Talk:Glagolitic script/Archive 1

Origin

Established authorities say the origin of Glagolitic is uncertain -- need some fact-checking on the whole Cyril thang...

Well I could do some research on this - but next week. In the meantime you might find out about the authorities questioning this origin. -- HJH

When using this entry, do compare the German version of the article ("Glagoliza"), because some informations are outdated! - H. Miklas (Vienna), 10/05/06.

Menchi's suggestion

Now with the table and illustration, the article has truly become a useful tool! A few things that can be improved:

1. Image:GlagolitsaGlagol.gif seems cut off a bit on the right.
2. What were the names of the following Cyrillic letters? What do they look like?
   1. The abolished Cyrillic letters derived from jat and izhitsa.
   2. The Cyrillic letters used only to transcribe Greek, derived from oht and thita. I assume the Cyrillic shapes in this case are identical to their Greek counterparts. But are they also called the same in Russian as the Greek?
3. Can the additional words in the names of those four Glagolitic letters derived from jus be translated?

-Menchi 11:22 19 May 2003 (UTC)

Thanks! ^_^

1. I'll recrop it.
2. Some answers below; but what I really need to do is to add a historical section to Cyrillic alphabet. Then I can remove "modern" from the table and just reference the name.
   1. "Jat" (or "Yat" in the transliteration style used on Cyrillic alphabet) and "Izhitsa" ^_^.
   2. The Cyrillic alphabet still was still using the Glagolitic names when those letters died out from Cyrillic, at least in all of my sources.
3. "Jotirovannij" must mean "Iotated" (that is «palatalised»), but I don't understand the other terms.

-- Toby Bartels 03:27 20 May 2003 (UTC)

2.1. Unicode also calls izhitsa in modern Russian izhitsa. Its Unicode is Ѵ (cap), ѵ (small). But a website written by linguistics professors of the Bavarian Universität Bamberg shows that izhitsa in modern Russian is called sẏnod (synod), and its transliteration is ẏ (y with dot above). From the same website, it also shows that izhitsa/synod looks exactly like the Latin V.

Jat in Unicode is Ѣ and ѣ. It is not described on the Bavarian page.

2.2. The Bavarian page also shows that thita is called 'foma, and its transliteration is 'f.

Oht isn't in Unicode or the Bavarian page. --Menchi 11:53 20 May 2003 (UTC)

If you know alternative names, or even other letters, then go ahead and add them! (But of course check if they were Glagolitic or Cyrillic.) If Wikipedia can be the source with no missing letters, then that'd be cool. ^_^ If you're having trouble finding "Oht", also look for "Ot", possibly with various diactritical marks to indicate length. -- Toby Bartels 03:48 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Is this some kind of a joke? Are you people really this stupid? The name of the letter V in Cyrillic is ižica. Synod is just an example of a word that contains ižica. The letters Č, C, Š and ŠČ are derived from Hebrew as was discovered centuries ago. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.187.77.160 (talk • contribs) 21:54, 28 July 2005.

Hebrew Derivation

I read in a book, probably Muller's World's Living Languages, that Sha and Shta are derived from the Hebrew ש (shin). And that Tsi and Cherv are from צ (tzadi). There is a resemblance, not just physical, but also phonetic. And these four Glagolitic letters are also the ones unattributed to Greek. Can this be confirmed? Have you read about this? -Menchi 11:39 19 May 2003 (UTC)

I've heard this as well, but never from an authoritative source. Do you still have that book? -- Toby Bartels 03:27 20 May 2003 (UTC)

I borrowed the book from the library four or five years ago. I won't visit a library that has it until July 1. My local library doesn't have it. I said it is a probable source, because I consulted a table I typed up for fun in my PC using several sources, the major one was the Muller book. I didn't type down the minor sources, and the Hebrew origin may have been in one of the minor sources.

The full citation: Muller, Siegfried Hermann. The World's Living Languages: Basic Facts of Their Structure, Kinship, Location and Number of Speakers. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1964. P. 54 – 56.

--Menchi 11:17 20 May 2003 (UTC)

It's true that for the sounds Cyril couldn't match with Greek, generally the variety of fricatives and affricatives, he derived from the Hebrew Tzadi and Shin.

-- 04:22 March 27 2005

Dalmatian Catholic Slavonic

I've altered text in one way: a reference to "Dalmatian Catholic slavonic something" is bizarre- it is Croatian cultural heritage, as is clearly visible from the added link.

Mir Harven (email address removed)

Removed email address. Joe^Talk_Work 08:18, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

"Croatia" haven't even existed in 14th century. We can only talk about Hungary or Bosnia, at that time. http://www.euratlas.net/history/europe/1300/index.html http://www.euratlas.net/history/europe/1400/index.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.76.36.69 (talk) 09:07, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• "hasn't" You should probably at least learn english properly before you decide vandalizing Wikipedia articles. The status of the country is a matter of scholarly debate, and is modern consensus that Croatia continued as a kingdom under the crown of St.Stephen, something that is discussed at length here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloman,_King_of_Hungary#Expansion.2C_internal_conflicts_and_legislation_.281096.E2.80.931105.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Croatia_(925%E2%80%931102) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatia_in_the_union_with_Hungary — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.164.18.239 (talk) 12:58, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Sha or Shta - Egyptian

It should be noted that the letter "Sha (or) Shta" is of an ancient Egyptian origin: The letter, which is known as "SHEI" in Coptic, among many other Coptic characters, is from a Demotic origin, and the Demotic from Hieroglyphic.

Most likely, "SHEI" found its way to Hebrew through Phoenician, which includes in its alphabet many modifications of the more complicated and impractical Demotic alphabet. The influence of Phoenician over both Greek and Hebrew (and many other languages) is fairly recognized.

The question now remains: Where did the Glagolitic get its virgin of "SHEI" from? I think we should look for something like a proof or evidence, that it was NOT from the Phoenician "?in", the Arabic "Seen" (or Sheen?), or the Coptic-itself "Shei", before we assert that it was from the Hebraic "Shin".

See for the Phoenician "?in": http://www.omniglot.com/writing/phoenician.htm and its Arabic and Hebraic equivalents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet

And for the Coptic "Shei": http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0370.pdf p. 41"The Unicode Standard 4.0". p.5 in the pdf file. and p.5 in: http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2744.pdf

And for the Hebraic "Shin": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_alphabet#.26.231513.3B

Thank you, Maysara

Well, in Europe during the early Middle Ages there was not that much scholarship, or cross-cultural contact or study of non-vernacular languages other than Latin and Greek. So Hebrew is plausible because there were Jews in Europe, but Coptic or Phoenician seems completely out of the question. Arabic seems quite unlikely because Muslim conquest of eastern Europe didn't begin until the Turks many centuries later, and Spain was much too far away.

Even if Hebrew got some of its letter from an earlier source, it seems entirely unlikely that that earlier source could have directly contributed anything to Glagolitic. -- Curps 04:08, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

---

Hello there, What do we know about the *contacts* of "Saint Cyril" (?) I mean, in such matters, we don't prove by refuting, we prove because we posses evidence. Nor that we *want* to prove anything initially. After all, there were also Phoenician traders, and Coptic literature, all around medieval Europe. And who knows what else! What we need is an evidence, not a likeliness or possibility. I think the attribution of the "Sha" & "Shta" needs to be neutralised in this section, unless some evidence is present for any of the attribution and derivation theories, for the sake of the integrity of the encyclopedia.

Most appreciatively, Maysara

---

Your argument seems to be limited only to "Sha" and "Shta"... but you don't mention "Tsi". Do you have a plausible origin for it from Phoenician, Coptic or Arabic? If you need Hebrew to explain "Tsi", why look for a different origin for "Sha" and "Shta"? Occam's Razor favors a simpler explanation.

It seems unlikely that there was much Coptic or Phoenician influence in medieval Europe, since those areas were under Muslim rule and contacts were very limited. Hebrew is much more plausible, not just because of the presence of Jews but because of study of Hebrew for Biblical studies. Also, it is known that Cyril and Methodius visited the Khazars in 859-860 on the orders of the emperor and the patriarch, and the Khazars had by then converted to Judaism. So there is a very plausible origin from Hebrew letters. Do you have any reference for a possible source from Phoenician, Coptic or Arabic, or is this just your own speculation or your own original research? -- Curps 06:40, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It is all coming from Coptic alphabet. Included Azy it is Aluf, Buky - bait, Vedy - Vaw etc. Names of latter's changed with Slavic words. It is clear for me. BTW. 'Glagolit'(with soft 't'), mean 'to speak' and 'Glagolitza' (tz - like tsadik in Hebrew) come from this word. It is for Etymologists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.1.119.248 (talk) 08:26, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Spelling and origin

I'm adding a redirect from 'glagolithic' to this page, since some sources spell the word 'glagolithic'...

Secondarily, I disagree with your writing of Cyril inventing glagolitic. My sources (very basic, in fact, but authoritative: the Columbia encyclopedia, 6th edition, and the most widely used Italian dictionary, the Garzanti) tell me it was Cyril (and followers) who borrowed from glagolitic in their 'invention' of cyrillic.

What you wrote applies to cyrillic, in my opinion, not to glagolitic.

If you agree, I would edit that part of the article, adding a healthy little more uncertainty.

Regards,

Marco

Aside 07:38, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I can assure you that the current version exactly reflects the prevailing official opinion of medieval experts and Slavists.

Juro

Mnemotechnic phrase

Wasn't Az Buki Vedi Glagol Dobro Jest Zhivete Dzelo ... a meaningful phrase in Slavic? Compare with Japanese iroha, acrostics and alphabetic poems. --Error 02:19, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

As I understand it, the phrase (in Croatian) is "Ja znajući slova velim, dobro je živjeti na zemlji" This corresponds to the letter names from Az to Zemlja. In English, the phrase means "I, knowing the letters, say that it is good to live on Earth".

This is commonly believed, but it is not true. The names of the letters, taken individually, each mean something, but taken as a sequence they do not mean anything. Thus азъ боукы вѣдѣ does not mean “I know the letters”, because боукы is nominative singular, not accusative plural (which would be боукъви). It is generally believed that the names of the letters were the first words of each line of an acrostic, but the acrostic itself does not survive.Лудольф (talk) 19:49, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

You're inverting the logic: the sequence of letters in the alphabet (also used for counting) was formed after the first letter/sound of the words of the poem (or equivalently, the poem was created with first letters/sounds of the words reflecting the sequence of the alphabet), the letters were not originally "named" after words they represent the first letter of - that came secondarily. I mean, you can't be serious claiming that it's a pure coincidence of sequenced letter/sound names meaning (in lemmatised form) "I-letter-know-to speak-good-is-to live-earth" ? ^_^ Constantine was much smarter than that.. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 05:48, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

The sequence of the letters is similar to that of the Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, even English letters and ultimately stems from the Phoenician alphabet.  Andreas  ^(T) 13:37, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Glagolitic alphabet was created by a single man (Constantine-Cyrill) in one point in time, it did not "stem" from anywhere. Since Constantine was one of the greatest linguistic minds of his time, it was no problem to him to take lesser alphabets as a role model and devise a new one perfectly representing the language phonology, sequencing and assigning numerical values of symbols by logic. Given the fact that sequenced Glagolitic letter names produce some kind of meaningful discourse (as opposed to to Greek and Semitic alphabet in which they mean gibberish, given that they ultimately stem as bastardisations of acrophonically-corresponding hieroglyphics), it is highly likely that they were indeed arranged to ease the memorisation of the poem created for them. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 16:20, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

The sequence of events was: 1. Constantine-Cyril created the glagolitic alphabet, basing the order of the letters on that of Greek and Hebrew. 2. Someone (by no means necessarily Constantine-Cyril) wrote an acrostic on this alphabet. 3. The letters came to be known by the first words of the lines of this acrostic.

Note A. A number of early acrostics on this alphabet survive, but not the one beginning with these words. B. There are other examples of acrostics giving rise to names, for example, the musical notes ut re me fa... are the first syllables of an acrostic. C. The sequenced Glagolitic letter names do not produce any kind of meaningful discourse. I - a letter (nom.sg.) - I know - a word (nom./acc.sg.) - good (nom./acc. sg. neuter) or well - is - you (pl.) live - very - land (nom.sg.) - which (nom.sg. masc.) - and... This does not mean anything. Лудольф (talk) 17:07, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

And why wouldn't Constantine rearrange the alphabet to fit the acrostic in the first place (or vice versa, as the alphabet was fixed in order ever since it was devised, as ascending numerical values show)?

As I told you above, you're fallaciously reasoning: the letters were not "named": their names result from the poem that was devised to ease the memorisation of the alphabet. Nominative singular forms for letter names were lemmatised from the words representing the lyrics of the poem. Or perhaps both of these events occurred simultaneously - we can't know and it doesn't matter in the end. The thing is, that sequenced letter names' meanings (note the difference between the letter name and letter name meaning) obviously mean something (inflection aside), as opposed to Greek and Semitic alphabets where they mean gibberish. It cannot be a coincidence, or a "myth" as some would like to believe. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 05:45, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

To suggest that Constantine would "rearrange the alphabet to fit the acrostic" is to misunderstand the nature of an acrostic, the whole point of which is that it follows some predefined sequence. Moreover, an acrostic in which the initial words, as opposed to the initial letters of the lines formed a meaningful sequence would be most unusual; I cannot think of any example in Byzantine or early Slavonic literature, though perhaps one of our readers may be able to provide one. Your accusation of fallacious reasoning certainly indicates a misunderstanding of what I wrote, since that "the letters were not 'named': their names result from the poem that was devised to ease the memorisation of the alphabet" is precisely what I said, and we ought to be in complete agreement on that point.

If what all this boils down to is that you believe that you can see meaning where I don't believe I can see any, then really all we can do is agree to differ; we are not going to get any further. Nevertheless I can't help reflecting that if St Cyril, who was after all one of the outstanding intellects of the ninth century, had intended the initial words to convey sequential meaning, he would have done so in a manner that precluded any doubt, and we wouldn't be having this discussion. Лудольф (talk) 20:36, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Azbuki

Is it really the Glagolithic that is called "azbuki" by Slavists? I always thought that az and buki is the basis for "azbuka", i.e. it denotes the Cyrillic... Juro 18:19, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Both. Azbuka is essentially a synonym for alphabet. Both of these alphabets have the same first two letters called Az and Buki, and both were historically called Kyrylytsia. —Michael Z. 2005-03-28 08:07 Z

Unclear English

In the "Characteristics" section there is an unclear sentence: "The square variant lends itself to abundant use of ligatures comparing to the Latin or the Cyrillic script."

"comparing" seems to be the wrong word for the job. If what is meant is "Glagolitic lends itself more to ligature use than Latin or Cyrillic", then "comparing" should at least be changed to "compared". As it stands it can be ambiguously read as "Glagolitic's abundant use of ligatures is comparable to that of Latin or Cyrillic".

I hope this is taken constructively to improve this very interesting article. — Hippietrail 01:25, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Characteristics

In this section is a description of the letter "jest" or "yest" showing as the modern Cyrillic character the letter 'е'. This letter still exists in nearly a mirrored Glagolitic form in the Ukrainian alphabet as 'є'. At least I think it's the same letter. If it is, how should it go into the table? Vivafelis 05:17, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

The difference between Ее and Єє is significant only in Ukrainian writing; in all other languages that use Cyrillic, they are just variants of the same letter — e. g. some stylized Russian fonts show Ее as Єє. — Monedula 05:47, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

I think the turned Э is a more recently-introduced variation of Е/Є. —Michael Z. 2005-08-30 14:36 Z

Monedula, I understand that the difference is only significant in Ukrainian, but the sound value of the letters are mirrored from other Cyrillic alphabets. Such that the Russian Ее are the Ukrainian Єє (both make Yeh sound) and the Russian Ээ are the Ukrainian Ее (both make Eh sound). Perhaps it would be worthwhile to note this mirroring in the table in order to keep it complete. Then again, maybe not. Vivafelis 15:01, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

In the context of Glagolitic and the contemporary, very early Cyrillic, these are all essentially the same letter. In the old days the style, and I think even the facing of the letter wasn't used consistently. The differentiation of both Russian and Ukrainian letters E and Ye are later innovations. It doesn't hurt to show them here, but the explanation belongs in the article on the Cyrillic alphabet. —Michael Z. 2005-09-7 19:50 Z

Glagolitic fonts

I still cannot see Unicode Glagolitic characters in this section, although I have Unicode fonts installed. I usualy see Japanese or Chinese scripts. I use Opera 8 and WinXP. RockyMM 18:27, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Do you have Damese or Dilyan fonts installed? As far as I know, these are the only Unicode 4.1 Glagolitic fonts available. All others either use Glagolitic glyphs for the Cyrillic range, use the Unicode "private use" area, or use some other non-standard range of code points for Glagolitic, and probably won't display this table correctly.

It may also be some other problem with Windows or Opera not supporting the new Unicode range; I use a Mac. —Michael Z. 2005-09-7 19:55 Z

I use a Mac with Leopard 10.5.8 and Firefox 3.5.3 and the angular Glagolitic characters won't display. I've looked around and everything I read seems to suggest that Leopard should handle all the Unicode fonts well. Worth noting is the characters didn't work in Safari, either. Does anyone know what my problem may be? Thanks. Chachilongbow (talk) 01:17, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Literature section not in English

Could someone please provide some translation for the "literature" section: if you don't read whatever language that is, it's not even possible to discern whether the source being used is a book, an academic journal or even some sort of blog. For example, does "knjiga 57" mean "chapter 57", or "volume 57", or what? If you want to use {{Book reference}}, {{Journal reference}} or {{Web reference}}, that would be great. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 17:46, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know any of those languages enough to translate (quite a selection), but knjiga 57 is 'volume 57'. When I have a bit of time, I'll add the templates, which should help decipher. —Michael Z. 2006-01-10 19:38 Z

Actually, knjiga means book in croatian.

It's a common word in many Slavic languages, right? 惑乱 分からん 05:20, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Liturgy Language

I assume part of the article are written by someone with Croatian view on the histroy.

The Slavic language was used in the Bulgarian church since IX c., when it became the only non-traditional language allowed by the Vatican for that purpose. In fact, the need for a new alphabet which can be used by the church lead to the creation of the glagolitza. Please, refer to the article "Bulgarian Chuirch":

"A Greek liturgy offered by a Byzantine clergy furthered neither the cultural development of the Bulgarians, nor the consolidation of the Bulgarian state; it would have eventually resulted in the loss of both the identity of the people and the statehood of Bulgaria. Thus, the arrival of the most distinguished disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius to Bulgaria in 886 came as a highly beneficial opportunity. Boris I entrusted the disciples with the task to instruct the future Bulgarian clergy in the Glagolitic alphabet and the Slavonic liturgy prepared by Cyril and based on the vernacular of the Bulgarian Slavs from the region of Thessaloniki. In 893, the Greek clergy was expelled from the country and the Greek language was replaced with the Slav-Bulgarian vernacular."

I agree. I think the History section needs some reworking to be truthful and at least marginally NPOV. It also doesn't mention a very important achievement of St. Cyril - defending the alphabet in front of the Pope, who recognized it and blessed it as early as 868, that being one of the early examples of using the vernacular (not Greek, Latin or Hebrew) in service. mitkouwcad 16:51, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Use in film

Was this also not the basis for the Naboo alphabet or the lettering used on droids by the Trade Federation in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace?

Paradox

Being subdued, as a nation, to Roman hegemony (Roman Catholic church and so on) defies the reason for creation and use of the Glagolitic alphabet. (back then in the IX century hegemonies could easily provide Slavs with hegemonual Latin or Greek alphabet, but the purpose of Christianity is democracy - the self-rule of people as contrary to hegemony (democracy - orthodox Christian term (originaly 'δημοκρατία')), which regarding this issue implies acting against cultural hegemony (which is the only reason Konstantin bothered with construction of Glagolitic alphabet in the first place...))

What you write is indeed a paradox - as democracy in Europe started to disappear after christianization. 195.150.224.69 (talk) 08:08, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Scanned image from 1591

An editor tried to include an image (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/33/Rocca.PNG) but did not follow the right procedure. It's a great picture. Someone who knows how to do images should include it on the main page.

Also, we need better information about the two medieval books in the references. I'm not sure about the importance of the text about St. Jerome - maybe the article would be better without it. Cbdorsett 17:13, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Additional comments for Szac:

Please do not be offended by the deletion of your contributions by myself and other editors. Allow me to explain.

I appreciate your efforts to make this page more comprehensive and interesting. However, Wikipedia has some strict policies about new additions. First of all, what you add must have a citation. For example, you put in something about the Polish meaning of 'talking faces'. This could just be an accident of language, or it could be a theory that is actually published by a reputable scholar. If a scholar wrote about it, and thinks it is likely, then we need a proper source to the book. It does not matter what language the source is in.

I removed your image because it did not conform to Wikipedia policies. Please see what I wrote on the article's talk page. I like the image and would like to see it in the article. There is a specific method to upload images, which includes statement of (1) the fact that the book is in the public domain, and (2) that the photographer who created the image licenses it to Wikipedia under the terms of the GNU agreement. There is also a particular way to link to the photo once it has been uploaded.

What you wrote about Benedykt Chmielowski seems interesting, and it may even be relevant. However, I had a hard time understanding what you are trying to say. Even more important, there was no citation. Which book of Chmielowski was this stuff found in? What page? When and where was the book published?

I really don't think we need Rocca's book in here. We all agree that the alphabet came from Kyril and Methodius. Now we know that 12th-century Croatian scribes thought Jerome created it, and that this legend persisted as late as 1812. Why do we need a listing of medieval books that perpetuated the now-discredited myth?

I would like to know more about the ligatures. Can you provide enough previously-published information to fill a paragraph? Is there a public-domain collection of ligatures we can upload as an image? Did the Kazakhs really use Glagolitic letters? If so, that's very interesting, and we need not only a cite but an image from one of the 17th-century documents you mentioned. If Glagolitic was preferred for legal documents, which country did this apply to? Is there a published citation that supports this assertion. Again, I think it is terribly interesting, and very relevant to the article.

If you can provide the backbone - the basic data, I will be very happy to help you with the English. When we are finished, maybe you can translate the article back into your native language (Polish?) and contribute it to the appropriate foreign-language Wikipedia. Cbdorsett 08:47, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Regarding that picture http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/33/Rocca.PNG ...Bringing in connection Illirians and Glagolitic alphabet... ...Someone being in risk to fall for diabolical provocataion would say that paper on that scan/photo was THE paper originaly written by Ernest Scribbler.

Infobox formatting

Something is wrong with the formatting of the infobox, but I'm not sure how to fix it. Dgorsline 14:24, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem started when some formatting was changed on {{Infobox writing system}}.. —dima/talk/ 15:09, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Unicode glagolitic alphabet

Why was rounded glagolitic alphabet used in Unicode instead of angular? (angular is original right? (and it certanly looks better))

That is your font. Unicode does not specify the style of text, only which character is represented. I'm sure there are (or at least there could be) both round and square Glagolitic fonts, whose letters would be represented by the same Unicode code points. —Michael Z. 2007-07-26 20:58 Z

Actually Round Glagolithic script is considered to be older. Angular Glagolithic script make the most of all saved Gl. writtings but used only in Croatia and by the Croats, until "recently" (18th century). There were also some transition forms between Round and Angular (like Triangular) also found in the Croatian territory. There are some differencies among these scripts, it's not only shape of the letters. Zenanarh (talk) 10:39, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Slavonic -> Slavic

We have to change the words Slavonic to form Slavic, because it distorts the meaning, especially now, when there were discovered Glagolitici inscriptions in Slavonia. Kubura 07:50, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Etymology of word Glagol

"The name of the alphabet comes from the Old Slavic glagolŭ" - wasn't it "golgolŭ"? With later typical South-Slavic change ol>la before consonant (like in South-Slavic "glas" from Old-Slavic golsŭ "sound")? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.244.139.49 (talk) 10:40, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Transliteration of the word Glagolitsa

I'm going to have to revert changes of Glagolitsa > Glagolica. According to WP:CYR, I believe our transliteration of most Slavic languages, including Bulgarian incidentally, converts ц to ts. —Michael Z. 2008-05-29 15:18 z

Hi! There exists a scholarly standard for transliteration of Cyrillic script. See Scientific transliteration and ISO9. The first page also says Most countries using Cyrillic script now have adopted GOST 7.79 instead [for romanisation], which is equivalent to ISO 9. I think an encyclopedia should use the most consistent scholarly standard (regardless of the script in question; so for Indic scripts, this would mean IAST). Regards. NikNovi (talk) 10:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

'“talk:Glagolitic alphabet” is not the place to argue about Wikipedia's general romanization guidelines. We use scientific transliteration for technical linguistics topics, but other methods elsewhere. This is the result of very broad consensus, and a lot of discussion. (And practically no one uses ISO 9.) The encyclopedia respects its readers by making its content accessible, and the typical anglophone would not understand Ševčenko, Xruščëv, or Juščenko at all, so we write Shevchenko, Khrushchev, and Yushchenko.

If you feel otherwise, you could extend the debates at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Cyrillic). Regards. —Michael Z. 2008-05-30 11:23 z

I don't see a need for further discussion - I already said all that I have. I can only remark that the tekst as it is now: Bulgarian глаго́лица (transliterated glagolitsa), Serbian глагољица/glagoljica, Croatian glagoljica, ... is stupid. And the anglophone world will sooner or later have to learn that there are more letters in the Roman alphabet than the 26 letters they use - if not for the sake of the transliteration of Cyrillic, than for the sake of the Slavic languages that are already written in Roman script. NikNovi (talk) 13:51, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I try to remind myself that I'm writing for the benefit of the reader, rather than looking down on him. I'm not counting on many of en.Wikipedia's readers being literate in Slovenian any time soon, whether their first language is English or not. —Michael Z. 2008-05-30 15:06 z

Translations of letter names

I see someone added a column for the (partial) translations of the names of the letters. Shouldn't there some kind of a meaningful song when pronouncing them, "I know letters", "word is good", "like people think" etc." ? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 14:27, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

This is mentioned in Acrophony, but I can't find a transcription of the whole poem at the moment. Should be mentioned in Early Cyrillic alphabet, too. —Michael Z. 2008-10-29 19:18 z

Britannica article

Encyclopedia Britannica, Major alphabets of the world » Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets

The two early Slavic alphabets, the Cyrillic and the Glagolitic, were invented by St. Cyril, or Constantine (c. 827–869), and St. Methodius (c. 825–884). These men were Greeks from Thessalonica who became apostles to the southern Slavs, whom they converted to Christianity. An early tradition, in attributing the invention of an early Slavic writing to Cyril, does not indicate whether his contribution was the Cyrillic or the Glagolitic. It is just possible that both alphabets were invented by him. The earliest dated Old Slavic documents belong to the late 10th and the 11th centuries. The Cyrillic and the Glagolitic alphabets differed widely in the form of their letters, in the history of their development, and partly also in the number of the letters, but they were alike in representing adequately the many sounds of Slavic.

The Cyrillic alphabet was based on the Greek uncial writing of the 9th century. It originally had a total of 43 letters; the two Hebrew letters tzade and shin were transformed into the Cyrillic letters for the sounds ch, sh, and shch. The modern forms of this alphabet have fewer letters. Glagolitic writing consisted of 40 letters, externally very unlike either the Greek or Cyrillic scripts.

--Xenovatis (talk) 21:34, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

In addition there are other sources that support the position expressed by Brit

Alan Timberlake, A Reference Grammar of Russian, p.14, Cambridge University Press, 2004, ISBN 0521772923,

“In order to write in Slavic they devised a new alphabet which is now called Glagolitic. ”

Terence R. Carlton , Introduction to the Phonological History of the Slavic Languages‎, p. 47, 1991, University of California, ISBN 0893572233,

“The major difficulty here is that we have not one but two distinct alphabets connected with St. Cyril and Methodius' mission. These are the Glagolitic, which for all practical purposes has gone out of use, and the Cyrillic from which are derived all the modern Cyrillic alphabets”

Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia, Cornell University Press, 1988,ISBN 0801494931,p.61

Matters were complicated when Saints Cyril and Methodius, two Greek brothers from Salonika, undertook to apply the Slavic idioms from the hinterland of their native city to the codification of a liturgical language, which was to further the evangelization of all Slavic peoples. The so-called Old Church Slavonic. written originally in the Glagolitic script invented by the Salonikan brothers, gave rise to the late ninth-century missionary venture in Central Europe (Great Moravia). As Byzantine Greeks. Cyril and Methodius were more tolerant than Rome in accepting ‘barbarian” tongues in divine liturgy.

I will be adding more as time permits.Xenovatis (talk) 08:08, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Florin Curta, Paul Stephenson Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500-1250, p. 214, Cambridge University Press, 2006, ISBN 0521815398

At the emperor’s request, Constantine and his brother started the translation of religious texts into Old Church Slavonic, a literary language most likely based on the Macedonian dialect allegedly used in the hinterland of their home— town, Thessalonica. Constantine devised a new alphabet, later called Glagolitic, to render the sounds of the new language and to adapt it to the new conditions iii Moravia. The two brothers seem to have initially translated only texts forreligious instruction, such as the excerpts from the Gospels that. were used iii liturgy --Xenovatis (talk) 08:13, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Xeno, you're stating one POV as fact, then tucking the scholarly view down at the bottom. We should of course reflect the range of views out there, but I will continue reverting you as long as your edits are so biased.

Let's take a look at the D&B source: An article in a scholarly tome dedicated to writing systems, written by a professor of Russian who specializes in Slavic scripts. That's the most reliable, on-target ref we have, and so should take top billing.

Now your refs:

• An encyclopedia, which is against policy as it's unreliable.
• Two Russian grammars, by authors who may know nothing of the subject at hand. One hedges his bets by saying "connected with" rather than "invented by".
• Two historians, who may also know nothing in particular about writing systems.

All these sources are repeating the legend of Cyril & Methodius. It may be true. Cub, on the other hand, delves into these reports and sees how they compare with other evidence. This is a much more nuanced approach. Yes, you can get a hundred sources parroting the traditional account, but that's like getting a hundred newspaper articles that all copy the same AP source. If you come up with a source that addresses the scripts themselves, rather than mentioning them in passing in the context of another subject, then they can be given equal footing to Cub. kwami (talk) 08:49, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Now you are doing that. Further encyclopedias are allowed in WP as per WP:RS as long as they do not substitute secondary sources. They most certainly are not unreliable, least of all Britannica which is that standard against which WP is judged. And doesn't quite reach.

Tertiary sources such as compendia, encyclopedias, textbooks, and other summarizing sources may be used to give overviews or summaries, but should not be used in place of secondary sources for detailed discussion

.

The rest of your arguments move along two axis. 1) You state the opinioin of one source as consensus, it isn't. 2) You poison the well on the actuall consensus of everyone else who says the opposite. Untill the opinion expressed by Cub becomes widely accepted it is still fringe and as such should be given due weight, i.e. very little. Most of the origin's text should be devoted to the majority view. Now stop revert warring untill this is discussed and a consensus is reached.

Xenovatis (talk) 09:58, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Also read WP:FRINGE

Neutral point of view is a fundamental Wikimedia principle and a cornerstone of Wikipedia. All significant views should be represented fairly and without bias, in proportion to their prominence.[1] This guideline establishes which fringe theories and opinions may be included in Wikipedia, and to a certain extent how articles about them should approach their subjects--Xenovatis (talk) 10:03, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

If you're relying on the EB, you evidently are not familiar with the lit. D&B is hardly fringe, and quantity does not trump quality. You have also violated 3RR, and I expect you to revert the changes. kwami (talk) 11:17, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Daniels and Bright is the universally recognized standard for the history and development of writing systems in the world. Any article that even moderately discusses writing systems must cite D&B or else be returned by publishers for revision. D&B has its weaknesses, but overall its coverage is the gold standard and all reputable authors on the subject will rely on it. It is far from fringe in the field of the history of writing--it is the core. Sts Cyril and Methodius are painted prominently in St. Michael's cathedral in Kyiv as the inventors of Cyrillic/Glagolitic, but that doesn't make it a reliable source for "counting noses". D&B is the first and most important nose to be counted in history of writing articles. (Taivo (talk) 12:03, 18 December 2008 (UTC))

Simon Franklin, Writing, Society and Culture in Early Rus, C. 950-1300,p.93,Cambridge University Press, 2002, ISBN 0521813816, 9780521813815 GLAGOLITIC East Christian Slays used two alphabets, Glagolitic and Cyrillic. Just to confuse matters, the script devised by St Cyril was probably Glagolitic, while Cyrillic - which came to predominate, emerged somewhat later. The letter-forms of the Glagolitic alphabet were invented. Some of them have apparent affinities with letters in various ancient scripts, and Cyril may well have been influenced by his

Henri-Jean Martin, The History and Power of Writing, p.40, University of Chicago Press, 1995, ISBN 0226508366

In all probability, what Constantine-Cyril spontaneously invented was not the writing system that has inaccurately been called “Cyrillic” but rather Glagolitic. Like Armenian, this system of thirty-six signs earned the admiration of Antoine Meillet. Unfortunately, its creator, who wanted to differentiate it as much as possible from the Greek and Roman alphabets, if not from the Hebrew, designed a set of rather round letters, using circles,

Jean W. Sedlar, East Central Europe in the Middle Ages, 1000-1500, p.144, University of Washington Press, 1994, ISBN 0295972904, 9780295972909

Indeed, when a Slavic ruler named Rastislav in the ar 863 invited the Byzantine emperor to send him a Christian bishop, the emperor was more than willing. He commissioned two eminent Greeks of Salonika. Constantine (better known by his monastic name of Cyril) and his brother Methodius, to develop a written language for the use of the SLavic peoples. These two apostles (who were later canonized as saints) were not the first to translate religious writings into Slavic, since some preliminary work had been done earlier by Bavarian missionaries. However, they were the first to invent a Slavic alphabet and undertake translations into Slavic on a major scale.

Some more sources. But hey, it's not as if they indicate any sort of consensus,right?--Xenovatis (talk) 13:25, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Bernard Comrie, Greville G. Corbett The Slavonic Languages, p.21, Taylor & Francis, 2002, ISBN 0415280788, 9780415280785

The question of the extent to which any Slavonic language was written before the time of Constantine and Methodius remains unanswered, but of course not without hypotheses. The fact is that there are few facts! There is no hard evidence of any such written form for that period.

The fact remains, however, that there are no concrete examples of such writing, but only elusive pieces of a suggestive sort,

dum dee dum dee dum--Xenovatis (talk) 13:55, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Hey, you actually got a couple good linguists as a source! (Comrie & Corbett.) They don't work on scripts, of course. And notice that they do not repeat the legend that Cyril & Methodius created glagolitic, but note that there are only "suggestive" pieces of evidence for earlier writing. Notice how good scholars are less certain of the truth? kwami (talk) 14:10, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that ref. It goes on,

"... during a mission to the Crimea in 860 [Constantine/Cyril] was shown a Gospel and Psalter written in rousskymi pismeny ['in East Slavic'] ... Constantine is reported not to have seen these before, but to have learnt to read them surprisingly quickly."

This is certainly consistent with Cub's view. kwami (talk) 14:20, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to interfere, but try to redirect your investigations to influences on Glagolithic script found by certain scientists and found in traces in its different forms, as Iranian, Germanic (rhunnes), etc... Cyril & Methodius as the authors of such script would be really crazy idea, but nothing is weird when it comes to 19th century pan-Slavism. Zenanarh (talk) 15:21, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

OK Kwami let's get down to business! How about an openning that says in a neutral way (i.e. no myth, legend etc) that the most widely held opinion is that it was invented by C&M and then goes on with Cub and the rest (actually I found another one you will like) and takes care to explain that while this is the current status of linguistic research this has not percollated to general academia which still holds the former view. I propose on paragraph that will be included in the articles for Glago, Early and unhyphenated Cyrillic, C&M, etc. In short I agree that there is a trend of modern scholarship casting a critical eye on the invention thesis. But then you have to ask why there are no extant manuscripts.

Steven Roger Fischer, A History of Writing,Reaktion Books, 2004, p.161,ISBN 1861891679, 9781861891679

The problem with this ‘Constantine myth’ is that it has two separate alphabets being ‘created’ at the same time to fit Slavonic needs. For a long time, it was unclear what script Cyril had traditionally been credited with ‘inventing’ in order to convey a Slavonic language ‘for the first time’. Today, most scholars accept that Glagolitic is Cyril’s adaptation — not his creation or elaboration — of an extant Slavonic script for Macedonian Slavonic.

That one kinda sold me. --Xenovatis (talk) 16:26, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I think we're on the same page now. (Interesting you'd be sold by Fischer, who's a crack pot. But I think he is reporting the consensus here.) Give me a couple hours to come back to what you've put together. kwami (talk) 20:19, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, so I'm not a linguist. So now everyone knows.--Xenovatis (talk) 20:27, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Just googled Fischer

Written by the greatest decipherer that ever lived, Steven Roger Fischer--the only person to ever decipher two ancient scripts--"Glyphbreaker" is That one does kinda scream "crackpot".--Xenovatis (talk) 20:30, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Read Decipherment of rongorongo if you want to see just how bad his original ideas are. (Bias alert: I helped write that article.) But that doesn't mean he doesn't know his history, at least as a dedicated amateur. He is a trove of obscure information on various scripts. kwami (talk) 01:30, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposed paragraph form

Although commonly attributed to Saints Cyril and Methodius and the introduction of Christianity, the origin of the Glagolitic alphabet is obscure. Today most linguists agree that a precursor of Glagolitig may have developed from cursive Greek in the Balkan region of Macedonia centuries earlier, only to be formalized and expanded with new letters for non-Greek sounds by the Greek monk Cyril.

References

The attribution of Glagolitic to Cyril/Methodius is more than just a "non-linguist scholar" story, it is traditional/legendary. The first clause might be better, "Although the invention of Glagolitic is traditionally ascribed to Cyril/Methodius, ..." (of course that should be linked and referenced with the same references as above". The use of "scholars" in this line implies that they invented the idea. (Taivo (talk) 17:07, 18 December 2008 (UTC))

How about commonly? That sounds more neutral to me.--Xenovatis (talk) 17:18, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I guess this traditional/legendary goes for Slavist scholarship which created this possible dogma and its conservative groupation still stands behind it (this scientific circle is still strong in the university seats, difference is that other theories got some air in the last few decencies). What happened in the meantime with presentation of Glagolithic script in the non-Slavic world is the best seen in Britannica, there's reflection of the mostly conservative and out-dated view, repated from an author to another. The biggest absurd of this "middle stream" theory is Glagolitsa itself, graphically, since Cyrillic alphabet corresponds to the Greek one, while Glagolithic has another dimension.

This is nice insight from "Croatian Glagolithic script" [1] page:

According to the views of most Slavic scholars, the Glagolitic Script was created by St. Cyrill in the second half of the 9th century. Not all scholars agree on this point. Some of them believe that it must have existed earlier, and that it had a natural development over a much longer period. In any case, some of its letters are quite close to the corresponding ones from very old oriental scripts: South-Semitic, Samaritan (an old Hebrew Script), the Cretan linear A and B, Armenian and others. Some are of the opinion that the appearance of this Script in this part of Europe was due to extensive migrations from the East. The question of the origins of the Glagolitic Script seems to be still a difficult open problem. In the earliest period it also existed in Ukraine, Bulgaria and Macedonia, but only until the 12th century, when the Cyrillic Script (which is essentially a Greek Script) became predominant. Namely, it was used until 18th century in Croatia.

Some of the scholars (Šufflay, Šegvic, Hamm, Lovric...) who supported the "Oriental theory" were persecutted in ex-Yu, it was opposite to the communist pan-Slavism and related to Iranian theory of Croatian origin.

If there is a legend it's not "Cyrill-Methodius theory" which is politically created dogma.

The real one was created by the Glagolithic writers themselves during Medieval: their script was scriptura hieronymitana, created or used by St. Jerome (331-420). Croatian Glagoljasi (writers) used it as an argument in their resistance to the Roman church in 10th century and later, concerning use of language and script in liturgy.

There's "Gothic theory" about its origin during migrations in contact with Germanic runes, by F. Rački . He noted a few thesis and based it on a several undoubtful connections between 2 scripts. He noted the Baltic Slavs as possible non-Germanic users of the runic alphabet.

According to Eduard Boguslovski, the Weneti had runes and gave it to the Goths. He based his conductions on the sources about existance of the (Glagolithic) "Gothic Psaltir" used by the last Salonitan archbishop. He signed Cyrill only as possible renovator of the Glagolithic script and not an inovator.

One interesting detail about possibility that Glagolithic is older than Gothic and Cyrillic alphabet: numerical values given to letters have continual flow in Glagolithic alphabet, while in Gothic and Cyrillic alphabet progression accords to the Greek alphabet.

Relatively large number of Gothic names for Glagolithic letters could set an alphabet origin in some political or military union of the Slavic (Slavized) and Germanic groups .

Existance of Germano-Gothic runic names for a large number of Glagolithic letters proves that Glagolithic script originated in pre-Cyrill and Methodius age .

Nice—assuming we can date the names in Gothic. Does the ref cover this? Can you provide a quote? kwami (talk) 01:40, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Boris Mauravieff, teologist and philosopher of religion, mentioned that Cyrill had found Glagolithic missal in Kerson, as a generally known fact.

"Cyrill-Methodius theory" originated in the end of 18th century, encouraged by the rising pan-Slavist movement. It was based on source "O pismenah", actually a compilation of 6 pieces from different periods, some not related to Cyrill at all. Only in 5th paragraph there's a story about Cyrill's mission in the Slavic lands and how he created a Slavic alphabet after many prayers and long fast. It doesn't mention azbouhovica neither glagoljica or any other name. Obviously Cyrill created Cyrillic alphabet, if he created any.

Can you provide a source? kwami (talk) 01:40, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately I have indirect source, reference is J. Hamm - ref3 down there. He says: "Our (Croatian) Glagolitsa corresponds to Wulfila's alphabet in those letters that are not related to the Greek alpabet (rci:reda, slovo:sugil, her:haal, đerv:gear, etc.)" Zenanarh (talk) 16:18, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Karl Faulmann, Illustrirte Geschichte der Schrift. Franz Greno, Nördlingen, 1989, p. 526: both Slavic and Gothic aphabet begin with "az". Zenanarh (talk) 16:47, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

This theory survived thanks to the authority of its followers and pan-Slavist enhusiasists. It doesn't have any stronger point than any other theory. In 20th cent. it was just indoctrination so much repetead that it transcendented into its forms in sources like Brittanica etc. Zenanarh (talk) 22:09, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure what Zenanarh is getting at, but the paragraph as written above his comment seems to de-emphasize the traditional Cyril/Methodius view and discuss the modern views of development. (Taivo (talk) 22:36, 18 December 2008 (UTC))

I've added some other views, worth to mention. Zenanarh (talk) 23:10, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

That's too much detail for the opening paragraph and many of these views are fringe theories anyway. (Taivo (talk) 23:54, 18 December 2008 (UTC))

I'd like to see a ref that the Cyril story is a pan-Slavic myth. Otherwise we shouldn't include that. kwami (talk) 01:09, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

A separate article on the origin of Glagolitic containing an overview of all popular theories would definitely be worth pursuing. There are many interesting (some of the most fun!) theories enshrouding it and proper NPOV treatment would require complete coverage. Article on Croatian WP hr:Glagoljica#Postanak has a partial take on it (mostly copied from Hamm's book), but seeing how active in gathering sources of the Wikipedians here have become, I'm sure that such article would very soon gain in quality :)

The "traditional" explanation originating primarily from Hrabar's account of Cyrillo-Methodian mission should not be treated by no means as just another "Pan-Slavic myth". Many modern paleographers held it to be true for the reason of being the most simple explanation available. Constantine was one of the smartest minds of his time, versed in many languages, and for him it would be no problem at all to stylise a Greek alphabet to devise characters representing sounds of the local Thessaloniki speech, and extend it with characters absent in Greek (e.g. Hebrew shin to represent /š/). Internal consistency of Glagolitic (perfect (!) representation of phonological system, consistent numeral values of symbols coupled with their acrophonical equivalents to ease memorisation) very much corroborate the traditional account. I find very disturbing statements such as Today, most scholars accept that Glagolitic is Cyril's adaptation—not his creation or elaboration—of an extant Slavonic script for Macedonian Slavonic - this is a pure lie. Not only there is no consensus, but there is no evidence whatsoever that Glagolitic "evolved" from other scripts. It was most likely result of a creative act of a single person—Constantine himself.

The topic of "Russian letters" Constantine encountered is very disputed and it's very disturbing to see how it's represented as an "argument" of some kind. The theory of it being some Slavic speech is just one PoV put forth by some Russian linguists. There are other ones equally plausible.
Cyrillic is indeed generally held to be younger than Glagolitic, and that reasoning is based on lots of indirect evidences. This relationship should also merit a separate article, and I'll seek to write it tomorrow when I get my hands on some books in the library. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 03:11, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

"Pan-Slavic myth": yeah, I wanted some credible sources for that claim. If we can't reliably substantiate it, it shouldn't get off this talk page.

"Pan-Slavic" - about how traditional theory was held (the other were persecutted by the politicians), not how it originated, it doesn't eliminate its relevance. It's not important, anyway. Zenanarh (talk) 16:38, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

"It was most likely result of a creative act of [Constantine]": surely you can see that's not NPOV? Comrie's hardly one to go Slav bashing. (Fischer, on the other hand, is a summarizer than a scholar in this, so I can see him being more problematic. I think his were the words you most objected to.)

If Constantine invented glagolitic, were his students responsible for Cyrillic? Glagolitic being a perfect fit could be due to it's being improved on or augmented by Constantine (e.g. Hebrew shin), not necessarily invented. Cubbley suspects that pre-Constantine glagolitic was probably very much like Greek, and not a good fit to Slavic, and that the excellent phonemic match may have been Constantine's work.

The numerical evidence could be argued either way, and the acrophony means nothing: it's common to lots of scripts, such a runes. No direct evidence of derivation, I think you mean. The same could be said of many scripts with obscure histories, such as runes, but that doesn't imply invention by a single individual. But if you have some good refs from modern paleographers, we can certainly replace the current footnote quotes with more respectable quotes inline.

BTW, they aren't "Russian letters", at least in the modern sense of "Russian". Are you saying you don't think it was Slavic? kwami (talk) 06:26, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

For the rusьskymi pismeny cf. this, pages 3-8; Old Germanic and Syriac have also some supporters (by name, not so unimportant Slavists). The language/script that phrase refers to is far from being solved (it will most likely never be), and the least it can be used as is as an argument of co-existence of Glagolitic and Cyrillic and Constantine's time, or that it's another script (derived from Greek miniscule) Slavs used for writing before the introduction of Glagolitic. Any kinds of insinuations based on that phrase in any context are disputed and problematic at best. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 07:24, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Given that we have established Fischer is not in full posession of his marble do we actually need the full quote in the text? I think not.Xenovatis (talk) 07:37, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

• OK I did some research. General communis opinio among Croatian paleographers (and lets not forget that >90% of all extant Glagolitic writings, either in MS or printed, are of Croatian provenience, and that for century and a half study of Glagolitic has been a topic of extensive study of Croatian paleoslavists from Jagić onwards) agree that Glagolitic was an act of creation by a single individual—Constantine himself. Numerous internal and external evidence can be cited to support that. Of English sources I have access to, that view is heavily defended in Schenker's Dawn of Slavic, which is a standard English-language handbook on Slavic philology, and the Jagić-Taylor theory of cursive-Greek origin is almost ridiculed (citing plenty of sources). I've read Cubberley's position in that big red book in the library, and it is heavily biased. He claims that Jagić-Taylor theory is "most popular" whereas sources like Schenker claim it to be 19th century rubbish ^_^ There is a lots of criticism directed to the view of alleged pre-Constantine use of cursive Greek for writing Slavic (of which there are no extant sources, thus rendering them as pure speculations), which would put him in the role of "formalizer" - he is then credited with the invention of signs for non-Slavic sounds, but how were more then a dosen exclusive Slavic phonemes absent in Greek written before his "formalization" ? Lots of unanswered questions..but for now (until Origin of Glagolitic gets written), I think that the traditional view is by no means obsolete or unsupported. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 10:17, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Comrie & Corbett's view is that there is no direct evidence either way. As for how Slavic was written without non-Greek letters, English and French are written without non-Roman letters. There are lots of defective scripts in the world. kwami (talk) 10:37, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, there is no direct evidence for any, but there are theories that are less and much more likely plausible. Citing an outstanding modern Slavist, mr. Horce G. Lunt of Harvard [2]: "Since glagolitic is the work of one man, or one man and his immediate associates, it is pointless to try to trace the gradual development of various letters from other symbols in other alphabets." --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 17:27, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's obviously a commonly held view, and shouldn't be portrayed as marginal. But all of the traditional-view refs I've seen are by people who don't appear to have done specific work on the script. It would be nice if we had some summary of the debate among paleographers. kwami (talk) 21:48, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Unprotected

Since we seem to be working together now, I've lifted the page protection. I've added some of the sources & quotes above. I've left the quotes for the traditional account in footnotes and placed the modern view in the text, since I suspect readers will be most interested in the latter.

Can I unprotect Early Cyrillic alphabet too? kwami (talk) 02:04, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

By all means.--Xenovatis (talk) 05:57, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Support link?

I couldn't display glagolitic letters (using XP and Firefox 3.07) until I tried some fonts, found at http://clover.slavic.pitt.edu/~repertorium/resources/fonts/fonts.html. I saw there is already some discussion on this, but editors should consider attaching a direct link to the corresponding support page of Wikipedia at the top of the article. Such links are frequently found in Wikipedia's articles about Asian languages. The article is useful in all other respects.--79.131.26.165 (talk) 13:46, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Dobrev is not a proper source

User user:168.7.241.58 is pushing Peter Dobrev's Bulgarian nationalist theories. Can someone help? VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 04:25, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Article layout

In My Firefox 3.5 and Opera 10 browsers, article layout is screwed up. There is a big gap at the end of the ==History== section, after which the image of Codax Zographensis follows. Internet Explorer 8 seems to display the page just fine. Can someone knowledgeable please fix this? :) --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 12:37, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

It was the {{-}} template, which I'd never seen before. You might want to rearrange the images now. kwami (talk) 22:39, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Izhe letter

I think "izhe" has a meaning, correct me if I'm wrong as I don't have the linguistic education. In East Slavic languages the word "izhe" is sometimes used, though a bit outdated, and means "which". It was widely used in The Tale of Igor's Campaign for instance. (SianLiao (talk) 02:11, 22 November 2009 (UTC))

Translations

First of all, great article and good job to everyone who contributed. Second... there are some weasel words in the article and "opinion" based things that don't belong in an encyclopedia. I don't want to start an edit war over it, so just look it over and change what you think needs to be changed. 99.236.221.124 (talk) 17:36, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Categorisation

There has been some edit warring over the categorization of this article. Please state why is the History of Macedonia category a problem? The sources of the article claim that the script is base on a Macedoninan Slavic dialect. Svrznik (talk) 09:56, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with a country that appeared more than a millenia afterwards. Period. And the one edit-warring is you. Plus most probably using sock-puppets to aid you. --Laveol ^T 10:22, 16 September 2010 (UTC)::

We are both edit warring. And it is over a category box. I personally think that neither of these categories are relevant, but if you are insisting on Hisotry of Bulgaria and Croatia, I will insist on History of Macedonia. And both countries (modern Macedonia and modern Bulgaria) appeared "more than a millenia afterwards". Peace! Svrznik (talk) 10:43, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

As for Croatia I was about to ask the same, but then I read the lead and I actually made sense. And no there is no correlation between the History of Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia as such since back at the time there was a Bulgaria and like it or not the alphabet was based on dialects of Bulgarian Slavs. That's all this is about. --Laveol ^T 11:09, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

The source says 'Macedonian Slavs'. Bulgars and Slavs were different ethnic entities, as stated in the article about the Bulgarian Nation. Svrznik (talk) 11:23, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

The Bulgars with an ethnic elite. Bulgarian Slavs, including what we now know as Macedonians, date from that period. But this has nothing to do specifically with the history of the ROM; the Macedonian nation (ethnicity) didn't even exist until a hundred years ago. History of (Medieval) Bulgaria, history of (Greek) Macedonia, history of Slavs, etc, okay, but why the ROM specifically?

I just checked Christopher Columbus. The category 'History of the United States' is not included, despite the fact that every American schoolchild learns about Columbus as part of American history. Why? Because the United States did not exist at the time! The category 'History of ROM' should deal with things that happened when the ROM existed. — kwami (talk) 20:09, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Adding a category box here about the history of Bulgaria is the same as adding a category box in the Latin Script article about the history of Italy, but Wikipedia is lucky that the Italians are not that nationalistic, as we are here on the Balkans. I will say again that there is no place for all these category boxes here. For now i will change it to History of Macedonia, as you are right, the Republic did not exist. And we are wasting too much creativity on this, that should be otherwise used on the article. 95.180.214.174 (talk) 23:37, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

And you're waisting too much time creating sock(meat)-puppets to edit-war around the project. Enough is enough. --Laveol ^T 23:55, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

'History of Mac' seems fine to me. — kwami (talk) 00:00, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I know that you are convinced that it is a sock puppy. If it was a sock puppy I would have had time to correct more articles. I am not new to Wikipedia, and I have been mainly contributing to the Macedonian edition so far. You said that you filed a sock investigation, so I am sure that it will clear the doubt that you have... Peace! Svrznik (talk) 00:31, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Since History of the Republic of Macedonia was deleted, I have removed the rest two countries as well. That silly claim that the country appeared one millennia after the glagolitic alphabet is just funny, since, the alphabet has been used on the territory of RoM as well. The same territory, no matter the political boundaries. Either all categories will be included, or none since this is a perfect example of double standards. --MacedonianBoy (talk) 14:43, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Has it anything to do with the First Bulgarian Empire? Yes. Has it anything to do with a modern XX century country? No. That wraps it up. You don't like it? Fine. Go edit the mk article then. --Laveol ^T 22:35, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Of course it has. The Glagolitic alphabet was used for centuries on the territory of Macedonia. In Bulgaria it was replaced with the Cyrillic, where as in Macedonia, the Glagolitic alphabet was used for an additional one century. What has to do present day Bulgaria with that old, khan-ruled Bulgaria? If they have, then a proper category should be used instead, let say the category Bulgarian Empire.--MacedonianBoy (talk) 19:27, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

bulgars, kipchaks, udi, azeri, cherkezi, gagauzi, kumani, pechenegs, huns, avars, khazars etc...turkic speaking peoples.79.126.213.24 (talk) 15:40, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Pe (Ⱊ)

This article does not mention the letter pe (Ⱊ) or explain why it was encoded in Unicode. The only explanation I can find is Unicode 2C1A – Glagolitic “Pe”: Fact or Fiction?, in which it is explained as a scribal misinterpretation of an archaic use of shta (Ⱋ), whose origin the author traces to the Greek psi. Can someone who knows about Glagolitic comment on this, or offer an alternative explanation? Gorobay (talk) 16:56, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Number of letters in the alphabet

Is there any official number for the amount of letters in the Glagolitic alphabet? (Like the Greek alphabet has 24 letters, but also a couple of ligatures that aren't counted, e.g. Digamma or Sampi.)

I've counted 41 letters in the table used in the article (as well as on two other external sites about the Glagolica.) But i'm not sure if that's right because it includes ligatures like Yeri. They evolved into a seperate letter later in the Cyrillic alphabet, but were they looked at as a seperate letter back then? Also the Unicode block features 47 letters in total, including six more symbols like an Initial Izhe, and some alternations of Yus.

I'm asking because i thought it would be (1) worth adding that number to the Characteristics section, and (2) mentioning those six further symbols that are included in the unicode block. -- — mode.ry talk 20:22, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Greek digamma and sampi are not ligatures. They're just archaic letters which are not needed in modern Greek. (Although personally I would argue that it might not be a bad idea to reintroduce digamma to modern Greek to more easily represent the [w] sound in loanwords, instead of using omicron plus upsilon.)

Disclaimer for the following: I do not know much about Glagolitic, so I am almost certainly wrong on most things here. (OK, I'm reasonably certain of what I say for initial izhe, pe, uk, jery, spidery ha, jo, and Latinate mislete.) ;-)

The letters in the Glagolitic block of Unicode are: az buky vedi glagoli dobro jest zhivete dzelo zemlja izhe initial-izhe i djerv kako ljudi mislete nash on pokoj rtsi slovo tverdo uk fert kher ot pe shta tsi cherv sha jer jer' jat spidery-ha ju small-jus tailed-small-jus jo iotated-small-jus big-jus iotated-big-jus fita izhitsa shtapic trokutasti-a latinate-mislete.

Initial izhe is not really distinct from izhe. It is the same letter that just happens to have a special form when used at the beignning of the word, just like how Greek sigma looks different in final position. This is how the article treats it.

Pe has an interesting story. It appears in abecedaria, but never in actual texts, and its inclusion in Unicode may have been a mistake, seeing as how it has no consistent shape.

Uk is more of a ligature than jery. Uk is a one-piece character while jery is really a digraph. Unicode encodes uk but not jery: the expectation is that you use its components instead.

Spidery ha lost its use relatively early. It was derived from Greek chi or xi.

Jo is a hypothetical and unattested component of the iotated-big-jus ligature.

I think the tailed small jus is a variant of the regular or iotated one, sufficiently non-meaningful to not merit a separate mention in our alphabet listing.

I have no idea about shtapic.

Trokutasti a sounds like a variant of something (az??).

Latinate mislete is almost certainly a variant of mislete, and not a separate letter.

I don't think there is an official number of letters: the situation is very confusing. But I think the number must be at least 39. Double sharp (talk) 14:07, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Štapić was used in the later angular style of glagolitic to represent either one of the yers.

Trokutasti a was similarly used in angular glagolitic inscriptions (e.g. the Baška tablet) as a variant of az.

Latinate myslite is indeed a variant of myslite, again from the angular-style glagolitic. It and frĭtŭ were replaced in the Glagolitic alphabet with their Cyrillic equivalents, frĭtŭ very early (it appears like ф even in the Codex Assemanius) and myslite much later.

Ukŭ was not a ligature in the earliest manuscripts (Codex Zographensis, Codex Assemanius, most of the Kiev Missal); it was just onŭ + ižica. It only became a ligature later.

A couple of early writers give figures for the number of letters in Glagolitic, but these numbers vary. They were generally in the neighborhood of 38, but it’s not certain which letters they counted and which ones they didn’t. An attempt at reconstructing the original Glagolitic alphabet is given in this thesis, based on various alphabet acrostics, abecedaria, and other evidence. They reconstruct the alphabet at the time of the alphabet acrostics as 36 letters, Ⰰ Ⰱ Ⰲ Ⰳ Ⰴ Ⰵ Ⰶ Ⰷ Ⰸ Ⰹ/Ⰺ Ⰻ Ⰼ Ⰽ Ⰾ Ⰿ Ⱀ Ⱁ Ⱂ Ⱃ Ⱄ Ⱅ Ⱛ Ⱇ Ⱈ Ⱉ Ⱋ Ⱌ Ⱍ Ⱎ Ⱏ Ⱐ Ⱑ Ⱒ Ⱖ Ⱓ Ⱔ. Vorziblix (talk) 07:16, 25 September 2014 (UTC)