MatreshkaSpeaks

  Russian Alphabet The History of the Cyrillic Alphabet The Cyrillic alphabet owes its name to the 9th century Byzantine missionary St. Cyril, who, along with his brother, Methodius, created the first Slavic alphabet—the Glagolitic—in order to translate Greek religious text to Slavic. It is on the basis of this alphabet that the Cyrillic alphabet was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD by the followers of the brothers, who were beatified as saints. Based on the Greek ceremonial script, the original Cyrillic alphabet included the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet and 19 letters for sounds specific to the Slavic language. The Cyrillic alphabet has gone through many reforms in both Russia and other countries. In Russia, the first reformer of the Cyrillic was printer and publisher Ivan Fyodorov. He eliminated the letters  Е  and  С  and many forms of the letter  О . Most reforms saw the number of letters decrease and the simplicity...