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Glagolitic alphabet

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The Glagolitic alphabet is an alphabet created by Saint Cyril in order to translate the Bible into the Slavonic language. It is also called Glagolitsa, Bukvitsa, Hieronymian, Illyrian, and Slovenish.

The Glagolitic alphabet was almost entirely replaced during the Middle Ages by its descendant, the Cyrillic alphabet. Nowadays, it's only used for Old Church Slavonic in the service-books of Dalmatian Roman Catholics of the Slavonic rite[?].

While based mainly on mediaeval Greek, there are some letters of uncertain or unknown origin. Even the tradition that the alphabet was designed by the Greek monks Saint Cyrcil and Saint Methodius is not universally accepted. A less common belief is that the Glagolitic was created by St. Jerome, hence the name Hieronymian.

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) (http://kodeks.uni-bamberg.de/AKSL/Schrift/GlagolVergleichAlphabet.htm).

The name comes from the Slavonic glagol, meaning word (which was also the name for the letter "G"). Since glagolati also means to speak, the Glagolitsa are poetically referred to as "the marks that speak".

The following table lists each letter in order, giving a picture (round variant), its name, its approximate sound in SAMPA, the Greek letter that it was used to transliterate (if applicable), and the modern Cyrillic letter that it directly gave rise to (if any).

PictureNameSoundRelation to GreekRelation to modern Cyrillic
AzAz/a/AlphaA
BukiBuki/b/Be
VediVedi/v/BetaVe
GlagolGlagol/g/GammaGhe
DobroDobro/d/DeltaDe
JestJest/E/EpsilonE
ZhiveteZhivete/Z/Zhe
DzeloDzelo/dz/Macedonian Dze
ZemljaZemlja/z/ZetaZe
IzheIzhe/i/EtaI
II/i/IotaUkrainian I
DzhervDzherv/dZ/Serbian Šerv
KakoKako/k/KappaKa
LjudiLjudi/l/LambdaEl
MisleteMislete/m/MuEm
NashNash/n/NuEn
OnOn/O/OmicronO
PokojPokoj/p/PiPe
RtsiRtsi/r/RhoEr
SlovoSlovo/s/SigmaEs
TverdoTverdo/t/TauTe
UkUk/u/Omicron UpsilonU
FertFert/f/PhiEf
KherKher/x/ChiHa
OhtOht/o/OmegaOnly used to transcribe Greek
TsiTsi/ts/Tse
ChervCherv/tS/Che
ShaSha/S/Sha
ShtaShta/St/Shcha
JerJer/w/, /@/The hard sign
JeryJery/1/Jery
JerjJerj/j/The soft sign
JatJat/j{/Removed from Bulgarian in 1945
GlagolitsaJot.gif?/jO/Obsolete
JuJu/ju/Ju
Jus MalijJus Malij/E~/Obsolete
Jus Malij JotirovannijJus Malij Jotirovannij/jE~/Obsolete
Jus BolshojJus Bolshoj/O~/Obsolete
Jus Bolshoj JotirovannijJus Bolshoj Jotirovannij/jO~/Obsolete
ThitaThita/f/ThetaOnly used to transcribe Greek
IzhitsaIzhitsa/v/, /i/UpsilonRemoved from Russian in 1917

I'm not sure of the name of the letter between Jat and Ju.

Note that Jery is simply a ligature 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.

wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump