"History of the alphabet" (research work). History of the creation of the alphabet The creation of the Russian alphabet in brief

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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"

Topic:" 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.

Story

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 service by the Pope, who fought 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 variant 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, W, 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.

§ E- 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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"History of the alphabet" (research work)

MUNICIPAL EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

"BASIC SCHOOL № 2"

« ALPHABET HISTORY»

(research)

COMPLETED:

Glotov Maxim,

Wagner Angela,

Ilya Korotenko,

pupils 3 "A" class

SUPERVISOR:

Emelyanova

Irina Anatolyevna,

primary school teacher

Stary Oskol

Introduction 2

I. Main part 3

1. Glagolitic history 3

2. The contribution of Cyril and Methodius to the development of Slavic culture 3

3. Distribution of the Cyrillic alphabet in Russia 5

4. The first Russian primer I. Fedorov 7

5. Alphabet of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy 8

6. Modern Russian alphabet 8

II. Conclusion 10

III Bibliography 11

Introduction

There are different languages: Russian, Ukrainian, English, French, Swedish. Each of these languages ​​has its own alphabet- the order of the letters. V alphabet each letter has its place. Number of letters in different alphabets are also different... For example, in English alphabet with only 26 letters, and in Russian - 33 letters. Each letter has its own place, name and spelling.

The Russian alphabet is a completely unique phenomenon among all known methods of letter writing.

The idea of ​​creating a project arose in an English lesson, when we learned that in English alphabet with only 26 letters, and in Russian - 33 letters. The information received prompted us to study stories origin of Russian alphabet.

Project type: informational research. Development of of our project took place inside the school, with the participation of children and adults. Our project is collective.

Target research: creating an electronic guide « History of the alphabet» .

Thing research: Russian alphabet.

Purpose and subject research made it necessary to address the following tasks:

Meet to history creation and development of Russian alphabet;

Analysis of literary sources and online resources on the topic research;

Prepare creative research papers.

During research we analyzed the literature on ABC stories prepared creative work on this topic using Internet resources.

1. History of Glagolitic

Glagolitic is one of the first (along with Cyrillic) Slavic alphabet. It is assumed that it was the Slavic educator St. Konstantin (Kirill) Philosopher for recording church texts in the Slavic language

A number of facts indicate that the Glagolitic alphabet is an earlier alphabet than the Cyrillic alphabet.

Russian alphabet formed on the basis of the Cyrillic alphabet.

2. Contribution of Cyril and Methodius to the development of Slavic culture

Creators of the Slavic alphabet Konstantin (when he was tonsured a monk, he was named Cyril) (827-869) and Methodius (815-885) originated from the Byzantine city of Soluni (now Soloniki in Northern Greece, in which a large Slavic population lived and the Slavs held many official posts. The brothers' father was rich and "Kind", held a significant position in Solunya under the command of the Solunsky strategist - a military leader,

Cyril began attending school at the age of eight. He studied diligently, mastered the Greek language, counting, mastered horse riding and military techniques. But his favorite pastime was reading books. After the death of his father, he left Thessalonia and went to Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Among Cyril's teachers, perhaps the most significant was the future patriarch Photius, an expert on ancient culture. Students studied the poems of Homer, the tragedies of Sophocles, philosophical writings Aristotle... Cyril, one of the best students, was accepted into government service.

Cyril, who knew well not only Greek, Arabic and Latin, but also the language of the Slavs, was sent to Bulgaria with an educational mission. But the enlightenment of the Slavs turned out to be impossible without books in their native language. Therefore, Cyril began to create the Slavic alphabet. His first assistant was his elder brother Methodius, who retired from military service to a monastery.

On May 24, 863, in the town of Pliska, which at that time was the capital of Bulgaria, the brothers Cyril and Methodius announced the invention of the Slavic alphabet.

In the same year 863, the brothers arrived in Moravia with the created alphabet and ready-made translations. For forty months until the spring of 867, they educated the Slavs in Moravia. And at the end of 867 - beginning of 868, the Pope invited Cyril and Methodius to Rome. There they got the right to educate the people. But in Rome, Cyril suddenly fell ill, and on February 14, 869, the creator of Slavic writing, the first teacher of the Slavs, died. Methodius became the successor of his brother's work. On April 4, 885, Methodius died.

In 988, a palace school was opened in Kiev "Book teachings"... A new center of book culture emerged, which united Kievan Rus with European civilization.

So on historical the arena, a Slavic school appeared, the founders of which were the brothers Cyril and Methodius.

3. The spread of the Cyrillic alphabet in Russia

In Russia, the Cyrillic alphabet became widespread after the adoption of Christianity (988g.).In Peter's time, the tsar's decree simplified the spelling and abolished the letters "Yus small", "Yus big", "Xi", "psi", "Zelo", "Omega" who became a burden in Russian alphabet... In the second half of the 18th century, Russian alphabet replenished with new letters that were not in the Slavic alphabet. These are the letters "and short" and e. At the beginning of the 20th century, a need arose in Russia to simplify alphabet and spelling... This reform was carried out in 1918. By the decree of the People's Commissar of Education, the letters "I decimal", "Yat", "Fit", "Izhitsa" and the letter "Ep" at the end of words. This is a movement from 43 letters of the Cyrillic alphabet to 33 letters of modern Russian alphabet can you imagine So: 43-14+4=33.

Russian alphabet descended from the Old Russian Cyrillic alphabet, 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. The earliest disappeared iotated yus (

Then the big yus (returning in the 15th century, but disappearing 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 (related to "Correcting books" under Patriarch Nikon) recorded the following set letters: A, B, C, D, D, E (with a spelling different option Є, which was sometimes considered a separate letter and was put in the alphabet in place of the current E, that is, after b, F, S, 3, I (with a spelling different option Y for the sound [j], which was not considered a separate letter, I, K, L, M, N, O (in two spelling differences outlines: "Narrow" and "Wide", P, P, S, T, U (in two spelling differences outlines:, Ф, X, (in two spelling differences outlines: "Narrow" and "Wide", as well as in the ligature "from", usually considered a separate letter, Ts, Ch, Sh, Sh, b, Y, b, b, Y, Y (in two outlines: IA and & $ 1126, which were sometimes considered different letters, sometimes not, V. Sometimes the alphabet also included a capital yus) and the so-called "Hic"(as the current letter "Y", although they did not have a sound meaning and were not used in a single word.

The Russian alphabet remained in this form until the reforms of Peter 1708-1711. By 1917 alphabet came in 34-letter (officially; actually there were 37 letters) the composition: A, B, C, D, D, E, (E was not considered a separate letter, F, 3, I, (Y was not considered a separate letter, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S , T, U, F, X, Ts, Ch, Sh, Sh, B, Y, B, B, E, YU, Y,? Was considered no longer included in Russian alphabet).

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

4. The first Russian primer I. Fedorov

The first Russian primer was written and published by Ivan Fedorov in 1574. It was a full-fledged educational book that was snapped up and read literally to the core. It is interesting that Fedorov did not name his primer in any way, therefore sometimes his book was called the ABC or Grammar. Of course, Fedorov's book differs from the current primers and alphabets, but they are all built like this the same: from simple to complex, from letter to word, from word to sentence, from sentence to story.

The book was printed by master Ivan Fedorov at the Moscow printing yard.

The great master foresaw that with the invention of the printing press, books would cease to be a great rarity and could fall into the hands of any person. Ivan Fedorov was concerned not only with the distribution of books in Russia, but also with the spread of literacy. He dreamed that more and more people could read and write.

5. Alphabet of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

The great Russian writer L.N. Tolstoy organized a school for peasant children in the Yasnaya Polyana estate, where he himself was a teacher stories... For the students of the Yasnaya Polyana school, he wrote the alphabet. Our great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers studied this alphabet.

6. Modern Russian alphabet

Modern russian the alphabet consists of 33 letters

Russian alphabet(Russian alphabet) - Russian alphabet, in its current form with 33 letters has actually existed since 1918 (officially only since 1942 of the year: previously it was believed that in Russian alphabet 32 ​​letters, since E and E were considered as variants of the same letter).

II. Conclusion

By pursuing research work, we got results: learned about stories origin of Russian alphabet, about the creators of the Slavic alphabet, monk brothers Cyril and Methodius, about the Glagolitic alphabet (predecessor of the Cyrillic alphabet)... We were interested to learn about the first Russian primer, created by the pioneer printer Ivan Fedorov, about the alphabet of L. N. Tolstoy. This research contributed to that some of the guys in our class made up their own puzzles about alphabet prepared information sheets "Obsolete letters alphabet» .

On May 24, Russia will celebrate a holiday, the Day of Slavic Written Language and Culture. Our electronic travel guide will help primary school students find out who was at the origins of this holiday... The guide will also be interesting for first graders when studying the topic. "First Primer", "The ABC of L. N. Tolstoy"... It turns out to be very interesting research, explore pages history of their state.

III Bibliography

1. Bernstein S. B. Constantine - philosopher and Methodius. M., 1989

2. Bochenkova O. Solunskie brothers // Reading, learning, playing. 2003

3. Golovin N. N. My first Russian story... M .: Ton press, 1999.

4. Entertaining ABC studies: Book. for parents, teachers and lovely children / Ed. - comp. V.V. Volina, Art. L. I. Rudakovskaya. - 2nd ed. rev. - M .: Education, 1994 .-- 400 p .: ill. - ISBN 5-09-005981-0

5. Story Russia from ancient times to the 19th century. M .: AST, Astrel, 1999 (Great children's encyclopedia).

6. Ukhanova E. V. U origins Slavic writing. M., 1998.

The importance of writing in the development of mankind can hardly be overestimated. Even in the era when the alphabet did not exist in sight, the ancient people tried to express their thoughts in the form of rock inscriptions.
The ABC of Elizabeth Boehm

First, they drew figures of animals and humans, then - various signs and hieroglyphs. Over time, people managed to create easy-to-understand letters and put them into the alphabet. Who was the creator of the alphabet of the Russian language? To whom do we owe the opportunity to express ourselves freely through writing?

Who laid the foundation for the Russian alphabet?

The history of the emergence of the Russian alphabet dates back to the II millennium BC. Then the ancient Phoenicians invented consonants and used them for a long time to draw up documents.

In the 8th century BC, their discovery was borrowed by the ancient Greeks, who significantly improved the letter by adding vowels to it. In the future, it was the Greek alphabet, with the help of which the statutory (solemn) letters were drawn up, that formed the basis of the Russian alphabet.

Who created the Russian alphabet?

In the Bronze Age, Proto-Slavic peoples lived in Eastern Europe who spoke the same language.

Primer of Slavic letters of the Greatest Teacher B. Jerome of Stridonsky
Around the 1st century AD, they began to disintegrate into separate tribes, as a result of which several states inhabited by Eastern Slavs were created in these territories. Among them was Great Moravia, which occupied the lands of modern Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, partly Ukraine and Poland.

With the emergence of Christianity and the construction of temples, people had a need to create a written language that would make it possible to record church texts. To learn how to write, the Moravian prince Rostislav turned for help to the Byzantine emperor Michael III, who sent Christian preachers Cyril and Methodius to Moravia. In 863, they came up with the first Russian alphabet, which was named after one of the preachers - in Cyrillic.

Who are Cyril and Methodius?

Cyril and Methodius were brothers from Thessaloniki (now Greek Thessaloniki). In those days, in their hometown, in addition to Greek, they spoke the Slavic-Solun dialect, which formed the basis of the Church Slavonic language.

Initially, Cyril's name was Constantine, and he received his middle name just before his death, taking a monastic vow. In his youth, Constantine studied with the best Byzantine teachers of philosophy, rhetoric, dialectics, and later taught at the University of Magnavr in Constantinople.

Monument to Saints Cyril and Methodius in Saratov. Photo by Zimin Vasily.
In 863, having gone to Moravia, with the help of his brother Methodius, he created. Bulgaria became the center for the spread of Slavic writing. In 886, the Preslav Book School was opened on its territory, where they were engaged in translations from the Greek language and copied Cyril and Methodius originals. At about the same time, the Cyrillic alphabet came to Serbia, and at the end of the 10th century it reached Kievan Rus.

Initially, the first Russian alphabet had 43 letters. Later, 4 more were added to it, and 14 of the previous ones were removed as unnecessary. At first, some of the letters resembled Greek ones in appearance, but as a result of spelling reform in the 17th century, they were replaced with those that we know today.

By 1917, there were 35 letters in the Russian alphabet, although in fact there were 37 of them, since E and Y were not considered separate. Additionally, the alphabet contained the letters I, Ѣ (yat), Ѳ (fita) and Ѵ (izhitsa), which later disappeared from use.

When did the modern Russian alphabet appear?

In 1917-1918, a major spelling reform was carried out in Russia, thanks to which the modern alphabet appeared. It was initiated by the Ministry of Public Education under the Provisional Government. The reform began before the revolution, but was continued after the transfer of power to the Bolsheviks.

Wikimedia Commons / Jimmy Thomas ()
In December 1917, the Russian statesman Anatoly Lunacharsky issued a decree according to which all organizations were ordered to use the new alphabet, consisting of 33 letters.

Although the spelling reform was prepared even before the revolution and had no political overtones, it was initially criticized by opponents of Bolshevism. However, over time, the modern alphabet took root and is used to this day.

Alphabet, or alphabet, is called a set of signs adopted to denote the sounds of speech in the written system of any language and arranged in a certain order. The word "alphabet" comes from the first two Greek letters: "alpha" and "beta". In the past, in Russia, instead of the name "alphabet", the word "alphabet" was used, which came from the first two letters of the Russian alphabet: "az" and "beeches". The characters of the alphabet are called letters... The alphabet, the letters of which have a general pattern of their styles, is called font.

The letters of the alphabet are not random shapes arbitrarily mapped out by the inventor. Each letter of modern alphabets is the result of a long, sometimes very complex development, and its form has deep historical roots. In most cases, the prototype of the modern style of the letter is the image of a specific material, animate or non-animate object. Changes in the development of the alphabet occurred relatively slowly, as new requirements appeared on the part of the developing language. The font as a specific embodiment of the alphabet is directly related to the tools and materials with which writing is carried out. To a greater extent than the alphabet, it is determined by the material culture of society and its aesthetic norms, as a result of which, together with them, the font is constantly undergoing noticeable changes.

Even at the dawn of his development, man strove to record the manifestations of the surrounding reality and his attitude to it. At first, various objects related to this or that event and reminiscent of it served for this.

Later, various conventional signs began to be used in the form of shells, pebbles, nodules, notches, sticks, etc. Over time, the system of combinations of these signs was refined and complicated, turning into the so-called subject letter(nodular, from shells, etc.).

In a number of peoples at an early stage of their development, figurative-pictorial, or pictographic letter... In this writing system, certain events were depicted in the form of a drawing, primitive and highly conventional. In particular, picture writing was used until very recently by North American Indians.

Gradually, to speed up the writing process, simplified images of this or that subject were developed. Such signs-symbols in their form often no longer had anything to do with the type of objects that they indicated. Signs have appeared corresponding to abstract concepts. This type of writing is called figurative-symbolic or ideographic.

The earliest ideographic writing is cuneiform created in the fourth millennium BC Sumerians... Later, cuneiform began to be used in Assyro-Babylonia, Armenia and other peoples. In the 6th century BC, cuneiform was adopted by the Persians. Along with the designation of whole words, they began to designate individual sounds of speech with certain figures, however, they did not switch to the alphabet.

The figurative-symbolic writing also includes Chinese hieroglyphs(from the Greek word hieroglyphoi- sacred carving), the appearance of which is celebrated in the third millennium BC. The Chinese characters are based on simplified representations of various objects. This is especially evident in ancient Chinese writing. To designate abstract concepts and verbs in ancient Chinese writing, combinations of hieroglyphs depicting material objects were widely used. So, for example, the verb “to tear” was indicated by the sign “tree” and the sign “hand” located above it (19, 21), the word “light” was depicted by a combination of the signs “sun” and “month” (22. 25), the verb “to sing "- by signs" mouth "and" bird "(26-29)," listen "- by signs" door "and" ear "(30, 31).

Hieroglyphic writing has survived to this day and exists in three countries of the world - China, Japan and Korea.

Ancient Egypt also created hieroglyphic writing... Hieroglyphic inscriptions are already found on monuments and in pyramids built by the Egyptians about three thousand years BC. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs represent, as a rule, signs, the outline of which accurately reproduces the shape of the indicated object.

Gradually, the shape of the hieroglyphs was simplified, and the images of objects became more and more conventional. Thus, there was created by the priests, the so-called hieratic writing... Finally, the most simplified form of Egyptian hieroglyphs was demotic writing- civil cursive, the signs of which only vaguely resembled the objects indicated by them.

The features of each of the three types of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing are clearly visible when comparing the signs "owl". The left sign, which reproduces the form of the object in the most detail, refers to hieroglyphic writing, the middle, simplified one, to the hieratic, and the right one, which has almost lost its connection with the original form, to demotic writing.

Ancient Egyptians almost solved the problem of transition from figurative-symbolic writing to sound - phonetic. Over time, hieroglyphs began to be used to denote syllables, and then sounds. For this, hieroglyphs were used, the initial sounds of which coincided with the required sound. In total, the Egyptians had up to twenty-five such letters, but they did not completely switch to phonetic writing.

V 1904 -1906 biennium the so-called Sinai inscriptions dating back to the XIII-XIV centuries BC were discovered. The signs of these inscriptions in many ways resembled Egyptian hieroglyphs, but their system represented a complete alphabet. The creators of this most ancient alphabet were hyksos- a semi-nomadic presemitic people. They conquered Egypt and ruled there for several centuries, until they were driven out by the stronger Egyptians. The Hyksos adopted the high Egyptian culture and, on the basis of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, already prepared enough for this, created their own writing, the basis of which was the alphabet.

Ancient Semites who adopted the writing of the Hyksos and improved it, for a long time were considered the first creators of the alphabet. The basis for this was a stone found in 1869 with an inscription of the Moabite king of Mesha, dating back to 896 BC ( moabites- one of the branches of the Hebrew people who lived east of the Dead Sea). Phoenicians, who traded with many countries, significantly improved the ancient Semitic writing, making it exclusively phonetic.

Greeks got acquainted with the Semitic writing in the second millennium BC and around the 10th century BC created their own alphabet based on the Phoenician. They introduced vowel designations that were absent in the Phoenician alphabet. The origin of the Greek alphabet from the ancient Semitic is confirmed by the preserved names of many letters. For example, the Greek letter "alpha" in the Semitic alphabet corresponds to the letter "Aleph", the letter "beta" - "bet", "delta" - "Dalet", etc. Greek writing was at first leftist, as is the case in Semitic writing.

The Greek colonies in Italy transferred their writing there, on the basis of which various versions of the Latin alphabet were created. The oldest monument of Latin writing is the so-called Duane's vessel dating back to the 5th century BC. The inscription on the vessel is also made in the left direction.

After the unification of Italy by Rome in 1st century BC a single Latin alphabet was introduced, which has remained practically unchanged to our time. The new alphabet eliminated additional characters that were present in the early Latin alphabets, which made writing difficult and difficult to read. The Latin alphabet began to spread in Western Europe and soon became the main alphabet there.

Huge importance for the development of fonts in the first half of the 15th century had the appearance of printing with movable letters. Typography existed before, but printing was done from boards, on which texts were cut out. For the first time this method was applied in VI in China. In China, in the 9th century, there was printing with movable letters made of baked clay. The blacksmith is considered the inventor of this method. P-shen.

The widespread use of movable type for typography began only after the development of this method. Johannes Gutenberg... He used for mass production letter-carved punches and dies, extruded with punches in soft metal. Letters were cast in matrices of low-melting alloys.

Hello dear guys! Greetings, dear adults! You are reading these lines, which means that someone once made sure that you and I could exchange information using writing.

Drawing rock carvings, trying to tell something, our ancestors many centuries ago could not have imagined that very soon 33 letters of the Russian alphabet would form words, express our thoughts on paper, help read books written in Russian and allow them to leave their mark on history of folk culture.

And where did they come to us all from A to Z, who invented the Russian alphabet, and how did the letter come about? The information in this article may be useful for research work in 2nd or 3rd grade, so welcome to study in detail!

Lesson plan:

What is the alphabet and how did it all start?

The word familiar to us from childhood came from Greece, and it is composed of two Greek letters - alpha and beta.

In general, the ancient Greeks left a huge mark on history, and it was not without them here. They went to great lengths to spread writing throughout Europe.

However, many scientists still argue who would be the first, and in what year it was. It is believed that the Phoenicians were the first to use consonants back in the 2nd millennium BC, and only then the Greeks borrowed the alphabet from them and added vowels there. This was already in the 8th century BC.

This Greek writing became the basis of the alphabet among many peoples, including us, the Slavs. And among the most ancient are the Chinese and Egyptian alphabets, which appeared from the transformation of rock paintings into hieroglyphs and graphic symbols.

But what about our Slavic alphabet? We don't write in Greek today! The thing is that Ancient Russia sought to strengthen economic and cultural ties with other countries, and for this a letter was needed. Moreover, the first church books began to be brought to the Russian state, since Christianity came from Europe.

It was necessary to find a way to convey to all Russian Slavs what Orthodoxy is, to create their own alphabet, to translate church works into a readable language. The Cyrillic alphabet became such an alphabet, and it was created by brothers, popularly referred to as "Solunskaya".

Who are the Solunsky brothers and what are they famous for?

These people are named so by no means because they have such a surname or name.

Two brothers Cyril and Methodius lived in a military family in a large Byzantine province with the capital in the city of Soluni, from this name of their small homeland and the nickname went.

The population in the city was mixed - half of the Greeks and half of the Slavs. And the brothers' parents were different by nationality: the mother was Greek, and the father was from Bulgaria. Therefore, both Cyril and Methodius knew two languages ​​from childhood - Slavic and Greek.

It is interesting! In fact, the brothers' birth names were different - Constantine and Michael, and they were named by the church Cyril and Methodius later.

Both brothers excelled in their studies. Methodius mastered military techniques and was very fond of reading. Well, Cyril knew as many as 22 languages, was educated at the imperial court and was nicknamed a philosopher for his wisdom.

Therefore, it is not at all surprising that the choice fell on these two brothers, when the Moravian prince turned to the Byzantine ruler in 863 for help with a request to send wise men who could convey to the Slavic people the truth of the Christian faith and teach them to write.

And Cyril and Methodius set off on a long journey, moving for 40 months from one place to another, explaining in the Slavic language, which is well known to them from childhood, who is Christ and what is his strength. And for this it was necessary to translate all the church books from Greek into Slavic, which is why the brothers began to develop a new alphabet.

Of course, even in those days, the Slavs in their lives used many Greek letters in counting and writing. But the knowledge they had had to be streamlined, brought to one system, so that it was simple and understandable for everyone. And already on May 24, 863, in the Bulgarian capital Pliska, Cyril and Methodius announced the creation of a Slavic alphabet called Cyrillic, which became the progenitor of our modern Russian alphabet.

It is interesting! Historians discovered the fact that even before the Moravian commission, while in Byzantium, the brothers Cyril and Methodius invented an alphabet for the Slavs based on Greek writing, and it was called the Glagolitic. Maybe this is why the Cyrillic alphabet appeared so quickly and simply, since there were already working notes?

Transformations of the Russian alphabet

The Slavic alphabet created by Cyril and Methodius consisted of 43 letters.

They appeared by adding 19 newly invented characters to the Greek alphabet (and it had 24 letters). After the appearance of the Cyrillic alphabet in Bulgaria, the center of Slavic writing, the first book school appeared, and they began to actively translate liturgical books.

In any old book

“Izhitsa lived in the world,

And with her the letter Yat "

Gradually, the Old Slavonic alphabet came to Serbia, and in Ancient Russia it appeared at the end of the 10th century, when the Russian people adopted Christianity. It was then that the whole long process of creating and improving the Russian alphabet, which we use today, begins. That's what was interesting.


It is interesting! The godmother of the letter "E" was Princess Ekaterina Dashkova, who proposed to introduce her into the alphabet in 1783. The idea of ​​the princess was supported by the writer Karmazin, and with their light hand the letter appeared in the alphabet, taking the honorable seventh place.

Yo's fate is not easy:

  • in 1904 its use was desirable, but completely optional;
  • in 1942, by order of the educational authority, it was made compulsory for schools;
  • in 1956, whole paragraphs of the rules of Russian spelling were devoted to it.

Today, the use of "Yo" is important when you can confuse the meaning of the written words, for example, here: perfect and perfect, tears and tears, palate and sky.

It is interesting! In 2001, in the Ulyanovsk park named after Karamzin, the world's only monument to the letter "E" in the form of a low stele was unveiled.


As a result, today we have 33 beauties who teach us to read and write, open up a new world for us, help us to be educated in order to learn our native language and respect our history.

I am sure that you have known all these 33 letters for a long time and never confuse them with places in the alphabet. Would you like to try to learn the Old Church Slavonic alphabet? Here it is, below in the video)

Well, in your piggy bank there are more projects on one interesting topic. Share the most interesting things with your classmates, let them also know where the Russian alphabet came from. And I say goodbye to you, see you again!

Success in your studies!

Evgenia Klimkovich.

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