Alphabet (Cyrillic and Glagolitic) - a collection in a certain order of all signs expressing individual sounds of the language. This system of written symbols has received rather independent development in the territory of the ancient peoples. The Slavic alphabet "Glagolitic", presumably, was created first. What is the secret of the ancient collection of written characters? What was the Glagolitic and Cyrillic? What is the meaning of the main characters? About it further.
Mystery of the written symbol system
As you know, Cyrillic and Glagolitic are Slavic alphabets. The very name of the meeting came from the combination of "az" and "beeches." These characters designated the first two letters "A" and "B". A rather interesting historical fact should be noted. Ancient letters were scratched initially on the walls. That is, all the characters were presented in the form of graffiti. Around the 9th century, the first symbols appeared on the walls of the temples of Pereslavl. Two centuries later, the Cyrillic alphabet (pictures and interpretation of signs) was inscribed in the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev.
Russian Cyrillic
It should be said that this collection of ancient written symbols even today corresponds well to the phonetic structure of the Russian language. This is primarily due to the fact that the sound composition of modern and ancient vocabulary had not so many differences, and all of them were not significant. In addition, we must pay tribute to the compiler of the system - Konstantin. The author carefully considered the phonemic (sound) composition of old speech. The composition of the Cyrillic alphabet contains only capital letters. A variety of signs - uppercase and lowercase characters - were first introduced by Peter in 1710.
Key signs
The letter of the Cyrillic alphabet "az" was the initial. She denoted the pronoun "I". But the root meaning of this symbol is the word “originally”, “beginning” or “starting”. In some letters, you can find "az", used in the meaning of "one" (as a numeral). The Cyrillic letter “beeches” is the second character of the collection of characters. Unlike "az", it does not have a numerical value. “Beeches” is “to be” or “will be”. But, as a rule, this symbol was used in future tenses. For example, “Boudy” means “let it be”, and “upcoming or future” - “beauchy”. The Cyrillic letter “lead” is considered one of the most interesting of the entire collection. This symbol corresponds to the number 2. "Vedi" has several meanings - "own", "know" and "know."
The upper part of the written system
It should be said that the researchers, studying the outlines of the characters, came to the conclusion that they were quite simple and understandable, which allowed them to be widely used in cursive writing. In addition, any Slav could easily depict them without any special difficulties. Many philosophers, meanwhile, see the principle of harmony and triad in the numerical arrangement of symbols. It is precisely this that a person must reach, seeking to know the truth, goodness and light.
Message of Constantine to the descendants
It should be said that the Cyrillic alphabet and the Glagolitic alphabet were an invaluable creation. Konstantin, together with his brother Methodius, not only structured the written signs, but created a unique collection of knowledge that called for striving for knowledge, perfection, love and wisdom, bypassing enmity, anger, envy, and leaving only the bright in yourself. At one time it was believed that the Cyrillic alphabet and the Glagolitic alphabet were created almost simultaneously. However, this was not the case. According to a number of ancient sources, the first all the same was the Glagolitic alphabet. It was this collection that was first used in the translation of church texts.
Glagolitic and Cyrillic. Comparison Facts
Cyrillic and Glagolitic were created at different times. This is indicated by several facts. The Glagolitic alphabet, along with the Greek alphabet, became the basis for the subsequent compilation of the Cyrillic alphabet. When studying the first collection of written signs, scientists note that the mark is more archaic (in particular, in the study of the "Kiev leafs" of the 10th century). While Cyrillic, as mentioned above, is phonetically more close to modern language. The first records in the form of a graphic image of written symbols are dated 893 and are close to the sound and lexical structure of the language of the southern ancient peoples. The Palimpses, which are manuscripts on parchment, where the old text is scraped off and the new one is written on top, also indicate great antiquity of the Glagolitic alphabet. Everywhere the glagolitic alphabet was scraped off in them, and then Cyrillic was inscribed on top of it. Not a single palimpsest had the opposite.
Catholic church attitude
In the literature there is evidence that the first collection of written symbols was compiled by Konstantin the Philosopher on one ancient runic letter. It is believed that it could be used by the Slavs for secular and sacred pagan purposes before Christianity was adopted. But however, there is no evidence for this, as, in fact, confirmation of the existence of runic writing. The Roman Catholic Church, which opposed the provision of services in the Slavic language for the Croats, characterized the Glagolitic as "Gothic writing." Some ministers openly opposed the new alphabet, saying that he was coined by the heretic Methodius, who "wrote in that Slavic language a lot of falsehood against the Catholic faith."
Character appearance
The letters of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic letters differed from each other in style. In the earlier written system, the appearance of the signs at some points coincides with the hutsuri (Georgian letters created before the 9th century, based on, possibly, Armenian). The number of letters in both the alphabet coincides - 38. Some symbols individually and the entire system of "drawing up" small circles at the ends of lines, in general, have a pronounced resemblance to Jewish medieval Kabbalistic fonts and "runic" Icelandic cryptography. All these facts may not be accidental at all, since there is evidence that Konstantin the Philosopher read ancient Jewish texts in the original, that is, he was familiar with oriental writings (this is stated in his "life"). The inscription of almost all the letters of the Glagolitic alphabet, as a rule, is derived from Greek cursive writing. For non-Greek characters use the Jewish system. But meanwhile, there are almost no exact and concrete explanations for the shape of the forms for any symbol.
Matches & Differences
Cyrillic and Glagolitic in their oldest versions almost completely coincide in their composition. Only the shape of the characters is different. When reprinting the typographic method of glagolic texts, the characters are replaced with Cyrillic. This is primarily due to the fact that today few people can recognize a more ancient style. But when replacing one alphabet with another, the numerical values of the letters do not match. In some cases, this leads to misunderstandings. So, for example, in the glagolitic the numbers correspond to the order of the letters themselves, and in the Cyrillic alphabet the numbers are tied to those in the Greek alphabet.
The purpose of the ancient letter
As a rule, they speak of two types of glagolic writing. Distinguish between the more ancient "round", also known as "Bulgarian", and the late "angular" or "Croatian" (so named because it was used in worship by Croatian Catholics until the middle of the 20th century). The number of characters in the latter gradually decreased from 41 to 30 characters. In addition, there was (along with the charter book) italics. Glagolitic in Ancient Russia was practically never used - in some cases, there are separate "interspersed" verbal text fragments in Cyrillic. The ancient letter was primarily intended for the transfer (translation) of church meetings, and the surviving early Russian monuments of everyday writing until the time of the adoption of Christianity (the oldest inscription is the inscription of the 1st half of the 10th century on a pot found on the Gnezdovo mound) are executed in Cyrillic .
Theoretical assumptions about the primacy of the creation of ancient writing
In favor of the fact that the Cyrillic alphabet and the Glagolitic alphabet were created at different times, several facts speak. Moreover, the first was created on the basis of the second. The most ancient monument of Slavic writing is composed by the glagolitic. Later finds contain more advanced texts. Cyrillic manuscripts, in addition, according to a number of signs are copied from the Glagolic. In the first, grammar, spelling and syllable are presented in a more perfect form. When analyzing handwritten texts, a direct dependence of the Cyrillic alphabet on glagolic writing is visible. So, the letters of the latter were replaced by similar Greek letters in sound . In the study of more modern texts, chronological errors are observed. This is due to the fact that the Cyrillic alphabet and the Glagolitic alphabet assumed a different system of numerical correspondences. The numerical values of the first were oriented to Greek writing.
What system of written characters did Konstantin compose?
According to some authors, it was believed that the Philosopher first composed a glagolitic, and then, with the help of his brother Methodius, a Cyrillic alphabet. However, there is evidence to refute this. Constantine knew and loved Greek very much. In addition, he was a missionary of the Orthodox Eastern Church. At that time, his task was to attract the Slavic people to the Greek church. In this regard, it did not make sense for him to draw up a written system that separates nationalities, which complicates the perception and understanding of Scripture by those who already knew the Greek language. After creating a new, more advanced writing system, it was difficult to imagine that the ancient archaic writing would become more popular. Cyrillic alphabet was more understandable, simple, beautiful and clear. She was comfortable for most people. While the Glagolitic had a narrow focus and was intended to interpret sacred liturgical books. All this indicates that Constantine was engaged in the compilation of a system based on the Greek language. And subsequently the Cyrillic alphabet, as a more convenient and simple system, replaced the glagolitic.
Opinions of some researchers
Sreznevsky in 1848 wrote in his works that, evaluating the features of many Glagolic symbols, we can conclude: this letter is more archaic, and the Cyrillic alphabet is more perfect. The kinship of these systems can be traced in a certain lettering, sound. But at the same time, Cyrillic has become more simple and convenient. In 1766, Count Clement Grubisic published a book on the origin of written sign systems. In his work, the author claims that the Glagolitic alphabet was created long before Christmas and therefore is a much more ancient collection of signs than the Cyrillic alphabet. Around the year 1640, Rafail Lenakovich wrote a “dialogue”, where he claims almost the same as Grubisich, but almost 125 years earlier. There are also statements by Chernoriz Khrabr (beginning of the 10th century). In his work "On Writings", he emphasizes that the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet have significant differences. In his texts, Chernoriz the Brave testifies to the existing dissatisfaction with the system of written signs created by the brothers Konstantin and Methodius. Moreover, the author clearly indicates that it was a Cyrillic alphabet, not a Glagolitic one, saying that the first was created before the second. Some of the researchers, evaluating the styles of some signs ("u", for example), draw other conclusions than those described above. So, according to some authors, the Cyrillic alphabet was first created, and then the Glagolitic alphabet.
Conclusion
Despite a fairly large number of controversial opinions about the appearance of the Glagolitic and Cyrillic scripts, the importance of the compiled system of written signs is enormous. Thanks to the emergence of a collection of handwritten characters, people were able to read and write. In addition, the creation of the brothers Constantine and Methodius was an invaluable source of knowledge. A literary language was formed along with the alphabet. Many words are found today in various related dialects - Russian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian and other languages. Along with the new system of written symbols, the perception of people of antiquity has also changed - after all, the creation of the Slavic alphabet was closely connected with the adoption and spread of the Christian faith, the rejection of ancient primitive cults.