Glagolitic alphabet

Tablet inscribed with the Glagolitic alphabet

A page from the 10th-11th century Codex Zographensis found in the Zograf Monastery in 1843

The Glagolitic alphabet or Glagolitsa is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It was created by brothers St Cyril (827-869 AD) and St Methodius (826-885 AD) in 855 or around 862–863 in order to translate the Bible and other texts into the Slavic languages.

The name comes from the Old Slavonic glagolə, which means word (and is also the origin of the name for the letter "G"). Since glagolati also means to speak, the Glagolitsa is poetically referred to as "the marks that speak".

The original Glagolitic alphabet has 41 letters, but the number varies slightly in later versions. Twenty-four of the 41 original Glagolitic letters (see Great Moravian below) are probably derived from graphemes of the medieval cursive Greek small alphabet, but have been given an ornamental design. It is presumed that the letters sha, shta and tsi were derived from the Hebrew alphabet (the letters Shin and Tsadi) — the phonemes that these letters represent did not exist in Greek but do exist in Hebrew and are quite common in all Slavic languages. The remaining original characters are of unknown origin. Some of them are presumed to stem from the Hebrew and Samaritan scripts, which Cyril got to know during his journey to the Khazars in Cherson.

The Croatian Glagolitic alphabet has a long and interesting history of more than a thousand years. The Croats using the Glagolitic alphabet were the only nation in Europe who was given a special permission by Pope Innocent IV (in 1248) to use their own language and this script in liturgy. More precisely, this permission had formally been given to the bishop Philip of Senj.

Another theory (see Chernorizetz Hrabar) asserts that the Glagolitic alphabet was based on ancient Slavic runes (chərti i rezki, i.e., lines and notches), which like the Germanic runes were only used in sacred texts of the pre-Christian Slavic religion.

History

Rastislav, the Knyaz (Prince) of Great Moravia, wanted to weaken the dependence of his Slavic empire on East Frankish priests, so in 862 he had the Byzantine emperor send two missionaries, Saints Cyril and Methodius, to Great Moravia. Cyril created a new alphabet for that purpose: the Glagolitic. The alphabet was then used in Great Moravia between 863 (when Cyril and Methodius arrived there) and 885 for government and religious documents and books, and at the Great Moravian Academy (Veľkomoravské učilište) founded by Cyril, where followers of Cyril and Methodius were educated (also by Methodius himself).

In 886, an East Frankish bishop of Nitra named Wiching banned the script and jailed 200 followers of Methodius (mostly students of the original academy). They were then dispersed or, according to some sources, sold as slaves. Three of them, however, reached Bulgaria and were commissioned by Boris I of Bulgaria to teach and instruct the future clergy of the state into the Slavic languages. After the adoption of Christianity in Bulgaria in 865, religious ceremonies were conducted in Greek by clergy sent from the Byzantine Empire. Fearing growing Byzantine influence and weakening of the state, Boris viewed the introduction of the Slavic alphabet and language in church use as a way to preserve the independence of Bulgaria. As a result of Boris's measures, two academies in Ohrid and Preslav were founded.

From there, the students traveled to various other places and spread the use of their alphabet. Some went to Croatia and Dalmatia, where the squared variant arose and where the Glagolitic remained in use for a long time. In 1248, Pope Innocent IV gave the Croats the unique privilege of using their own language and this script in liturgy. Formally given to bishop Philip of Senj, the permission actually extended to all Croatian lands using the Glagolitic liturgy, mostly along the Adriatic coast. The Vatican had several Glagolitic missals published in Rome. It was eventually replaced with the Latin alphabet.

Some of the students of the Ohrid academy went to Bohemia where the alphabet was used in the 10th and 11th century, along with other scripts. Glagolitic was also used in Russia, although rarely.

At the end of the 9th century, one of these students of Methodius who was settled in Preslav (Bulgaria) created the Cyrillic alphabet, which almost entirely replaced the Glagolitic during the Middle Ages. The Cyrillic alphabet is derived from the Greek alphabet, with (at least 10) letters peculiar to Slavic languages being derived from the Glagolitic.

Nowadays, Glagolitic is only used for Church Slavonic and, sometimes, vernacular in the service-books of the Catholic Eparchy of Križevci in Croatia.

Names

The tradition that the alphabet was designed by Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius has not been universally accepted. A less common belief was that the Glagolitic was created by St. Jerome, hence the alphabet is sometimes named Hieronymian. It is also acrophonically called azbuki from the names of its first two letters, on the same model as 'alpha' + 'beta'. (See azbuka for the Cyrillic alphabet). The Slavs of Great Moravia (present-day Slovakia and Moravia), Hungary, Slovenia and Slavonia were called Slověne at that time, which gives rise to the name Slovenish for the alphabet. Some other, more rare, names for this alphabet are Bukvitsa and Illyrian.

The name "Glagolitic" is in Czech hlaholice, in Slovak hlaholika, in Polish głagolica, in Russian, Macedonian and Bulgarian глаго́лица (transliterated glagolitsa), in Croatian glagoljica, in Ukrainian глаголиця (transliterated hlaholytsia), in Belarusian глаголіца (transliterated hlaholitsa), in Slovenian glagolica,in Serbian глагољица/glagoljica etc.

Characteristics

The alphabet has two variants: round and square.The round variant is dominated by circles and smooth curves, and the square variant features a lot of right angles, and sometimes trapezoids.See an image of both variants (incomplete). Or for more detailsThe square variant lends itself to a more abundant use of ligatures than in the Latin or the Cyrillic script.

The following table lists each letter in order, giving a picture (round variant), its name, its approximate sound in IPA, the presumed origin (if applicable), and the corresponding modern Cyrillic letter. The names Jer to Jus are sometimes written Yer to Yus. There are several letters that have no modern counterpart, such as the nasal vowels .

Picture	Unicode character	Old Church Slavonic name	Church Slavonic name	Sound	Presumed origin! Descendant in modern slavic Cyrillic alphabets
Azu	Ⰰ	Az'	Az		The sign of the cross, or Hebrew Alef א	(А а) A
Bouky	Ⰱ	Buky	Buky		Unknown; Samaritan /m/ is the same letter mirrored	(Б б) Be
Vede	Ⰲ	Vede	Vedi		Probably from Latin V	(�' в) Ve
Glagolu	Ⰳ	Glagolji	Glagoli		(�" γ) Greek Gamma	(�" г) Ghe; see also (Ґ ґ) Ukrainian Ghe
Dobro	Ⰴ	Dobro	Dobro		(�" δ) Greek Delta (compare /v/ as /d/ turned upside down)	(�" д) De
Jestu	Ⰵ	Jest'	Jest		Probably Samaritan /he/ or Greek number sampi (900)	(Е е) Ye; see also (Э э) E and (Є �") Ukrainian Ye
Zhivete	Ⰶ	Zhivete	Zhivete		Probably Coptic janja (Ϫϫ)	(Ж ж) Zhe
Dzelo	Ⰷ	Dzelo	Dzelo		Probably Greek stigma (Ϛϛ)	(Ѕ ѕ)
Zemlja	Ⰸ	Zemlja	Zemlja		(Θ θ) Variant of Greek Theta	(З з) Ze
I , Izhe	Ⰺ, Ⰹ	Izhe	Izhe (Octal I)	,	(Ι ι) Greek Iota with dieresis	(И и) I; also (Й й) Short I
I	Ⰻ	[I]	I (Decimal I)	,	Source unknown, probably combination of Christian symbols circle and triangle	(І і) Belarusian/Ukrainian I; also (Ї, ї) Ukrainian Yi
Gjerv	Ⰼ	[Djerv']			Source unknown	(Ћ ћ) Serbian Tshe and later (Ђ �') Serbian Dje
Kako	Ⰽ	Kako	Kako		From Hebrew Qof ק	(К к) Ka
Ljudie	Ⰾ	Ljudije	Ljudi	,	(Λ λ) Greek Lambda	(Л л) El
Myslite	Ⰿ	Mislete	Mislete		(Μ μ) Greek Mu	(М м) Em
Nashi	Ⱀ	Nash'	Nash	,	Source unknown	(Н н) En
Onu	Ⱁ	On'	On		Source unknown	(О о) O
Pokoi	�'	Pokoji	Pokoj		(Π π) Greek Pi	(П п) Pe
Rici	�"	Rtsi	Rtsi		(Ρ ρ) Greek Rho	(Р р) Er
Slovo	�"	Slovo	Slovo		Source unknown, probably combination of Christian symbols circle and triangle	(С с) Es
Tvrido	Ⱅ	Tvrdo	Tverdo		(Τ τ) Greek Tau	(Т т) Te
Uku	Ⱆ	Uk'	Uk		Ligature of on and izhitsa	(У у) U
Fritu	Ⱇ	Frt'	Fert		(Φ φ) Greek Phi	(Ф ф) Ef
Heru	Ⱈ	Kher'	Kher		Unknown, compare /g/ and Latin h	(Х х) Ha
Otu	Ⱉ	Oht'	Oht, Omega		Ligature of on and its mirrored image	() Ot (obsolete)
Shta	Ⱋ	Shta	Shta		Ligature of Sha on top of Cherv (or of Tverdo, less probably)	(Щ щ) Shcha
Ci	Ⱌ	Tsi	Tsi		(ץ) Hebrew Tsade, final form	(Ц ц) Tse
Chrivi	Ⱍ	Chrv'	Cherv		(צ) Hebrew Tsade, non-final form	(Ч ч) Che
Sha	Ⱎ	Sha	Sha		(ש) Hebrew Shin ש	(Ш ш) Sha
Jeru	Ⱏ	Yer'	Yer		Probably modification of On	(Ъ ъ) hard sign
Jery	ⰟⰊ	Yery	Yery		Ligature, see the note under the table	(Ы ы) Yery
Jeri	Ⱐ	Yerj'	Yerj		Probably modification of On	(Ь ь) soft sign
Jati	Ⱑ	Yat'	Yat	,	Maybe from epigraphic Greek Alpha Α, or ligature of Greek E+I	() Yat (removed from Russian in 1917–1918, from Bulgarian in 1945)
	Ⱖ					() E iotified (a hypothetical form)
Jou	Ⱓ	Yu	Yu		Simplified ligature IOV	(Ю ю) Yu
Ensu (small jousu)	Ⱔ	[Ens']	Ya, Small Yus			() , later (Я я) Ya
Jensu (small jousu)	Ⱗ	[Yens']	[Small Iotified Yus]		Ligature of Jest and nasality	() (obsolete)
Onsu (big jousu)	Ⱘ	[Ons']	[Big Yus]		Ligature of On and nasality	() (removed from Bulgarian in 1945)
Jonsu (big jousu)	Ⱙ	[Yons']	[Big Iotified Yus]			() (removed from Bulgarian in 1910s)
Thita	Ⱚ	[Thita]	Fita		(Θ θ) Greek Theta	() Fita (removed from Russian in 1917–1918)
Yzhica	Ⱛ	Izhitsa	Izhitsa	,	Ligature of Izhe and Jer	() Izhitsa (officially obsolete in Russian since 1870s, but used till 1917–1918)

Note that Jery is simply a digraph of Jer and I.The order of Izhe and I varies from source to source, as does the order of the various forms of Jus.

Unicode

The Glagolitic alphabet was added to Unicode in version 4.1. The codepoint range is U+2C00 – U+2C5E. See also:
* Glagolitic code chart

In popular culture

In Western Europe, Glagolitic is one of the least known Eastern European alphabets. It also has a particularly exotic appearance to Western eyes, as (unlike Cyrillic or Greek) none of the letters bear any resemblance to Roman letters. It may be for this reason that Glagolitic was selected as the script used by an extraterrestrial species in the 3-D IMAX movie, Alien Adventure. Not only did the aliens write in Glagolitic, but their leader was called "Cyrillus" (However, the alien language was unrelated to Slavonic, as in fact they spoke the Walloon language, a dialect from the production company's homeland, Belgium).

Trivia

In Istria, a road connecting the hill towns of Roč and Hum is known as the "Glagolitic Avenue." Along this road is a series of 1970's-era monuments to the Glagolitic alphabet. The town of Hum also contains many examples of Glagolitic script on various monuments in its walls.

Perhaps the most well-known public display of Glagolitic script is found in the cathedral at Zagreb.

See also

* Glagolitic Mass
* Glagolitic Alphabet Day

External links

* Croatian Glagolitic Script
* Croatian Glagolitic Script
* The Glagolitic alphabet at omniglot.com
* The Budapest Glagolitic Fragments - links to a Unicode Glagolitic font, Dilyana
* Glagolitic Fonts

Literature

* Fucic, Branko: Glagoljski natpisi. (In: Djela Jugoslavenske Akademije Znanosti i Umjetnosti, knjiga 57.) Zagreb, 1982. 420 p.
* Fullerton, Sharon Golke: Paleographic Methods Used in Dating Cyrillic and Glagolitic Slavic Manuscripts. (In: Slavic Papers No. 1.) Ohio, 1975. 93 p.
* Gosev, Ivan: Rilszki glagolicseszki lisztove. Szofia, 1956. 130 p.
* Jachnow, Helmut: Eine neue Hypothese zur Provenienz der glagolitischen Schrift - Überlegungen zum 1100. Todesjahr des Methodios von Saloniki. In: R. Rathmayr (Hrsg.): Slavistische Linguistik 1985, München 1986, 69-93.
* Jagic, Vatroslav: Glagolitica. Würdigung neuentdeckter Fragmente, Wien, 1890.
* Kiparsky, Valentin: Tschernochvostoffs Theorie über den Ursprung des glagolitischen Alphabets In: M. Hellmann u.a. (Hrsg.): Cyrillo-Methodiana. Zur Frühgeschichte des Christentums bei den Slaven, Köln 1964, 393-400.
* Miklas, Heinz (Hrsg.): Glagolitica: zum Ursprung der slavischen Schriftkultur, Wien, 2000.
* Steller, Lea-Katharina (geb. Virághalmy): A glagolita írás In: Paleográfiai kalandozások. Szentendre, 1995. ISBN 9634509223
* Vais, Joseph: Abecedarivm Palaeoslovenicvm in usum glagolitarum. Veglae, [Krk], 1917. XXXVI, 74 p.
* Vajs, Josef: Rukovet hlaholske paleografie. Uvedení do knizního písma hlaholskeho. V Praze, 1932. 178 p, LIV. tab.