Live data from Hacker News

Inventing Cyrillic (2024)

historytoday.com

11–20 of 122 posts

Re: Inventing Cyrillic (2024)

#11
post #5

This is an article with a long introduction and then jumps straight to the point in one, final paragraph: Russia is abusing it for political messaging again. While yes, any tool will be abused like this, it really is also a tool to best codify spoken language of the Slavs (in a sense, it is trivially provable that Cyrillic script is better adapted even to languages which do not use it today, but have to resort to dig…

> is trivially provable that Cyrillic script is better adapted even to languages which do not use it today, but have to resort to digraphs or glyphs with diacritics

Take a look at the Cyrillic section of Unicode to see your trivially provable claim being trivially disproven. You'll see all the same digraphs, glyphs, accents, graves etc. as used in Latin scripts.

It's also easy to see it easily disproven if you look at all the languages USSR forced cyrillic alphabet on.

Re: Inventing Cyrillic (2024)

#12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, it was also a derivative of Greek, but the cursive version. It's harder to write, but apart from that, I like it. Ⱂⱃⰺⰲⰵⱅ, ⱂⰺⱎⰺⱅⰵ Ⰳⰾⰰⰳⱁⰾⰺⱌⰵⰻ!

This is a novel claim to me. I don't think Glagolitic looks particularly like cursive Greek, and I haven't seen this idea in scholarship. What is your source for it?

Селищев А.М. Старославянский язык, 1951, страница 39 https://maxbooks.ru/images/slavimg/52.jpg

Selischev A.M. Old Slavonic Language, 1951. Page 39. https://www.academia.edu/126241874/%D0%90_%D0%9C_%D0%A1%D0%B... (PDF downloadable)

Re: Inventing Cyrillic (2024)

#13
Glagolitic was created by Cyril and Methodius which was the precursor for Cyrillic. Whether they were Greek or Bulgarian is still in contention, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that Cyrillic itself was created later by students of theirs in Bulgaria at the Preslav Literary School.

On the political aspect Russia has always hated the fact that small Bulgaria gave them their alphabet/culture and has used it's influence to bitch, moan and subjugate ever since. Most recent rage bait is with bullshit like saying that it's actually from (the country now known as) North Macedonia.

Re: Inventing Cyrillic (2024)

#14
post #11
post #5

This is an article with a long introduction and then jumps straight to the point in one, final paragraph: Russia is abusing it for political messaging again. While yes, any tool will be abused like this, it really is also a tool to best codify spoken language of the Slavs (in a sense, it is trivially provable that Cyrillic script is better adapted even to languages which do not use it today, but have to resort to dig…

> is trivially provable that Cyrillic script is better adapted even to languages which do not use it today, but have to resort to digraphs or glyphs with diacritics Take a look at the Cyrillic section of Unicode to see your trivially provable claim being trivially disproven. You'll see all the same digraphs, glyphs, accents, graves etc. as used in Latin scripts. It's also easy to see it easily disproven if you look a…

To be fair, the parent post was clearly talking about Slavic languages, not "all the languages USSR forced cyrillic alphabet on", which were not Slavic and which required significant modifications to the alphabet.

Re: Inventing Cyrillic (2024)

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No idea where you're getting it from, Germans are Nemci in Russian as well. It's rather "unable to speak the language ", meant for all foreigners but later stuck to Germans, presumably because German traders were the most common foreigners.

> Germans are Nemci in Russian as well I wanted to check; are you implying that Russian is not a Slavic language?

No, GP is saying that Russian uses the Latin root for Germans, I'm saying it doesn't. (it does for Germany though: "Germaniya").

Re: Inventing Cyrillic (2024)

#16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a novel claim to me. I don't think Glagolitic looks particularly like cursive Greek, and I haven't seen this idea in scholarship. What is your source for it?

Селищев А.М. Старославянский язык, 1951, страница 39 https://maxbooks.ru/images/slavimg/52.jpg Selischev A.M. Old Slavonic Language, 1951. Page 39. https://www.academia.edu/126241874/%D0%90_%D0%9C_%D0%A1%D0%B... (PDF downloadable)

I guess I don't see this idea around because it wasn't good enough to survive the early 1950s? I am looking at the tables, and while I can see the resemblance in some places, it's quite a significant stretch in others. The fact that the Glagolitic and Greek examples are cherry-picked from different manuscripts with different styles doesn't help.

Re: Inventing Cyrillic (2024)

#17
post #5

This is an article with a long introduction and then jumps straight to the point in one, final paragraph: Russia is abusing it for political messaging again. While yes, any tool will be abused like this, it really is also a tool to best codify spoken language of the Slavs (in a sense, it is trivially provable that Cyrillic script is better adapted even to languages which do not use it today, but have to resort to dig…

No idea where you're getting it from, Germans are Nemci in Russian as well. It's rather "unable to speak the language ", meant for all foreigners but later stuck to Germans, presumably because German traders were the most common foreigners.

Apologies, it was mostly from running across different Russian maps with Германия that I took it as such (in Serbian it is Немачка). I stand corrected!

Nem/нем literally means "mute" in Serbian, perhaps it's a latter evolution per region either way.

Re: Inventing Cyrillic (2024)

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Селищев А.М. Старославянский язык, 1951, страница 39 https://maxbooks.ru/images/slavimg/52.jpg Selischev A.M. Old Slavonic Language, 1951. Page 39. https://www.academia.edu/126241874/%D0%90_%D0%9C_%D0%A1%D0%B... (PDF downloadable)

I guess I don't see this idea around because it wasn't good enough to survive the early 1950s? I am looking at the tables, and while I can see the resemblance in some places, it's quite a significant stretch in others. The fact that the Glagolitic and Greek examples are cherry-picked from different manuscripts with different styles doesn't help.

Oh, I see. Good point, thanks.

Re: Inventing Cyrillic (2024)

#19
post #13

Glagolitic was created by Cyril and Methodius which was the precursor for Cyrillic. Whether they were Greek or Bulgarian is still in contention, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that Cyrillic itself was created later by students of theirs in Bulgaria at the Preslav Literary School. On the political aspect Russia has always hated the fact that small Bulgaria gave them their alphabet/culture and has used it's i…

>> Russia has always hated the fact that small Bulgaria gave them their alphabet

The wording is entirely accurate, since even during the Roman Empire, the region where Sts. Cyril and Methodius were later born and worked was known as Macedonia. And, of course, no one in Russia is trying to deny the contribution of the First Bulgarian Empire to the creation of the Slavic alphabet, since that would contradict historical facts.

148 years ago, in December 1877, Russian troops dealt a severe insult to the Bulgarian people by driving the civilized and enlightened Turkish troops out of Sofia and literally forcing the rebellious Bulgarians to accept their hated independence.

The insult was so great that throughout its subsequent history, Bulgaria fought exclusively against Russia in every world war, and in the intervals between them, it diligently undermined Russia, all the while not forgetting to shout about “eternal brotherly friendship”.

Re: Inventing Cyrillic (2024)

#20
post #10

The article feels like AI hallucinated slop. Just a quick scroll through the page: * Sviatoslav was not a local ruler - he ruled Kievan Rus' 1500km north-east and he remained a pagan until his death, even if his mother had converted to Christianity. * Sviatoslav was born nearly 60 years after both Cyril and Methodius had died. * In 890 Boris was no longer in power but his firs son, who coincidentally tried to reverse…

[dead]
Post reply on HN