Cyrillic Alphabet

Cyrillic Alphabet, alphabet developed in the 9th century for the use of Eastern Orthodox Slavs. It was based on Greek characters, and with modifications it constitutes the present Russian, Ukrainian, White Russian, Serbian, and Bulgarian alphabets, and is used for many other Eastern European languages by different ethnic groups. It is based on the Greek uncial script of the 9th century and consisted of 43 letters, derived from Greek or Hebrew letters. Although it was traditionally ascribed to St Cyril, scholars now believe that the Cyrillic alphabet was devised by one of Cyril's followers. It is related to the Glagolitic alphabet (also attributed to St Cyril) used by Roman Catholic Slavs until the 17th century and surviving today only in the Slavonic liturgy of some Roman Catholic communities in the Balkan Peninsula. The modern Cyrillic alphabet has lost some of the superfluous letters: modern Russian has 32 letters (or 33 if the letter representing 'ë' is included), Bulgarian 30, Serbian 30, and Ukrainian 33.