The Cyrillic alphabet

The Cyrillic script was developed in the 9th century by the disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius, two Byzantine Greek brothers who created the Glagolitic alphabet to help spread Christianity among the Slavic peoples.

Later, in the 10th century, the Cyrillic alphabet emerged in the First Bulgarian Empire, adapting elements of the Greek alphabet and some letters from Glagolitic to better suit the Slavic language.

The Cyrillic script spread across Eastern Europe and Asia, being adapted for different languages. Today, it is used in Slavic languages and some non-Slavic languages in Eurasia.

Cyrillic is used as an official script in many countries:

• • Russia (Русский)
• • Ukraine (Українська)
• • Belarus (Беларуская)
• • Bulgaria (Български)
• • Serbia (Српски)
• • North Macedonia (Македонски)
• • Montenegro (Црногорски)
• • Kyrgyzstan (Кыргыз)
• • Mongolia (Монгол)
• • Tajikistan (Тоҷикӣ)
• • Kazakhstan (Қазақ) *transitioning to Latin
• • Uzbekistan (Узбек) *used before switching to Latin

The classical Cyrillic alphabet is based on Russian Cyrillic, consisting of 33 letters. Other languages modify this with extra letters or remove certain ones.

Ukrainian Cyrillic, 33 letters

• • Ґ ґ (g) is added for a distinct "h"-like sound.
• • Є є replaces "Е" in certain cases.
• • Ї ї (yi) and І і (i) replace Russian Ы.
• • Soft sign Ь is used more frequently.

Belarusian Cyrillic, 32 letters

• • Ў ў (similar to English "w") is unique to Belarusian.
• • No Ё ё.
• • Uses І і instead of Ы like Ukrainian.

Bulgarian Cyrillic, 30 letters

• • No Ё, Ы, Э, or Й.
• • Uses Ъ ъ differently, as a distinct vowel (hard "a").

Serbian Cyrillic, 30 letters

• • J j is included like Latin script.
• • Љ љ, Њ њ, Ђ ђ, Ћ ћ, Џ џ are unique Serbian letters.
• • No Ы, Э, Ё, Щ.

Kazakh Cyrillic, 42 letters

• • Includes Қ қ, Ә ә, Ң ң, Ғ ғ for Kazakh phonetics.
• • Cyrillic will be replaced by Latin by 2031.