated each other: "yat", "fita", "and decimal". Letter b ( ep) was only kept as a separator, b ( er) - as a separator and to indicate the softness of the preceding consonant. In relation to Y, the decree contains a clause about the desirability, but not necessarily the use of this letter. Reform of 1917-1918 simplified the Russian writing and thereby made it easier to learn to read and write.

3. COMPOSITION OF THE RUSSIAN ALPHABET

In the Russian alphabet, 33 letters, of which 10 denote vowel sounds, 21 - consonants and 2 letters do not denote special sounds, but serve to convey certain sound features. The Russian alphabet, shown in Table 1, has uppercase (large) and lowercase (small) letters, printed and handwritten letters.

Table 1 - Russian alphabet and the name of the letters

CONCLUSION

Throughout the history of the Russian alphabet, there was a struggle with "superfluous" letters, crowned with a partial victory in the reforming of graphics by Peter I (1708-1710) and a final victory in the spelling reform of 1917-1918.

Letters are the basis of any language in the world, because we use their combination when thinking, speaking or writing. The alphabet of the Russian language is interesting not only as a "building material", but also in the history of its education. In this regard, the question arises: who created the alphabet of the Russian language? Most people will say without hesitation that the main authors of the Russian alphabet are Cyril and Methodius. However, only a few know that they not only created the letters of the alphabet, but began to use signs in writing, and also translated a huge number of church books.

How did the Russian alphabet come about?

From the 9th to the 10th century, one of the largest states was Great Moravia. At the end of 862, its prince Rostislav wrote a letter to the Byzantine Emperor Michael with a plea for permission to conduct divine services in the Slavic language. At that time the inhabitants of Moravia had a common language, but there was no written language. Greek or Latin was used. Emperor Michael granted the prince's request and sent a mission to Moravia in the person of two learned brothers. Cyril and Methodius were well educated and belonged to a noble family. It was they who became the founders of Slavic culture and writing. However, one should not think that until that moment people remained illiterate. They used letters from the Veles book. Who came up with the letters or signs in it is still not known.

An interesting fact is that the brothers created the letters of the alphabet even before their arrival in Moravia. It took them about three years to create the Russian alphabet and arrange the letters into the alphabet. The brothers managed to translate the Bible and liturgical books from the Greek language, henceforth the liturgy in the church was conducted in a language understandable to the local population. Some letters in the alphabet were very similar to Greek and Latin characters. In 863, the alphabet was created, consisting of 49 letters, but later it was abolished to 33 letters. The originality of the created alphabet is that each letter conveys one sound.

I wonder why the letters in the alphabet of the Russian language have a certain sequence? The creators of the Russian alphabet considered letters in terms of ordering numbers. Each letter defines a number, so the letters-numbers are in the ascending direction.

Who invented the Russian alphabet?

In 1917-1918. the first reform was carried out aimed at improving the spelling of the Slavic language. The Ministry of Public Education made a decision to correct the books. The alphabet or the Russian alphabet regularly underwent changes, so the Russian alphabet appeared, which we use now.

The history of the Russian language is fraught with numerous discoveries and secrets:

1. The alphabet of the Russian language contains the letter "E". It was introduced by the Academy of Sciences in 1783 by Princess Vorontsova-Dashkova, who headed it at that time. She asked the academics why the first syllable in the word "iolk" is conveyed by two letters. Not receiving an answer that satisfied her, the princess created an order to use the letter "E" in the letter.
2. The one who came up with the Russian alphabet did not leave any explanations for the dumb letter "eer". It was used until 1918 after hard consonants. The treasury of the country spent more than 400 thousand rubles on spelling "eer", so the letter was very expensive.
3. Another complex letter in the Russian alphabet is "and" or "i". Philologists-reformers could not decide which mark to leave, so significant was the evidence for the importance of their use. This letter in the Russian alphabet was read the same way. The difference between "and" or "i" in the semantic load of the word. For example, "peace" in the meaning of "universe" and "peace" in the meaning of the absence of war. After decades of controversy, the creators of the alphabet left the letter "i".
4. The letter "e" in the Russian alphabet was previously called "e revolving". M.V. Lomonosov did not recognize it for a long time, as he considered it borrowed from other languages. But it has successfully taken root among other letters in the Russian alphabet.

The Russian alphabet is full of interesting facts, almost every letter has its own story. But the creation of the alphabet was reflected only in scientific and educational activities. The innovators had to teach new letters to people and, above all, to the clergy. Dogmatics are closely intertwined with clergy and politics. Unable to withstand endless persecution, Cyril dies, and a few years later, Methodius. The gratitude of the descendants cost the brothers dearly.

The alphabet has not changed for a long time. In the last century, according to the old Russian alphabet, children studied at school, so we can say that the modern names of letters came into general use only during the period of Soviet rule. The order of letters in the Russian alphabet has remained the same since the day of its creation, since signs were used to form numbers (although we have long been using Arabic numerals).

The Old Slavic alphabet, created in the ninth century, became the basis for the formation of writing among many peoples. Cyril and Methodius made a colossal contribution to the history of the development of the Slavic languages. Already in the ninth century, it was understood that not every nationality had the honor to use its own alphabet. We use the brothers' heritage to this day.

All types of writing could not withstand the competition of the alphabet. Alphabets, also called phonemic alphabets, are a set of letters that are usually arranged in a specific order. Each of these letters represents one or more phonemes. Typically, letters are divided into vowels and consonants. This division has its own characteristics in each of the languages, letters, which is quite natural, are used in order to add words.

The word "alphabet" comes from the names of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet - alpha and beta... It was the Greeks who contributed to the spread of alphabetic writing in most countries of the world. The English word is similarly arranged abecedary or Russian ABC(according to the names in the first case of four, and in the second - the first two letters, respectively, of the English and Church Slavonic alphabets).

In fact, the origin of the alphabet is shrouded in mystery, and only the later stages of its history are comparatively clear. The Cyrillic alphabet, currently used in Russia and some countries of Eastern Europe, was invented in the 9th century AD by the enlightened saints Cyril and Methodius. It is based on the Greek alphabet with a few additional letters added. The modern Western alphabet (used by the English, French, Spanish, Germans, Italians, and several other peoples) is identical to the Latin alphabet used during the Roman Empire; the only difference is the letters J, U and W added in the Middle Ages (the Romans used I and V to denote these sounds). We know this for certain, as well as the common origin of the Greek and Latin alphabets.

Phoenicians, who kept constant trade records, need a different letter, a simple and convenient letter. They came up with an alphabet in which each sign - a letter - means only one specific sound of speech. They are derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The Phoenician alphabet consists of 22 simple letters. All of them are consonants, due to the fact that consonants played the main role in the Phoenician language. To read a word, the Phoenician had to see its skeleton, which consisted of consonants.

The letters in the Phoenician alphabet were arranged in a specific order. This order was also borrowed by the Greeks, but in the Greek language, in contrast to the Phoenician language, vowel sounds played an important role.
Greek writing was the starting point for the development of all Western alphabets, the first of which was Latin.

The alphabet as a writing system that reflects the sounds of a language has many advantages over non-alphabetic writing systems - but it is precisely this property that is fraught with a certain danger. Living languages ​​are constantly changing, while alphabets fixed in printed and handwritten texts tend to be more resilient to change. As a result, the degree of suitability of the alphabet decreases, the degree of its ability to reflect the sound system of the language.

The Latin alphabet, when applied to the English language, contains three "extra" consonant letters - c, q and x- and discovers a lack of six other letters that are needed to convey specific consonant sounds in the English language. These are the sounds that are pronounced at the end of words. bath[q], bathe [ð], splash [š], much [č], beige [ž], bring... To convey these sounds in the English letter there are digraphs, for example, th, sh, ch, ng, however, at best, they do not fully cope with their task. For example, the sound [š] can be written not only using a combination of letters s and h(as in the word shape), but also through ch(chartreuse), across ti(nation) and through s(sugar). Moreover, digraphs do not always convey the same sound. So, ch reads like [k] in words chlorine and technique; th reads like [t] in name Thomas, and is skipped (in colloquial speech) in the word clothes... The position with the designation of English vowels is no better. Letter a e.g. read in five different ways in words same, cat, ball, any and star. Letter o reads differently in words hot, to, go and (in most varieties of English) for. On the contrary, the same vowel sound can be transmitted in writing in different ways. For example, the sound [u] is written in eight different ways in words soon, chew, true, tomb, rude, suit, youth and beauty.

For a long time, there was an opinion that the letter came to Russia along with Christianity, with church books and prayers. A talented linguist, Cyril, creating a Slavic letter, took as a basis the Greek alphabet, consisting of 24 letters, supplemented it with hissing (w, w, w, h) and several other letters characteristic of Slavic languages. Some of them have survived in the modern alphabet - b, b, b, s, others have long gone out of use - yat, yus, izhitsa, fit. So the Slavic alphabet originally consisted of 43 letters, similar in spelling to Greek. Each of them had its own name: A - "az", B - "beeches" (their combination formed the word "alphabet"), C - "lead", G - "verb", D - "good" and so on. The letters in the letter meant not only sounds, but also numbers. "A" - number 1, "B" - 2, "P" - 100. In Russia only in the XVIII century. Arabic numerals have replaced "alphabetic" ones.

As you know, the Church Slavonic language was the first to receive literary use from the Slavic languages. For some time, along with the Cyrillic alphabet, another Slavic alphabet, Glagolitic, was also in use. It had the same composition of letters, but with a more complex, ornate spelling. Apparently, this feature predetermined the further fate of the Glagolitic alphabet: by the XIII century. it has almost completely disappeared. This is not the place to dwell on which Slavic tribe this language belonged to the Bulgarians or Pannoyans.

The earliest examples of Sumerian writing are tags (usually made of clay) with a seal and a note of quantity, which were tied to objects or animals. Then more complex accounting tables appeared. An outstanding achievement of the Sumerians was that they denoted the number with a separate sign. For example, five cows corresponded to five ovals and the image of a cow, and not five drawings of a cow, as in various prescriptions. The system gradually became more complex. Standard signs appeared - hieroglyphs, with the help of which it was easier to depict specific frequently mentioned things - the sun, a cow, a bird, etc. Signs-drawings began to be used for words close in meaning: for example, the hieroglyph “sun” began to mean “bright”, “light”, “day”.

For some concepts, a combination of signs was used. Thus, the word "slave" was designated by two drawings - women and mountains - since slaves were usually brought to Sumer from the mountains. Gradually, the icons became less and less like drawings. The Sumerians had standard conventional symbols, consisting of wedge-shaped lines, very vaguely reminiscent of the previous drawings. Perhaps the appearance of the Sumerian writing is due to the fact that the characters were carved on wet clay. According to the shape of the wedge-shaped features, the Sumerian letter and its heirs in Mesopotamia were called cuneiform.

The emergence of the alphabet was preceded by several stages in the development of methods of written recording of speech. Traditionally, in the history of writing, among the pre-alphabetic systems, pictographic (drawing) scripts were distinguished - images of specific objects, both denoting them, and ideographic ones, conveying some abstract meanings (ideas), most often through the image of specific objects associated with these meanings. Ideographic scripts were also called hieroglyphic - after the name of the Egyptian script, first used by the ancient Greek scholar Clement of Alexandria and literally meaning "sacred carved [letters]".

After the works of the American historian and theorist of writing I. Gelba, a slightly different periodization became widespread, distinguishing the stages of non-writing (drawings not related to the signified conditional connection), pre-, or proto-writing, using the ideographic principle, which was proposed to be renamed into semasiographic(recording the meaning), and the actual writing using phonographic(recording sound) principle.

At the same time, Gelb proposed to include not only two main varieties of alphabetical writing among the actual scripts - syllabic and alphabetic, - but also the so-called verbal and syllabic(logographic-syllabic) writing, to which practically all historically recorded types of hieroglyphic scripts actually belong. The signs of such scripts, according to Gelb, are considered to denote not ideas, but words, in connection with which they were named logograms(or logographers). In almost all hieroglyphic writing systems attested in history, in addition to logograms, there were signs used to write parts of a word, usually syllables, i.e. syllabograms as well as the so-called determinatives to indicate which category a word belongs to.

Alphabets and syllabaries are much more efficient than logographic systems. The number of characters in them is much less, and it is much easier to learn such a writing system. The creation of a syllabary may require from 50 to 200 characters, and the creation of an alphabet may be limited to a dozen or two characters, sufficient to record all the words of a given language. English, with around 33 phonemes in most dialects, requires 33 characters ideally.

The earliest monument to Latin writing is an inscription on a gold brooch of the 6th century. BC, known as the Prenestian fibula. It reads simply MANIOS MED FHEFHAKED NVMASIOI ("Manius made me for Numasius"). Like Etruscan and early Greek inscriptions, it is written from right to left. From the next century, a vase with a different inscription from right to left and a pillar from the Roman forum, inscribed in an alternating (bustrophedon) manner, survived. After 1 century. AD almost all inscriptions began to be made from left to right.

A scholar once told me: “I heard that you are studying the history of the alphabet. Can you tell me which alphabet you mean - Egyptian, Hebrew, Latin, Arabic or Chinese? " I explained to him how I did this in the introduction to this book, why the Egyptian, Chinese and other similar writing systems should not be called alphabets, adding also that, while studying the history of the alphabet, I thereby consider all alphabets, because they all happened, in all likelihood from a single source.

Word alphabet goes back to the Latin alphabetum. It is first found in Tertullian (about 155-230 AD) and in St. Jerome (about 340-420). The Greeks used to denote this concept in the classical period by the word to gramma (usually used in the plural - ta grammata), and later adopted, probably under Latin influence, the word ho alphabetos or he alphabetos. Determining the etymology of the word alphabet is not at all difficult; it is derived from the names of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet. These names themselves, like the names of most other Greek letters (with the exception of additional ones, such as epsilon, omikron, omega, phi and psi), if only they have any meaning at all or any clear etymology, turn out to be words of the Semitic passage, although the Semitic names of the corresponding letters do not completely coincide (as we will see below) with the Greek ones.

Outline the history of the alphabet from the late 2nd millennium BC. to the present day it is not very difficult, although the origin of some scripts still remains unclear. But the prehistory and early history of the alphabet are hidden in the darkness of the centuries, and the main problem - the problem of the origin of the alphabet - remains unresolved to this day. The problem of the origin of the alphabet attracted attention already in classical times, the Greeks and Romans have five different points of view on who should be considered the inventors of the alphabet - the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Cretans or Jews. Currently, there are also several theories here, and some of them differ little from the ancient ones. Each of the countries of the eastern Mediterranean and each of the countries adjacent to this region was considered as the likely homeland of the alphabet. Some theories, generated by certain political considerations, do not merit attention.

Egyptian theory

The earliest of modern theories was Lenormand's theory, set forth in 1874 by de Rouget. According to this theory, the place of origin of the alphabet was Egypt. Supporters of the Egyptian theory were divided into three groups: Champollion, Lenormand and Halevy believed that the alphabet was derived from Egyptian hieroglyphics, Luzzatto, de Rouge, Taylor.

The origin of the alphabet. Halevy's hieroglyphic theory: 1 - hieroglyphic signs; 2 - derived North Semitic letters; 3 - "differentiated" North Semitic letters.

Keill, and later Monte, Mallon, Ullmann and Ronzeval, elevated him to hieratic, and Bauer to demotic.

Taylor's hieratic theory.

The latter option cannot be taken seriously at all, since the demotic writing system arose later than the alphabetical one. In general, it should be said that Egyptian hieroglyphs were so numerous (604, not counting ligatures and numerals) and had so many variations that their accidental resemblance to individual letters is inevitable. In this regard, we can mention the indication of Maurice Dunant that Gardiner's "Egyptian grammar" contains 734 hieroglyphs, and according to Lefebvre, there are 749 of them (at a later time, that is, during the Saissian and Ptolemaic dynasties, there were even several thousand forms of hieroglyphs).

As mentioned above, since ancient times, special signs were used in Egyptian writing for two-consonant one-consonant words or parts of words. Later, one-consonant signs began to be used very rarely, at least much less often than ideographic signs, and independently, without ideographic signs, they were almost never used. In addition, in the original alphabet, each sign usually denotes only one sound, and each sound is transmitted by one constant sign, and in Egyptian writing, the same sound can be designated by different signs, for this there are many different ways.

If the alphabet really originated in Egypt, the Egyptians would hardly have continued to use their former unusually complex writing system for several centuries. Nor can it be explained by the "conservatism" of the Egyptians. Several centuries after the appearance of the alphabet, they nevertheless considered it necessary to simplify the hieroglyphic and hieratic writing. Why, then, did they not use their own "alphabet", but created a demotic writing system, which, unlike hieroglyphic and hieratic, did not rely on a long tradition?

However, until recently, some scholars (Ronzeval, Dunant, etc.) continued to believe that the alphabet goes back directly to Egyptian writing.

Other theories

Even less successful were attempts to prove that the true ancestors of the alphabet are cuneiform (Delitzsch) in its Sumerian (Gommel - in 1904, Weddell - in 1927), Babylonian (Peter, Gommel, Ball, Peizer, Lidzbarsky and partly Ebeling - in 1934) or Assyrian form (Deekke), Cypriot syllabary (Pretorius, Koenig) or Hittite hieroglyphs (Seis). Pan-Germanists (Wartenberg, Wilke, Wilser, von Lichtenberg) and especially the Nazis (Schuhardt, Gunther), of course, were sure that the inventors of the alphabet belonged to a purely Aryan, Nordic race.

Cretan theory

Arthur Evans, and after him some other scholars (Reinak, Dusseau) developed a theory according to which the alphabet was transferred by the Philistines from Crete to Palestine and from there it was borrowed by the Phoenicians.

The Cretan theory of Arthur Evans: 1 - the origin of the North Semitic letters, the names of which have a certain meaning; 2 - the origin of the North Semitic letters, the names of which do not have a specific meaning.

However, this is clearly impossible: the Philistines conquered the coast of Palestine around 1220 BC, when the history of the existence of the alphabet was already several centuries old. The Cretan theory later acquired many supporters (Dayet, Sundvall, Shalutie and, more recently, Grumah 1 One of the most convinced supporters of this theory is the Bulgarian scientist V. Georgiev; a number of his works have been published in Russian - Approx. ed..

Egyptian-Cretan theory.

As can be seen from the figure, this theory, strictly speaking, should be called the Egyptian-Cretan-North Semitic theory of the origin of the alphabet. Undoubtedly, many letters of the alphabet are similar to the signs of the Cretan linear writing, this relationship is purely external; there is no need to talk about internal communication in meaning here, since the Cretan letter

still not decrypted 2 At present, Ventris and Chadwick deciphered one of the varieties of the Cretan-Minoan writing - "Linear B". The supposed internal connection between the Cretan-Minoan Linear script and the North Semitic alphabet was not confirmed. - Approx. ed.... The observed similarity can be purely accidental, especially since it applies only to geometric signs, which are easy to find in any primitive writing. However, it is quite possible and even likely that the inventor of the alphabet had some idea of ​​the Cretan signs and used some of them, completely disregarding their phonetic meaning.

The theory of prehistoric geometric signs

A different point of view was expressed by the English scientist W.M. Flinders Petrie; he argued that both the Phoenician and Greek alphabets, as well as the Asia Minor and South Semitic alphabets, as well as the Cypriot syllabary, the writing of some undeciphered Egyptian inscriptions and the ancient Sinoi writing - all of them developed from prehistoric geometric marks used since ancient times throughout the Mediterranean. However, no one, except Pitri himself, shares the opinion that these marks or tamgas can be considered as the rudiments of writing signs, and therefore his theory of the development of local scripts from such marks has not received widespread acceptance. More recently, Petrie's theory has been revised by T. X. Gaster.

The theory of prehistoric geometric signs.

However, it can be assumed that the great inventor of the alphabet used some of the marks well known to him, just as he, perhaps, used Cretan letters in the above-mentioned signs.

Ideographic theory

John Evans, relying on the probable similarity of some letters of the most ancient alphabets with the objects indicated by their names, hypothesized that these letters come from drawings used as ideograms. A similar opinion was expressed in 1914 by Lucien Gaultier.

However, the fact that the Egyptian and Babylonian scripts could influence the development of the most ancient alphabet does not at all imply the existence of some absolutely unknown and, moreover, ideographic writing that has disappeared without a trace. It should be noted that this theory was put forward seventy-four years ago, when knowledge in the field of Eastern epigraphy was extremely superficial. However, if we consider the new theory of the French scientist M. Dunant acceptable, then to a certain extent it confirms Evans' conjecture.

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Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education "Moscow State Machine-Building University (MAMI)"

abstract

by discipline" Russian language and culture of speech"

Theme:" OriginRussian alphabet"

Completed by: Beletsky I.M.

Checked by: O. A. Zmazneva

Moscow 2012

Introduction

When transmitting speech in writing, letters are used, each of which has a specific meaning. The collection of letters arranged in a prescribed order is called an alphabet or alphabet.

The word alphabet comes from the name of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: b - alpha; c - beta (in modern Greek - vita).

The word alphabet comes from the name of the first two letters of the ancient Slavic alphabet - Cyrillic: A - az; B - beeches.

The alphabet, a writing system based on more or less strict adherence to the so-called phonetic principle, according to which one symbol (one letter) corresponds to one sound of a certain language.

In the 1st century AD, our ancestors lived on the territory of Europe - the tribes of the Slavs who spoke an ancient language (scientists gave it the name Proto-Slavic language). Over time, these tribes settled in different territories, and their common language also began to disintegrate: the Proto-Slavic language formed various branches. One such branch was the Old Russian language - the predecessor of the Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian languages.

The need for writing arose among the Slavs in the 9th century with the emergence of states such as Serbia, Bulgaria, Poland, Croatia, Czech Republic. And when Christianity came to replace the ancient paganism (Russia adopted Christianity in 988), the need for writing increased even more (there was a need for economic and cultural ties with other states).

Our distant ancestors, the Slavs, formed the ancient Russian nationality, which included the East Slavic tribes of the Polyans, Drevlyans, Krivichi, Vyatichi. On the territory adjacent to the middle course of the Dnieper, inhabited by glades, a powerful state appeared - Kievan Rus. The first church books written in the Old Slavonic language began to arrive in Kievan Rus. This language was formed on the basis of translations from the Greek language of the first Christian books and had a great influence on the development of many Slavic languages. Church Slavonic was a continuation of the Old Church Slavonic language as a literary language.

People already used some letters of the Greek alphabet for counting and writing, but it had to be streamlined, systematized, adapted for use in new conditions. The first Slavic alphabet - Cyrillic - was created on the basis of the Greek alphabet in 863. We still use this alphabet (of course, in a modified version).

The purpose of the work is to find out how and under what conditions the Russian alphabet was born, developed and modified. The abstract used as sources of information: numerous Orthodox forums, encyclopedias and dictionaries.

History

At the beginning of the second half of the 9th century, the Great Moravian state was one of the largest Slavic state formations. Since 846, Prince Rostislav ruled Great Moravia, enjoying special glory and courageously guarding the freedom of his people. Weighed down by his dependence on the Germans and realizing that the Slavs cannot get rid of the influence of dangerous neighbors on their own, he decided, together with his nephew Svyatopolk, to seek help from those who, both spiritual and civil, could help their needs. the same time would not have been dangerous.

At that time, Christian preachers from Greece, Wallachia and Germany were already active in Moravia, and Prince Rostislav received holy baptism from some of them. Being enlightened by the light of Christ's faith, the blessed prince took care of the spiritual awakening of his people.

At the same time, he perfectly understood that the preaching of Christianity could not be successful if missionaries substitute political interests for its lofty goals and, in addition, teach the people in a foreign, incomprehensible language.

At first, Prince Rostislav addressed his needs to Pope Nicholas I, who was then on the Roman throne, but he, being an ally of the German king Louis, did not respond to the prince's request. Then Rostislav in 862 sent an embassy to the Byzantine emperor Michael III. In his letter, the prince wrote: " Our people rejected paganism and accepted the Christian law; but we do not have a teacher who would reveal to us the true Christian faith in our native language, so that other countries would follow our example. Therefore, we ask you, Sovereign Sovereign, to send us such a bishop and teacher. A good law always comes from you to all countries".

Emperor Michael was not slow to answer: the best of the best were sent to the Great Moravian mission - the Solun brothers Cyril and Methodius. These were people unusually educated for their time, ascetics, prayer-books, men with rich experience in missionary work.

Cyril and Methodius came to the Great Moravian state through Bulgaria in 863 and handed over to Prince Rostislav a letter from Saint Photius. In it, the patriarch wrote, addressing the prince: " God, who commands every nation to come to the knowledge of the truth and achieve the honor of the highest title, looked to your faith and efforts. Having arranged this now in our years, He also revealed the writing in your language, which previously did not exist, but now exist for quite some time now, so that you too may be numbered among the great nations who praise God forhisnative language. Therefore, we sent to you the one to whom they were revealed, a precious and glorified man, veryscientist, a philosopher. Behold, accept this gift, better and more worthy than all gold, silver and precious stones and all transient wealth. Try together with him to boldly confirm the matter and seek God with all your heart and not to close salvation for the whole people, but encourage in every possible way so that they do not be lazy, but embark on the path of righteousness, so that you too, ifbringby their efforts to cognize God, he accepted the reward both in this and the coming life for all souls who believe in Christ our God from now to everlasting, and left a bright memory for future generations, like the great Tsar Constantine".

Prince Rostislav rendered the brothers every assistance. First of all, he gathered many youths and ordered them to study the Slavic alphabet from the translated books, then, under the leadership of the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius, he began to build churches. A year later, the first church in the city of Olomouc was completed, then several more churches were built.

The successful missionary activity of Saints Cyril and Methodius, supported by the holy prince Rostislav, laid the foundations for the independence of the Great Moravian empire, and therefore provoked sharp opposition from the German princes and clerics who pursued their interests in the Slavic states.

Latin missionaries accused the brothers of using "unanimous tongue" in worship and spreading false teachings about the Holy Spirit. Having consecrated the books of Holy Scripture translated by the holy brothers into the Slavic language, the Orthodox Pope Adrian II compiled an epistle to the holy prince Rostislav: " If anyone dares to censure these teachers and seduce you from truth to fables, or, corrupting you, blasphemes the books of your language, let him beexcommunicatedand presented to the judgment of the church and until then he will not receive forgiveness, until he is corrected. For these are wolves, not sheep, and one must recognize them by their fruits and beware of them ...".

Formation

The mission of the brothers was to explain the Christian doctrine to people in their own language. And for this, it was first necessary to translate the liturgical books from Greek into Slavic. That is why Cyril and Methodius began to develop a new alphabet. They even created 2 alphabets - Cyrillic and Glagolitic, but Glagolitic was eventually forgotten (in Russia it was used only in the very first years of the development and spread of writing). Our Russian alphabet comes from the Cyrillic alphabet. On its basis, the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Bulgarian alphabets were also created - that is why these languages ​​are so similar.

Of course, the alphabet that we use now bears little resemblance to the ancient Old Church Slavonic alphabet. And the modern Russian language is also very different from the Old Church Slavonic and Old Russian languages.

Cyrillic is in many ways similar to our modern writing. If you look at the letters of this alphabet, you will see that many letters have disappeared from our modern use:

• yus large and yus small (they denoted nasal vowels; these sounds remained in Polish and French);

· Instead of fita and ferta, we use the letter f;

• instead of zelo and earth - the letter z;

· Instead of ive and is - the letter e;

· Xi and psi.

And of course, many Cyrillic letters have changed their style over time. The names of modern letters have also become shorter.

Cyrillic letters originally also had a numerical meaning, that is, they were used instead of numbers.

The Cyrillic alphabet had several types of styles. For a long time (especially among the Eastern Slavs) the statutory letter, or statute, was preserved: Cyrillic letters were written directly, one separately from the other. Most of the liturgical books were written by the charter. Over time, the charter was replaced by a semi-charter, which is found in the books of the 15th - 17th centuries. The font of the first Russian printed books was cast on the model of the semi-ustav.

The semiustav was replaced by cursive writing, in which the original outline of the Cyrillic letters changed significantly. Since the time of Peter I, the Cyrillic alphabet, from which some letters were excluded, received the name of the Russian civil alphabet. So the somewhat modified Cyrillic alphabet formed the basis of our modern alphabet.

Literacy was highly valued in Russia. From time immemorial, monuments of ancient Russian writing have come down to us: church books, codes of laws, business documents, chronicles, literary works. The oldest surviving Russian handwritten books date back to the 11th century. Handwriting in Ancient Rus was the only way to "replicate" a book and distribute it among literate people.

The advent of book printing in Russia was the beginning of a new era

Glagolitic

" The life of Cyril "tells the following about the creation of the Slavic alphabet:" With the help of his brother, Saint Methodius (Michael) and the disciples of Gorazd, Clement, Sava, Naum and Angelar, he compiled the Slavic alphabet and translated books into the Slavic language, without which the divine service could not be performed.".

A number of facts indicate that the Glagolitic alphabet was created before the Cyrillic alphabet, and that, in turn, was created on the basis of the Glagolitic alphabet and the Greek alphabet. The oldest surviving Glagolic inscription with an exact date dates back to 893, made in the church of the Bulgarian king Simeon in Preslav. And the most ancient handwritten monuments (including "Kiev sheets" dating back to the 10th century) are written in Glagolitic, moreover, they are written in a more archaic language, similar in phonetic composition to the language of the South Slavs.

Palimpsests (manuscripts on parchment in which the old text was scraped off and a new one was written on it) also indicate the great antiquity of the Glagolitic alphabet. On all the surviving palimpsests, the Glagolitic alphabet has been scraped off, and the new text is written in Cyrillic. There is not a single palimpsest in which the Cyrillic alphabet has been scraped off and the Glagolitic alphabet is written on it. In the treatise "On the Writings" Chernorizets the Brave (beginning of the 10th century) emphasizes the difference in the spelling of the Greek letters and the Slavic alphabet of Cyril and Methodius, apparently the Glagolitic alphabet:

"The same Slavic letters are more holiness and honor, that the holy man created them, and the Greeks - the filthy Greeks. If someone says that he did not arrange them well, because they are finishing them again, in response we will say this: the Greeks also completed many times."

From the above quote, we can conclude that there was a certain dissatisfaction with the alphabet of Cyril and Methodius, which, possibly, led to the transition to the Cyrillic alphabet.

Late Glagolitic alphabet

Figure 1 - Late Glagolitic alphabet.

In popular literature, there is an opinion that the Glagolitic alphabet was founded by Constantine (Cyril) the Philosopher on some ancient Slavic, which was allegedly used for sacred pagan and secular purposes before the adoption of Christianity in the ancient Slavic states; there is no clear evidence of this (as well as the existence of "Slavic runes" in general). The Roman Catholic Church, in the struggle against the service in the Slavic language among the Croats, called the verb "Gothic letters". At the Council of the Bishops of Dalmatia and Croatia in 1059:

"They said that the Gothic letters were invented by a certain heretic Methodius, who in this very Slavic language wrote a lot of falsehood against the teachings of the Catholic faith; because of this, they say, he was punished by God's judgment with a quick death."

The shape of the letters of the early (round) Glagolitic alphabet somewhat coincides with the khutsuri, the Georgian church alphabet, created before the 9th century, possibly based on the Armenian one. In addition, the number of letters in the khutsuri, 38, coincides with the number of letters in the Slavic alphabet, counted by Chernorizets the Brave in his treatise. In some letters (and in general in the system of drawing small circles at the ends of lines) there is a striking resemblance to medieval Hebrew Kabbalistic scripts and Icelandic "runic" crypts. All this may not be accidental, since it is recognized that St. Constantine the Philosopher was familiar with the oriental alphabets (he read the Hebrew texts in the original), which is also mentioned in the life of the saint. The style of most of the letters of the Glagolitic alphabet is usually derived from the Greek cursive, and for non-Greek sounds they use the Hebrew alphabet, but there is no indisputable explanation of the form for almost any letter.

The Glagolic and Cyrillic alphabets in their oldest variants almost completely coincide in composition, differing only in the shape of the letters. When re-publishing glagolic texts by typographic method, the verb letters are usually replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet (since today few people can read the verb). However, the numerical value of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic letters does not coincide, which sometimes leads to misunderstandings. In the Glagolitic alphabet, the numerical values ​​of the letters are ordered according to the order of the letters, and in the Cyrillic alphabet they are tied to the numerical values ​​of the corresponding letters of the Greek alphabet.

Usually they talk about two types of Glagolitic: the more ancient "round", also known as Bulgarian, and the later "angular", Croatian (so named because until the middle of the 20th century it was used by Croatian Catholics in performing divine services according to the Glagolitic rite). The alphabet of the latter was gradually reduced from 41 to 30 characters. Along with the statutory book one, there was also a italic glagolitic writing (cursive).

In Ancient Russia, the Glagolitic alphabet was practically not used, there are only individual inclusions of verbal letters in the texts written in Cyrillic. The Glagolitic alphabet was the alphabet for the transmission of primarily church texts, the surviving ancient Russian monuments of everyday writing before the baptism of Rus (the earliest: an inscription on a pot from the Gnezdovo mound, dating from the 1st half of the 10th century) use the Cyrillic alphabet. There is a use of the Glagolitic alphabet as a secret writing.

Cyrillic

The appearance of the Cyrillic alphabet, which reproduces the Greek statutory (solemn) letter, is associated with the activities of the Bulgarian school of scribes (after Cyril and Methodius). In particular, in the life of St. Clement of Ohridsky directly writes about the creation of Slavic writing by him after Cyril and Methodius. Thanks to the previous activities of the brothers, the alphabet became widespread in the South Slavic lands, which led in 885 to the prohibition of its use in church services by the Pope, who fought against the results of the mission of Constantine-Cyril and Methodius.

In Bulgaria, the holy Tsar Boris converted to Christianity in 860. Bulgaria becomes the center for the spread of Slavic writing. Here the first Slavic book school - Preslavskaya book school - was created - Cyril and Methodius originals of liturgical books (Gospel, Psalter, Apostle, church services) were copied, new Slavic translations from Greek were made, original works appeared in Old Slavonic ("About writing" of Chrnoriz the Brave ).

The widespread use of Slavic writing, its "golden age", dates back to the reign of Tsar Simeon the Great (893-927), the son of Tsar Boris, in Bulgaria. Later, the Old Slavonic language penetrates into Serbia, and at the end of the 10th century it becomes the language of the church in Kievan Rus.

The Old Church Slavonic language, being the language of the Church in Russia, was influenced by the Old Russian language. It was the Old Slavonic language of the Russian edition, as it included elements of lively East Slavic speech.

Initially, part of the South Slavs, Eastern Slavs, and also Romanians used the Cyrillic alphabet (see the article "Romanian Cyrillic"); over time, their alphabets diverged somewhat from each other, although the outline of the letters and the principles of spelling remained (with the exception of the Western Serbian version, the so-called bosanchitsa) as a whole the same.

Cyrillic alphabet

Figure 2 - Cyrillic.

The composition of the original Cyrillic alphabet is unknown to us; The "classical" Old Church Slavonic Cyrillic of 43 letters, probably, contains some of the later letters (y, oy, iotated). The Cyrillic alphabet entirely includes the Greek alphabet, but some purely Greek letters (xi, psi, fita, izhitsa) do not stand in their original place, but are placed at the end. Some letters of the Cyrillic alphabet, which are absent in the Greek alphabet, are close to the glagolic ones in outline. C and III are outwardly similar to some letters of a number of alphabets of that time (Aramaic, Ethiopian, Coptic, Hebrew, Brahmi) and it is not possible to establish unambiguously the source of the borrowing. B is similar in outline to B, Щ with Ш. The principles of creating digraphs in Cyrillic (Ы from ЬІ, ОУ, iotated letters) generally follow the glagolic ones.

Cyrillic letters are used to write numbers exactly according to the Greek system. Instead of a couple of completely archaic signs - sampi and stigma, which are not even included in the classic 24-letter Greek alphabet, other Slavic letters are adapted - C (900) and S (6); subsequently, the third such sign, Koppa, originally used in the Cyrillic alphabet to designate 90, was supplanted by the letter C. Some letters that are absent in the Greek alphabet (for example, B, G) do not have a numerical value. This distinguishes Cyrillic from Glagolitic, where the numerical values ​​did not correspond to the Greek ones and these letters were not skipped.

Cyrillic letters have their own names, according to various common Slavic names that begin with them, or directly taken from Greek (xi, psi); the etymology of a number of names is controversial.

The emergence of the Russian alphabet

The Russian alphabet originated from the Old Russian Cyrillic, which, in turn, was borrowed from the Bulgarians and became widespread in Russia after the adoption of Christianity (988).

At this point, there were apparently 43 letters in it. Later, 4 new letters were added, and 14 old ones were at various times excluded as unnecessary, since the corresponding sounds disappeared. First of all, the iotated yus (?,?) Disappeared, then the big yus (?), Which returned in the 15th century, but disappeared again at the beginning of the 17th century, and the iotated E (?); the rest of the letters, sometimes slightly changing their meaning and shape, have survived to this day as part of the alphabet of the Church Slavonic language, which for a long time was considered identical with the Russian alphabet.

Spelling reforms of the second half of the 17th century (associated with the "correction of books" under Patriarch Nikon) recorded the following set of letters: A, B, C, D, E, E (with a spelling different variant Є, which was sometimes considered a separate letter and was put in the alphabet on place of the current E, that is, after?), F, Ѕ, Z, I (with a spelling different version of Y for the sound [j], which was not considered a separate letter), I, K, L, M, H, O (in two orthographically different styles: "narrow" and "wide"), P, R, S, T, U (in two spelling different styles :), F, X,? (in two orthographically different styles: "narrow" and "wide", as well as in the ligature "from" (?), which was usually considered a separate letter) , I (in two weights: IA and?, Which were sometimes considered different letters, sometimes not),?,?,?,?. Sometimes the alphabet also included a large yus (?) And the so-called "ik" (in the form of the current letter "y"), although they had no sound meaning and were not used in any word.

In this form, the Russian alphabet remained until the reforms of Peter I in 1708-1711. (and the Church Slavonic is still the same), when superscripts were eliminated (which, incidentally, "canceled" the letter Y) and many doublet letters and letters used to write numbers were abolished (which became irrelevant after the transition to Arabic numerals). In the 19th century, separate alphabets began to be developed for the Ukrainian and Belarusian dialects, slightly different from the main one. Subsequently, some of the abolished letters were restored and canceled again. By 1917, the alphabet came in a 34-letter (officially; there were actually 37 letters) composition: A, B, C, D, E, E, (E was not considered a separate letter), F, Z, I, (Y was not a separate letter considered), I, K, L, M, N, O, P, P, S, T, U, F, X, Ts, Ch, Sh, Sh, b, Y, b,?, E, Y, Y ,?, (? was considered no longer included in the Russian alphabet).

The last major reform of writing was carried out in 1917-1918 - as a result, the current Great Russian alphabet, consisting of 33 letters, appeared. This alphabet also became the basis for many early-written languages ​​(the writing for which was absent or lost before the 20th century and was introduced in the republics of the USSR after the Great October Socialist Revolution).

Reforms of letters

§ Psi (?)- canceled by Peter I (replaced by a combination PS), was not restored (although the use of this letter in the alphabet of 1717 is noted).

§ Xi (?) - canceled by Peter I (replaced by the combination KS), later restored, finally canceled in 1735. In civilian script it looked like an izhytsa with a tail.

§ Omega (?) And from(?) - canceled by Peter I (replaced by O and combination FROM respectively) were not restored.

§ Firth (F) and Fita (?) - Peter I in 1707-1708 canceled it was firth F(leaving the fit ? ), but returned in 1710, restoring the Church Slavonic rules for the use of these letters; fit was abolished by the reform of 1917-1918.

§ Izhitsa (?) - canceled by Peter I (replaced by I or V, depending on the pronunciation), later restored, again canceled in 1735, again restored in 1758 ... It was used less and less and from the 1870s it was usually considered abolished and no longer included in the Russian alphabet, although until 1917-1918 biennium in some words it was sometimes used (usually in m? ro with derivatives, less often - in c? nod with derivatives, even less often - in ? fasting etc.). In the documents of the spelling reform of 1917-1918. not mentioned.

§ І and AND AND, but then returned, changing the rules for the use of these letters in comparison with the Church Slavonic (later the Church Slavonic rules were restored). The rules regarding the number of dots above І : Peter canceled them; then it was ordered to put two dots above І before vowels, and one before consonants; finally, since 1738, the point has become the same everywhere. Letter І canceled by the reforms of 1917-1918

§ Th- this sign, canceled by Peter I, was returned to the civil press in 1735 (it is usually said that it was then that it was introduced); it was not considered a separate letter until the 20th century.

§ Z and Ѕ - Peter I first canceled the letter Z but then returned by canceling Ѕ .

§ IA and small yus (?) - replaced by Peter I style I AM(used earlier and derived from the cursive form of the small yus).

§ - replaced by Peter I with the current lettering Have.

§ Yat (?) - canceled by the reform of 1917-1918.

§ NS- has been used since the middle of the 17th century (it is considered borrowed from the Glagolitic alphabet), officially introduced into the alphabet in 1708.

§ Yo- proposed in 1783 by Princess E.R. Dashkova, used since 1795, popular since 1797 at the suggestion of N.M. Karamzin (it should be noted that he used the letter Yo only in works of art, but in the famous "History of the Russian State" he managed with traditional spellings through E). Earlier (from 1758) instead of the letter Yo the typeface was in the form of letters IO under a common lid. Separate letter alphabet sign Yo officially became in the middle of the 20th century. Mandatory for use in print was in the period from 1942 until the death of I.V. Stalin.

The composition of the Russian alphabet

The Russian alphabet has 33 letters, of which 10 denote vowel sounds, 21- consonants and 2 letters do not denote special sounds, but serve to convey certain sound features. The Russian alphabet, shown in Table 1, has uppercase (large) and lowercase (small) letters, printed and handwritten letters.

Table 1

Conclusion

So, we saw that the emergence of the Russian alphabet was marked by a very significant step for the Slavic group of peoples. It is hard to imagine what language we would use now and what alphabet we would use.

After researching this topic, one can see that the formation of the Russian alphabet was not only difficult and long, but also required many human sacrifices. Due to its "youth", the alphabet still faces changes, and I hope that all these changes will help raise the level of the Russian language as a whole.

Literature

1. Grinevich G.E. Proto-Slavic writing. M., 1993.

2. Zinoviev A.V. Cyrillic cryptography. The answer to the logical-mathematical system of the Slavic alphabet. Vladimir, 1991.

3. Minin Yu.P. "The Key to the Russian Alphabet". / Ed. Kitaigorodsky M.V., Shiryaeva E.N. - M .: Nauka, 1981

4.http: //ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%F3%F1%F1%EA%E8%E9_%E0%EB%F4%E0%E2%E8%F2

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