In this article we will tell you about the origin of the Russian alphabet. You will find out what reforms the Russian alphabet has undergone, whether it always consisted of 33 letters.
Approximately in 863, two brothers Methodius and Cyril the Philosopher (Konstantin) from Thessaloniki (Thessalonica), by order of Michael III, the Byzantine emperor, made ordering of writing for the Slavic language. The emergence of the Cyrillic alphabet, which comes from the Greek statutory (solemn) letter, is linked to the activities carried out by the Bulgarian school of scribes (after Methodius and Cyril).
After 860, when Christianity was adopted in Bulgaria by the holy Tsar Boris, Bulgaria becomes the center from which Slavic writing began to spread. The Preslav book school was created here - the 1st book school of the Slavs, where they copied the originals of the Cyril and Methodius liturgical books (church services, the Psalter, the Gospel, the Apostle), performed new translations into Slavic from Greek, original creations written in Old Slavonic appeared (for example, “On the writings of Chrnorizets the Brave”).
Later, the Old Church Slavonic language penetrated into Serbia, and by the end of the 10th century. in Kievan Rus became the church language. Being the language of the church in Russia, the Old Slavonic language was influenced by the Old Russian language. This, in fact, was the Old Slavonic language, but only in the Russian version, since it contained living elements of the speech of the Eastern Slavs.
Thus, the progenitor of the Russian alphabet is the Old Russian Cyrillic alphabet, borrowed from the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet and spread after the baptism of Kievan Rus (988). Then, most likely, there were 43 letters in the alphabet.
Later, 4 new letters were added, and at different times, 14 old ones were excluded as unnecessary, since the corresponding sounds disappeared. Iotated yuses (Ѭ, Ѩ) disappear first of all, then big yus (Ѫ) (which returned in the 15th century, but disappeared again at the beginning of the 17th century), and iotated E (Ѥ); other letters, sometimes slightly changing their form and meaning, have remained to this day in the alphabet of the Church Slavonic language, which has long and erroneously been identified with the Russian alphabet.
Spelling reforms of the 2nd half of the 17th century. (associated with the “correction of books” during the time of Patriarch Nikon) the following letter set was recorded: A, B, C, D, D, E (with an excellent spelling variant of Є, which was sometimes considered a separate letter and put in the alphabet after Ѣ, i.e. . in the position of today's E), Zh, S, Z, I (for the sound [j] there was a variant Y that was different in spelling, which was not considered a separate letter), I, K, L, M, N, O (in 2 forms that differed orthographically: “wide” and “narrow”), П, Р, С, Т, У (in 2 forms, differing orthographically: Ѹ и), Ф, Х, Ѡ (in 2 forms, differing spelling: “wide” and “narrow”, and also as part of the ligature, which was usually considered a separate letter - “from” (Ѿ)), C, CH, W, SH, b, Y, b, Ѣ, Yu, I ( in 2 forms: Ѧ and IA, which were sometimes considered different letters, and sometimes not), Ѯ, Ѱ, Ѳ, ѳ. A large yus (Ѫ) and a letter called “ik” (similar in form to the current letter “y”) were also sometimes introduced into the alphabet, although they had no sound meaning and were not used in any words.
In this form, the Russian alphabet existed until 1708-1711, i.e., before the reforms of Tsar Peter I (Church Slavonic remains the same now). At that time, superscripts were abolished (this “abolished” the letter Y) and many doublet letters used to write different numbers were removed (with the introduction of Arabic numerals, this became irrelevant). Then a number of abolished letters were returned and canceled again.
By 1917, there were officially 35 letters in the alphabet (in fact, 37): A, B, C, D, D, E, (Yo was not considered a separate letter), Zh, Z, I, (Y was not considered a separate letter), I, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, F, X, C, H, W, W, b, S, b, Ѣ, E, Yu, I, Ѳ, ѳ. (Formally, the last letter in the Russian alphabet was listed, but in fact it was almost never used, occurring only in a few words).
The result of the last major writing reform of 1917-1918 was the emergence of the current Russian alphabet of 33 letters. It also became the written basis for most of the languages of the peoples of the USSR, which until the twentieth century. there was no written language or it was replaced by Cyrillic during the years of Soviet power.
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If possible, it means the softness of consonants, being after them, and the sound [o]; in all other cases - sounds like .
In primordially Russian words (in addition to words with prefixes three- and four-) it is always under stress. Cases of unstressed use are rare, mainly borrowed words - for example, Königsberg surfers, compound words - loess-like or words with prefixes three- and four- - for example, four-part. Here the letter is phonetically equivalent to the unstressed "e", "i", "i" or has a secondary accent, but may also reflect the characteristic features of writing in the source language.
In the Russian language (i.e., in Russian writing), the letter “e” stands, first of all, where the sound [(j)o] came from [(j)e], this explains the form derived from “e” letters (borrowed from Western scripts). In Russian writing, unlike Belarusian, according to the rules for using the letter, putting dots above the “ё” is optional.
In other Slavic Cyrillic alphabets, there is no letter "ё". To indicate the corresponding sounds in the letter in Ukrainian and Bulgarian, after the consonants they write "yo" and in other cases - "yo". The Serbian script (and the Macedonian script based on it) does not have special letters for iotized vowels and / or softening the preceding consonant at all, since they use different consonants, not different vowels, to distinguish between hard and soft consonant syllables, and iot is always written a separate letter.
In the Church and Old Slavonic alphabets there is no letter equivalent to "ё", since there are no such combinations of sounds; Russian "yokane" is a common mistake when reading Church Slavonic texts.
Superscript element and its name
There is no generally accepted official term for the extended element in the letter “e”. In traditional linguistics and pedagogy, the word "colon" was used, but most often in the last hundred years they used a less formal expression - "two dots", or generally tried to avoid mentioning this element separately.
It is considered incorrect to use foreign language terms (dialytics, diaeresis, trema or umlaut) in this situation, since they refer to diacritical marks and denote, first of all, a specific phonetic function.
Historical aspects
Introduction Yo into use
For a long time, the sound combination (and after soft consonants - [o]), which appeared in Russian pronunciation, was not expressed in writing in any way. From the middle of the XVIII century. for them, a designation was introduced by means of the letters IO, located under a common lid. But, such a designation was cumbersome and was rarely used. Variants were used: signs o, iô, io, io, ió.
In 1783, instead of the available options, the letter “e” was proposed, borrowing from French, where it has a different meaning. However, for the first time in print it was used only 12 years later (in 1795). The influence of the Swedish alphabet was also assumed.
In 1783, on November 29 (according to the old style - November 18) at the home of the head of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Princess Dashkova E. R. - one of the 1st meetings of the newly formed Russian Academy was held, where Fonvizin D. I., Knyaznin were present Ya. B., Derzhavin G. R., Lepekhin I. I., Metropolitan Gabriel and others. They discussed the draft of a complete version of the explanatory dictionary (Slavic-Russian), later the famous 6-volume Dictionary of the Russian Academy.
The academicians were already about to go home, as E.R. Dashkova asked if any of them could write the word "Yolka". The pundits thought that the princess was joking, but she wrote the word “olka” pronounced by her and asked the question: “Is it right to represent one sound with two letters?” She also noted: “These reprimands have already been introduced by custom, which, when it does not contradict common sense, must be followed in every possible way.” Ekaterina Dashkova proposed to use the “newborn” letter “ё” “to express words and pronunciations, with this consent beginning as matіory, іolka, іozh, іol”.
She turned out to be convincing in her arguments, and they offered to evaluate the rationality of introducing a new letter to Gabriel, Metropolitan of Novgorod and St. Petersburg, who is a member of the Academy of Sciences. So, in 1784, on November 18, the official recognition of the letter "e" took place.
The innovative idea of the princess was supported by a number of leading cultural figures of that period, incl. and Derzhavin, who was the first to use "ё" for personal correspondence. And the first printed edition, where the appearance of the letter “ё” was noticed, in 1795 was the book “And my trinkets” by I. Dmitriev, published by the Moscow University printing house of H. A. Claudia and H. Ridiger (in this printing house since 1788 printed the newspaper Moskovskie Vedomosti, and it was located on the site of the current building of the Central Telegraph).
The first word printed with the letter “e” became “everything”, then - “cornflower”, “stump”, “light”, “immortal”. For the first time, a surname with this letter (“Potemkin”) was printed by G. R. Derzhavin in 1798.
The letter “e” gained fame thanks to N. M. Karamzin, therefore, until recently, he was considered its author, until the story outlined above was widely publicized. In 1796, in the 1st book of the almanac of poems "Aonida", published by Karamzin, who left the same printing house of the university, with the letter "e" the words were printed: "dawn", "moth", "eagle", "tears ", and the 1st verb -" drip ".
It's just not clear whether it was a personal idea of Karamzin or the initiative of some employee of the publishing house. It should be noted that Karamzin in scientific works (for example, in the famous "History of the Russian State" (1816 - 1829)) did not use the letter "e".
Distribution issues
Although the letter "ё" was proposed to be introduced in 1783, and was used in print in 1795, for a long time it was not considered a separate letter and it was not officially introduced into the alphabet. This is very typical for newly introduced letters: the status of the symbol “y” was the same, it (compared to “ё”) became mandatory for use as early as 1735. that both of these letters "should also take place in the alphabet", but for a long time this remained only a good wish.
In the XVIII-XIX centuries. An obstacle to the spread of the letter “ё” was the then attitude to such a “yoking” pronunciation, as to a philistine speech, the dialect of “vile mob”, while the “yoking” “church” reprimand was considered more noble, intelligent and cultured (with “yokan ”fought, for example, V.K. Trediakovsky and A.P. Sumarokov).
December 23, 1917 (01/05/1918) a decree was published (without a date) signed by the Soviet People's Commissar of Education A.V. Lunacharsky, which introduced a reformed spelling as a mandatory one, it says, among other things: “To recognize as desirable, but optional, the use of the letter “ё” ".
Thus, the letters "ё" and "й" formally entered the alphabet (while receiving serial numbers) only in Soviet times (if you do not take into account the "New Alphabet" (1875) by Leo Tolstoy, where there was a letter "ё" between " e” and yatem, in 31st place).
On 12/24/1942, the use of the letter “ё” by order of the People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR was introduced into compulsory school practice, and since then (sometimes, however, they remember 1943 and even 1956, when the spelling normative rules were first published) it is considered officially included in the Russian alphabet .
For the next 10 years, non-fiction and non-fiction were published with the letter "ё" almost entirely, and then publishers returned to the old practice of using the letter only when absolutely necessary.
There is a legend that Joseph Stalin influenced the popularization of the letter "e". It says that in 1942 on December 6, I.V. An order was brought to Stalin for signature, where the names of a number of generals were printed not with the letter “e”, but with “e”. Stalin was angry, and the next day all the articles of the Pravda newspaper came out, all of a sudden, with the letter “ё”.
On July 9, 2007, the Minister of Culture of Russia A.S. Sokolov, giving an interview to the Mayak radio station, expressed the opinion that it is necessary to use the letter “e” in written speech.
Basic rules for the use of the letter "ё" / Legislative acts
On December 24, 1942, the People's Commissar of Education of the RSFSR V.P. Potemkin, by order No. 1825, introduced the letter "Yo, e" into the mandatory practice of use. Shortly before the order was issued, an incident occurred when Stalin was rude to the manager of the Council of People's Commissars, Y. Chadayev, because on December 6 (or 5), 1942, he brought a decree for his signature, where the names of a number of generals were printed without the letter "e".
Chadayev informed the editor of Pravda that the leader wanted to see "e" in print as well. Thus, already on December 7, 1942, the issue of the newspaper suddenly appeared with this letter in all articles.
Federal Law No. 53-FZ “On the State Language of the Russian Federation” dated 06/01/2005 in part 3 of Art. 1 states that when using the Russian modern literary language as the state language, the Government of the Russian Federation determines the procedure for approving the rules and norms of Russian punctuation and spelling.
Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation "On the procedure for approving the norms of the modern Russian literary language when it is used as the state language of the Russian Federation, the rules of Russian spelling and punctuation" dated November 23, 2006 No. 714 establishes that, based on the recommendations given by the Interdepartmental Commission on the Russian Language, the list reference books, grammars and dictionaries, which contain the norms of the Russian modern literary language, when it is used in the Russian Federation as the state language, as well as the rules of Russian punctuation and spelling, is approved by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.
Letter No. AF-159/03 dated 03.05.2007 “On Decisions of the Interdepartmental Commission on the Russian Language” of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation prescribes to write the letter “ё” if it is possible to misread words, for example, in proper names, since in In this case, ignoring the letter “ё” violates the requirements of the Federal Law “On the state language of the Russian Federation”.
According to the current rules of Russian punctuation and spelling, in texts with ordinary printing, the letter e is used selectively. But, at the request of the editor or author, any book can be printed using the letter ё in sequence.
"Yo" sound
The letter "yo" is used:
To convey the stressed vowel [o] and at the same time indicate the softness of the previous consonant: youth, comb, crawl, oats, lying, during the day, honey, dog, everything, wandered, Fedor, aunt (after r, k, x this applies only to borrowings : Hoglund, Goethe, liqueur, Cologne, the only exception is the only proper Russian word weave, weave, weave, weave with derivatives, and formed in Russian from the borrowed word alarmist);
To convey the shock [o] after the hissing: silk, burn, click, damn (in this position, the choice between writing through “o” or through “e” is set by a rather complex system of lists of exception words and rules);
To transmit a combination of [j] and percussive sound [o]:
At the beginning of words: container, hedgehog, tree;
After consonants (a separating sign is used): volume, viet, linen.
After the letters of the vowels: her, loan, striker, point, spit, forge;
In primordially Russian words, only the stressed sound “ё” is possible (even if the stress is secondary: loess-like, four-story, three-seater,); in the event that during word formation or inflection the stress passes to another syllable, then “e” will be replaced by “e” (takes - chooses, honey - honey - on honey, about nothing - nothing (but: about nothing )).
Along with the letter "ё" in borrowings, the same sound value can be conveyed after consonants - combinations of ё and in other cases - yo. Also in borrowings, "yo" can be an unstressed vowel.
Yo and E
In § 10 of the “Rules of Russian Spelling and Punctuation” officially in force since 1956, the cases are defined when “ё” is used in writing:
"one. When it is necessary to prevent incorrect reading and understanding of a word, for example: we learn in contrast to we learn; everything is different from everything; bucket as opposed to a bucket; perfect (participle) as opposed to perfect (adjective), etc.
2. When it is necessary to indicate the pronunciation of a little-known word, for example: the Olekma river.
3. In special texts: primers, school textbooks of the Russian language, orthoepy textbooks, etc., as well as in dictionaries to indicate the place of stress and correct pronunciation
Note. In foreign words, at the beginning of words and after vowels, instead of the letter ё, yo is written, for example; iodine, district, major.
These issues are regulated in more detail by § 5 of the new edition of these rules (published in 2006 and approved by the Spelling Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences):
“The use of the letter ё can be consistent and selective.
Consistent use of the letter ё is mandatory in the following varieties of printed texts:
a) in texts with successive accent marks;
b) in books addressed to young children;
c) in educational texts for elementary school students and foreigners studying Russian.
Note 1. The consistent use of ё is accepted for the illustrative part of these rules.
Note 3. In dictionaries, words with the letter e are placed in the general alphabet with the letter e, for example: barely, unctuous, fir-tree, fir-tree, crawl, fir-tree, fir-tree, fir-tree; to cheer up, to cheer up, to have fun, to have fun, to have fun.
In ordinary printed texts, the letter ё is used selectively. It is recommended to use it in the following cases.
1. To prevent misidentification of a word, e.g.: everything, sky, summer, perfect (unlike the words everything, sky, summer, perfect, respectively), including to indicate the place of stress in a word, e.g.: bucket, recognize (unlike a bucket, we learn).
2. To indicate the correct pronunciation of a word - either rare, not well known enough, or having a common mispronunciation, e.g.: gyoze, surf, fleur, harder, slit, including to indicate the correct stress, e.g.: fable, reduced, carried away , convict, newborn, filer.
3. In proper names - surnames, geographical names, for example: Konenkov, Neyolova, Catherine Deneuve, Schrödinger, Dezhnev, Koshelev, Chebyshev, Vyoshenskaya, Olekma.
"Yo", "yo" and "yo" in loanwords and the transfer of foreign proper names
The letter "ё" is often used to convey the sounds [ø] and [œ] (for example, denoted by the letter "ö") in foreign names and words.
In borrowing words, to record a combination of phonemes such as /jo/, the letter combinations “yo” or “yo” are usually used:
After consonants, simultaneously softening them (“broth”, “battalion”, “minion”, “guillotine”, “senior”, “champignon”, “pavilion”, “fjord”, “companion”, etc.) - in Romance languages usually in places after the palatalized [n] and [l] it is written "ё".
At the beginning of words (“iota”, “iodine”, “yogurt”, “yoga”, “York”, etc.) or after vowels (“district”, “coyote”, “meiosis”, “major”, etc.) spelled "yo";
However, in recent decades, “ё” has been increasingly used in these cases. It has already become a normative element in the systems of transferring names and names (transliteration) from a number of Asian languages (for example, the Kontsevich system for the Korean language and the Polivanov system for the Japanese language): Yoshihito, Shogun, Kim Yongnam.
In European borrowings, the sound is transmitted by the letter "ё" very rarely; it is most often found in words from the languages of Scandinavia (Jörmungandr, Jotun), but, as a rule, exists along with the usual transmission through "yo" (for example, Jormungandr) and is often considered profanity.
“Yo” in borrowed words is often unstressed and in this position its pronunciation is indistinguishable from the letters “I”, “i” or “e” (Erdös, shogunate, etc.), i.e., its original clarity is lost and it turns, at times, into just an indication of a certain pronunciation in the source language.
Consequences of the optional use of the letter "ё"
The slowness of the entry of the letter "ё" into the practice of writing (which, by the way, did not take place until the end) is explained by its inconvenient form for cursive writing, which contradicts its main principle - the fusion (without lifting the pen from the sheet of paper) of the style, as well as the technical difficulties of the technologies pre-computer publishing houses.
In addition, people with surnames that have the letter “ё” often have difficulties, sometimes insurmountable, during the execution of various documents, as some employees are irresponsible about writing this letter. This problem became especially acute after the introduction of the USE system, when there is a danger of a difference in the spelling of the name in the passport and in the Certificate of the results of passing the USE.
The habitual optionality of use led to a misreading of a number of words, which gradually became generally accepted. This process affected everything: both a huge number of personal names and numerous common nouns.
Stable ambiguity is caused by words written without the letter ё, such as: piece of iron, everything, flax, take a break, blowjob (flies by without hitting it), perfect, planted, in the summer, we recognize, palate, tapeworm, recognized, etc. is increasingly being used erroneous pronunciation (without ё) and shifting of stresses in the words beetroot, newborn, etc.
"e" becomes "yo"
The ambiguity contributed to the fact that sometimes the letter “ё” began to be used in writing (and, of course, read [`o]) in those words where it should not be. For example, instead of the word "grenadier" - "grenadier", and instead of the word "scam" - "scam", also instead of the word "guardianship" - "guardianship", and instead of the word "being" - "being", etc. Sometimes such incorrect pronunciation and spelling becomes common.
Thus, the famous chess player Alexander Alekhine, the world champion, was, in fact, Alekhine and was very indignant if his name was pronounced and written incorrectly. His surname refers to the noble family of the Alekhins and is not a derivative of the familiar variant "Alekha" on behalf of Alexei.
In those positions where it is necessary to be not e, but e, it is recommended to put stress in order to prevent incorrect recognition of words (everything, takes) or erroneous pronunciation (grenadier, scam, Krez, stout, Olesha).
Because of the spelling of words without ё in the 20-30s. 20th century there were many errors in the pronunciation of those words that people learned from newspapers and books, and not from colloquial speech: musketeer, youth, driver (these words said “e” instead of “e”).
Orthoepy: the emergence of new variants
Due to the optional use of the letter "e", words appeared in Russian that allow the possibility of writing both with the letter "e" and with "e", and the corresponding pronunciation. For example, faded and faded, maneuver and maneuver, whitish and whitish, bile and bile, etc.
Constantly similar options appear in the language due to the action of contradictory analogies. For example, the word incised has pronunciations with ё / e due to the double motivation: notch / notch. The use or non-use of the letter "ё" does not play a role here. But, developing naturally, the literary language, as a rule, tends to get rid of the options: either one of them will become unliterary, incorrect (holo[l`o] ditsa, from [d`e] vka), or pronunciation variants will acquire different meanings (is[ t`o] kshiy - is [t`e] kshiy).
It is predominantly pronounced not “glider”, but “glider” (stressed 1st syllable), since the following tendencies are present in Russian: in the names of mechanisms, machines, various devices, it is preferable to stress on the 1st syllable, or more precisely, on the penultimate , i.e., glider, trier, glider, tanker, and on the last - when indicating the character: combine operator, driver, watchman.
The inconsistency in the use of the letter "ё" is more artificial than natural. And it helps to slow down the natural development of the language, giving rise to and maintaining pronunciation variants that are not due to intralinguistic reasons.
Reports and messages in the Russian language
To the topic: HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE
In the 1st century AD, our ancestors lived on the territory of Europe - the tribes of the Slavs, who spoke the 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 such states as Serbia, Bulgaria, Poland, Croatia, and the Czech Republic. And when Christianity replaced 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 Old Russian nationality, which included the East Slavic tribes of the Polyans, Drevlyans, Krivichi, Vyatichi. On the territory adjacent to the middle reaches of the Dnieper, inhabited by meadows, a powerful state appeared - Kievan Rus. In the VIII-IX centuries, in addition to Kyiv, the ancient Russian cities of Pskov, Chernigov, Polotsk, Smolensk were formed, in which various crafts developed. The first church books written in Old Church Slavonic 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. The continuation of the Old Slavonic language as a literary language was Church Slavonic.
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. This alphabet (of course, in a modified version) we use now.
The Slavic alphabet is named Cyrillic in honor of its creator - Cyril. True, his real name is Konstantin. He was named Cyril shortly before his death, since he took the vows as a monk (and the monks are given a new name after the rite of tonsure). Cyril developed the alphabet based on the Greek alphabet together with his brother Methodius. Often they are called the Thessalonica brothers, since they come from the Greek city of Thessaloniki (otherwise called Thessalonica).
In 863 Cyril and Methodius went on an important mission to the Grand Duchy of Moravia (the territory of modern Czech Republic and Slovakia). The mission of the brothers was to explain the Christian doctrine to people in their native language. And for this it was necessary first to translate the liturgical books from Greek into Slavonic. That is why Cyril and Methodius took up the development of a new alphabet. They even created 2 alphabets - Cyrillic and Glagolitic, but the Glagolitic alphabet was forgotten over time (in Russia it was used only in the very first years of the development and spread of writing). Our Russian alphabet comes from Cyrillic. 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 Slavonic alphabet. And the modern Russian language is also very different from the Old 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 big and yus small (they denoted nasal vowels; these sounds remained in Polish and French);
- instead of fita and firth, we use the letter f;
- instead of green and earth - the letter z;
- instead of yat 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 value, 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 charter letter, or charter, was preserved: Cyrillic letters were written directly, one separately from the other. By the charter they wrote mainly liturgical books. Over time, the statute was replaced by a semi-statute, which is found in books of the 15th-17th centuries. The font of the first Russian printed books was cast according to the model of the semi-ustav.
The semi-ustav was replaced by cursive writing, in which the original outline of Cyrillic letters has changed significantly. Starting from the time of Peter I, the Cyrillic alphabet, from which some letters were excluded, was called the Russian civil alphabet. So a slightly modified Cyrillic alphabet formed the basis of our modern alphabet.
Literacy was highly valued in Russia. From the depths of centuries, monuments of ancient Russian literature have come down to us: church books, codes of laws, business documents, annals, literary works. The oldest surviving Russian handwritten books date back to the 11th century. Rewriting by hand in ancient Russia was the only way to "replicate" the book and distribute it among literate people.
The appearance of printing in Russia was the beginning of a new era.
"Reports and messages on the Russian language" V.A. Krutetskaya. Additional materials, useful information, interesting facts. Elementary School.
See also: The emergence of printing in Russia
Approximately in 863, two brothers Methodius and Cyril the Philosopher (Konstantin) from Thessaloniki (Thessalonica), by order of Michael III, the Byzantine emperor, made ordering of writing for the Slavic language. The emergence of the Cyrillic alphabet, which comes from the Greek statutory (solemn) letter, is linked to the activities carried out by the Bulgarian school of scribes (after Methodius and Cyril).
After 860, when Christianity was adopted in Bulgaria by the holy Tsar Boris, Bulgaria becomes the center from which Slavic writing began to spread. The Preslav book school was created here - the 1st book school of the Slavs, where they copied the originals of the Cyril and Methodius liturgical books (church services, the Psalter, the Gospel, the Apostle), performed new translations into Slavic from Greek, original creations written in Old Slavonic appeared (for example, “On the writings of Chrnorizets the Brave”).
Later, the Old Church Slavonic language penetrated into Serbia, and by the end of the 10th century. in Kievan Rus became the church language. Being the language of the church in Russia, the Old Slavonic language was influenced by the Old Russian language. This, in fact, was the Old Slavonic language, but only in the Russian version, since it contained living elements of the speech of the Eastern Slavs.
Thus, the progenitor of the Russian alphabet is the Old Russian Cyrillic alphabet, borrowed from the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet and spread after the baptism of Kievan Rus (988). Then, most likely, there were 43 letters in the alphabet.
Later, 4 new letters were added, and at different times, 14 old ones were excluded as unnecessary, since the corresponding sounds disappeared. Iotated yuses (Ѭ, Ѩ) disappear first of all, then big yus (Ѫ) (which returned in the 15th century, but disappeared again at the beginning of the 17th century), and iotated E (Ѥ); other letters, sometimes slightly changing their form and meaning, have remained to this day in the alphabet of the Church Slavonic language, which has long and erroneously been identified with the Russian alphabet.
Spelling reforms of the 2nd half of the 17th century. (associated with the “correction of books” during the time of Patriarch Nikon) the following letter set was recorded: A, B, C, D, D, E (with an excellent spelling variant of Є, which was sometimes considered a separate letter and put in the alphabet after Ѣ, i.e. . in the position of today's E), Zh, S, Z, I (for the sound [j] there was a variant Y that was different in spelling, which was not considered a separate letter), I, K, L, M, N, O (in 2 forms that differed orthographically: “wide” and “narrow”), П, Р, С, Т, У (in 2 forms, which differed orthographically: Ѹ and), Ф, Х, Ѡ (in 2 forms, which differed orthographically: “wide” and “narrow”, and also as part of the ligature, which was usually considered a separate letter - “from” (Ѿ)), C, H, W, W, b, Y, b, Ѣ, Yu, I ( in 2 forms: Ѧ and IA, which were sometimes considered different letters, and sometimes not), Ѯ, Ѱ, Ѳ, ѳ. A large yus (Ѫ) and a letter called “ik” (similar in form to the current letter “y”) were also sometimes introduced into the alphabet, although they had no sound meaning and were not used in any words.
In this form, the Russian alphabet existed until 1708-1711, i.e. before the reforms of Tsar Peter I (Church Slavonic remains the same now). At that time, superscripts were abolished (this “abolished” the letter Y) and many doublet letters used to write different numbers were removed (with the introduction of Arabic numerals, this became irrelevant). Then a number of abolished letters were returned and canceled again.
By 1917, there were officially 35 letters in the alphabet (in fact, 37): A, B, C, D, D, E, (Yo was not considered a separate letter), Zh, Z, I, (Y was not considered a separate letter), I, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, F, X, C, H, W, W, b, S, b, Ѣ, E, Yu, I, Ѳ, ѳ. (Formally, the last letter in the Russian alphabet was listed, but in fact it was almost never used, occurring only in a few words).
The result of the last major writing reform of 1917-1918 was the emergence of the current Russian alphabet of 33 letters. It also became the written basis for most of the languages of the peoples of the USSR, which until the twentieth century. there was no written language or it was replaced by Cyrillic during the years of Soviet power.
Letters are the basis of any language in the world, because we use their combination when we think, speak or write. The ABC of the Russian language is interesting not only as a “building material”, but also as a history of its formation. In this regard, the question arises: who created the alphabet of the Russian language? Most people, without hesitation, will say that the main authors of the Russian alphabet are Cyril and Methodius. However, only a few people 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 appear?
From the 9th to the 10th century, Great Moravia was one of the largest states. At the end of 862, her prince Rostislav wrote a letter to the emperor of Byzantium Michael with a plea for permission to conduct services in the Slavic language. At that time, the inhabitants of Moravia had a common language, but there was no written language. Greek writing or Latin was used. Emperor Michael granted the request of the prince 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 up to this point people remained illiterate. They used letters from the Book of Veles. Who came up with the letters or characters in it is still not known.
An interesting fact is that the brothers created the letters of the alphabet even before they came to 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 Greek, henceforth the liturgy in the church was conducted in a language understandable to the local population. Some letters in the alphabet had a great resemblance to Greek and Latin characters. In 863, an 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 from the point of view of ordering numbers. Each letter defines a digit, so the letters-numbers are arranged 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 decided 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:
- The alphabet of the Russian language has the letter "Ё". 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 two letters convey the first syllable in the word "iolka". Not having received an answer that satisfied her, the princess created an order to use the letter "Yo" in the letter.
- The one who invented the Russian alphabet left no explanation for the dumb letter "er". It was used until 1918 after hard consonants. The country's treasury spent more than 400 thousand rubles on writing "er", so the letter was very expensive.
- Another difficult letter in the Russian alphabet is "i" or "i". The reforming philologists could not decide which sign to keep, 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 sense of "universe" and "peace" in the sense of the absence of war. After decades of disputes, the creators of the alphabet left the letter "and".
- The letter "e" in the Russian alphabet was previously called "e reverse". M.V. Lomonosov did not recognize it for a long time, as he considered it borrowed from other languages. But she successfully took root among other letters in the Russian alphabet.
The Russian alphabet is full of interesting facts, almost every letter has its own history. But the creation of the alphabet was reflected only in scientific and educational activities. The innovators had to teach the new letters to the people and, above all, the clergy. Dogma was closely intertwined with the clergy and politics. Unable to withstand the 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 were taught at school, so we can say that the modern names of the letters came into general use only during the reign of Soviet power. The order of letters in the Russian alphabet has remained the same since the day of its creation, as signs were used to form numbers (although we have been using Arabic numerals for a long time).
The Old Slavonic 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 still use the legacy of the brothers to this day.