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The Cyrillic alphabet was created by St. Cyril and his brother St. Methodius, who were Byzantine missionaries and were sent to convert the Slavs to Christianity.\u00a0 The original alphabet was known as Glagolitic from which modern day Cyrillic evolved.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Glagolitic alphabet<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Cursive version of the Glagolitic alphabet<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0 http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/writing\/glagolitic.htm<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a01918 version<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0 The names of the letters are in Russian.<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/writing\/cyrillic.htm<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Languages written with the Cyrillic alphabet<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Abaza<\/a>, Abkhaz<\/a>, Adyghe<\/a>, Archi<\/a>, Avar<\/a>, Azeri<\/a>, Balkar<\/a>, Bashkir<\/a>, Belarusian<\/a>, Bulgarian<\/a>, Buryat<\/a>, Chechen<\/a>, Chukchi<\/a>, Church Slavonic<\/a>, Chuvash<\/a>, Dargwa<\/a>, Dungan<\/a>, Erzya<\/a>, Even<\/a>, Evenki<\/a>, Gagauz<\/a>, Ingush<\/a>, Kabardian<\/a>, Kalmyk<\/a>, Karakalpak<\/a>, Kazakh<\/a>, Komi<\/a>, Koryak<\/a>, Kumyk<\/a>, Kurdish<\/a>, Kyrghyz<\/a>, Laz<\/a>, Lak<\/a>, Lezgi<\/a>, Lingua Franca Nova<\/a>, Macedonian<\/a>, Mansi<\/a>, Mari<\/a>, Moksha<\/a>, Moldovan<\/a>, Mongolian<\/a>, Nanai<\/a>, Nenets<\/a>, Nivkh<\/a>, Old Church Slavonic<\/a>, Ossetian<\/a>, Russian<\/a>, Ruthenian<\/a>, Serbian<\/a>, Slovio<\/a>, Tabassaran<\/a>, Tajik<\/a>, Tatar<\/a>, Turkmen<\/a>, Tuvan<\/a>, Tsez<\/a>, Udmurt<\/a>, Ukrainian<\/a>, Uyghur<\/a>, Uzbek<\/a>, Votic<\/a>, Yakut<\/a>, Yukaghir<\/a>, Yupik<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/writing\/cyrillic.htm<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In the early centuries, the Christian missionaries had difficulties in converting eastern Slavs to Christianity due to language barriers.\u00a0 The western missionaries were using Latin and the eastern missionaries were using Greek but both were foreign to the Slavs.\u00a0 St. Cyril (827-869 AD) developed the Glagolitic\/Cyrillic script which made the conversion process much simpler.\u00a0 The brothers modeled Glagolitic alphabet on a cursive form of Greek.\u00a0 The Glagolitic alphabet evolved into Old Church Slavonic which \u201cwas used as the liturgical language of the Russian Orthodox Church between the 9th<\/sup> and the 12the centuries.\u201d (Blech, 2008) \u00a0Currently the Russian Orthodox Church uses Church Slavonic which appeared during the 14th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 There are some speculations that the Old Church Slavonic may have been invented by St. Kliment of Ohrid based on the Glagolitic alphabet.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The current form of the Cyrillic alphabet came into being in 1708 during Peter the Great\u2019s westernization and secularization campaigns.\u00a0 The newly modified alphabet was known as grazhdanka.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The 1917 Russian revolution paved the way for the inception of the Soviet Union in 1922 which united several republics under one umbrella. After 1922, the authorities decided to eradicate the use of the Arabic alphabet in Turkic and Persian languages in the Soviet-controlled Central Asia, in the Volga region, including Tatarstan, and in the Caucasus.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n This drastic change was well thought out because it detached the local population from the exposure to the language and writing system of the Koran.\u00a0 This served a twofold purpose of curbing religious activities and further separating the local population from their ethnically closer groups in other Middle Eastern countries.\u00a0 As well it prevented the \u201cformation of alternative ethnically based political movements, including pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0(Absoluteastronomy, 2009)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n A very effective way of accomplishing this was to \u201cpromote what some regard as artificial distinctions between ethnic groups and languages rather than promoting amalgamation of these groups and a common set of languages based on Turkish or another regional language.\u201d \u00a0(Absoluteastronomy, 2009)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The new alphabet was inspired by the Turkish alphabet and was based on the Latin alphabet.\u00a0 However, in 1939-1940, the policy changed and it was decided to change Tatar, Kazakh, Uzbek, Turkmen, Tajik, Kyrgyz, Azeri and Bashkir languages and make them use variations of the Cyrillic alphabet.\u00a0 It was claimed that the switch was made \u201cby the demands of the working class.\u201d \u00a0(Absoluteastronomy, 2009)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In the Soviet Union the Latin alphabet was first officially introduced in Soviet Azerbaijan in 1925 13, and a \u201cUnified Turkic Latin Alphabet\u201d for all the Turkic languages of Soviet Central Asia followed between 1927 and 1930. In the second half of the 1930s the policy was changed, and a campaign began to introduce, in place of the unified Latin alphabet, several Cyrillic alphabets somewhat different for each Turkic language. For instance, the Cyrillic alphabet for the Uighur language consisted of 41 letters \u2013 the Latin one being of 32. (Winner, 1952)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Since the Soviet government decided that a nation was defined by the existence of a language, a language had to be selected each time it was decided that there was to be a nation.\u00a0 This activity produced considerable problems.\u00a0 One of the major ones was the fact that dialectic differences had to be accentuated between the populations of a single linguistic area.\u00a0 Each nation was constructed on the basis of difference.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The most ludicrous case was the separation created between Tajik and Persian.\u00a0 The Tajik used literary Persian as their written language.\u00a0 There exists a perfect comprehensibility between the literary languages current in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan.\u00a0 However, in their daily lives the Persian speakers of Central Asia use dialects which vary considerably.\u00a0 The relationship between Iranian and Tajik Persian is similar to the relationship between Persian French and Quebecois.\u00a0 Russian linguists had to formalize and fix differences and to invent a modern literary Tajik language.\u00a0 Instead of taking one of the existing Tajik dialects as their standard, they created an artificial language which combined characteristics from different regions.\u00a0 They kept the phonological system of Old Persian, but adopted grammatical variations which highlighted the difference with Iran.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Uzbek was also severely manipulated.\u00a0 It was linked with Kazakh and Tatar which have the least similarities with Uzbek. \u00a0Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan were quick to adopt Latin script, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan delayed the switchover, and both still use Cyrillic.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The situation is different for the Turkic-speaking peoples of the Soviet Union. The use of vari\u00adous modified Cyrillic alphabets, in this case with variations for the Azeri, Kazakh, Turkmen, Kyrgyz languages, was the norm at the time of the break-up of the Soviet Union. Nowadays the vari\u00adous independent states each go their separate ways: in Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan a modified Latin alphabet is used, while in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan the Cyrillic ones are still used. Obviously to some extent these choices reflect the political relationships that exist, or are desired, with Russia and Turkey.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The 20th century is one in which national languages have rapidly developed and increased in number. If we speak about European national languages, they have increased nearly threefold (from 16 to 50) in something more than 100 years. In Central Asia, if only the Turkic language writing systems are taken into consideration, the unified literary language (Chagatay Turkic) developed into 30 different literary languages.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Ong asserts that \u201cmore than any other single invention, writing has transformed human consciousness.\u201d (Ong, 2000, p.77)\u00a0 He further states that \u201cwriting establishes what has been called \u2018context-free\u2019 language\u00a0 \u2026\u00a0 or \u2018autonomous \u2018 discourse, discourse which cannot be directly questioned or contested as oral speech can be because written discourse has been detached from its author.\u201d (Ong, 2000, p.77)\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The result of this manipulation of languages was loss of local languages and cultures.\u00a0 The official policy of sending Russians to non-Russian speaking republics resulted in the local population adopting Russian language and culture while Russian people did not learn local languages or partake in the local cultures.\u00a0 To do so was considered backward. \u00a0When non-Russian speakers moved to another non-Russian republic, they learned Russian instead of the local language.\u00a0 For example 57% of Estonia\u2019s Ukrainians and 70% of Estonia\u2019s Belarusians claimed Russian to be their native language in the 1989 Soviet census.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Patterns of linguistic and ethnic assimilation (Russification) were complex and cannot be accounted for by any single factor such as educational policy. Also relevant were the traditional cultures and religions of the groups, their residence in urban or rural areas, their contact with and exposure to Russian language and to ethnic Russians, and other factors.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n There is strong evidence to suggest that language was viewed as the first attack in the government\u2019s Russification policy because it is very closely tied with who we are, individual identity and the identity of a group.\u00a0 Changing a language eventually brings about changes in culture and thinking.\u00a0 Changing a script in a particular language to another aligns that language and culture with the dominant culture.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n References<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Absolute Astromony: Exploring the Universe of Knowledge. (2009)\u00a0 Russification.\u00a0 Retrieved October 3, 2009, from http:\/\/www.absoluteastronomy.com\/topics\/Russification<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Allworth, A. Ed. (2002).\u00a0 130 Years of Russian Dominance, A Historical Overview<\/em> . Duke University Press. Retrieved October 2, 2009, from Google Books http:\/\/books.google.ca\/books?hl=en&lr=&id=X2XpddVB0l0C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=use+of+cyrillic+alphabet+in+central+asia&ots=-95SLd9pSF&sig=QTiOnWJkrczLApCu-d6ffsl9aEM#v=onepage&q=use%20of%20cyrillic%20alphabet%20in%20central%20asia&f=false<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Blech, A. (2008) The Russian Orthodox Church: History and Influences. \u00a0Retrieved October 23, 2009, from http:\/\/www.utexas.edu\/cola\/centers\/creees\/_files\/pdf\/curriculum\/CREEES-developed-units\/russian_orthodox.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Bodrogligeti, A. (1993). Dissolution of the Soviet Union: The Question of Alphabet Reform for the Turkic Republics.\u00a0 Azerbaijan International<\/em>, 1.3, 16-17.\u00a0 Retrieved October 28, 2009 from http:\/\/azer.com\/aiweb\/categories\/magazine\/13_folder\/13_articles\/13_sovietunion.html<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Borbone, G. P.(2007). \u00a0Choice of Script as a Mark of Cultural or\/and National Identity. Retrieved October 18, 2009, from http:\/\/www.stm.unipi.it\/programmasocrates\/cliohnet\/books\/language2\/02_Borbone%201.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Burghart, D. L., (?\/) In the Tracks of Tamerlane: Central Asia\u2019s Path to the 21st<\/sup> Century.\u00a0 Retrieved October 5, 2009, from http:\/\/ndu.edu\/CTNSP\/tamerlane\/Tamerlane-Chapter1.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Eurasia Insight. (2006)\u00a0 President Ponders Alphabet Change in Kazakhstan.\u00a0 Retrieved October 24, 2009, from http:\/\/www.eurasianet.org\/departments\/insight\/articles\/eav111706b.shtml<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Omniglot: Writing Systems and Languages of the World. (2009). Retrieved October 27, 2009, fromhttp:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/writing\/glagolitic.htm<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/writing\/glagolitic_all.gif\" "\\"Glagolitic")
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<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/writing\/cyrillic_1918.gif\" "\\"Cyrillic")
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