- The Russian alphabet has undergone fundamental changes several times. Before Cyril and Methodius, it had exactly 49 letters, they looked like this:
The use of such letters was difficult, as a result of which the Slavs could not even write letters to each other, and the narrative of history, which was led by the sages, turned into a chronicle difficult to translate into our language.
2. The origin of writing in Rus' occurred in 863. Cyril and Methodius abolished the old letters that denoted entire words, taking the Greek alphabet as a basis. Here's what happened:
3. Over the centuries, the phonetic composition of the language has gradually changed, many letters have sunk into oblivion, the pronunciation of more than 90% of letters has changed radically. However, all letters are “descendants” of those that were written by Cyril and Methodius in their famous alphabet.
Important: many historians and experts in Russian phonetics claim that with each new edition the alphabet becomes poorer and thinner, which negatively affects the phonetic wealth of our native “great and mighty”.
An alphabet is a series of written signs arranged in a constant order and conveying most fully and accurately some of the sound elements that make up the speech of a particular people. Every schoolchild now knows how many letters are in the Russian alphabet. But what is its story?
History of the alphabet
The alphabet dates back to ancient times, and it originally appeared among the Phoenicians, when they, having occupied the Nile Delta, were able to get acquainted with Egyptian hieroglyphs. The oldest recorded alphabet appeared approximately 1000 years before the birth of Christ. However, some scholars consider the inscription on the monument of the Moabite king to be even older than the above date. After the Phoenicians, the alphabet appeared among the Greeks. The latter left the shape of the letters almost unchanged, even their sound, order and names were retained. But some signs still turned out to be superfluous, and for a certain part of Greek speech there were no symbols, so some were removed and others were added. All subsequent ones originated from the Greek alphabet, gradually adapting to local languages (Etruscan, Os, Latin, Umbrian, Albanian). The Latin alphabet took root almost everywhere and quickly spread throughout the world. The main signs have not changed practically anywhere, but secondary ones have arisen - superscript or subscript, since different nationalities had their own requirements if there were not enough sounds to correctly convey the sounds of speech on paper.
Features of alphabets
Today there are already dozens of alphabets in the world. They differ in appearance, in origin and in the principle of correspondence between sound and letter. Most alphabets have from 20 to 30 letters, but they also have 12 and 50 characters. Some use modification of letters with the help of various marks or a combination of several characters.
Logograms
Logograms became a very important contribution to writing. Thanks to them, the recording of linguistic units began to attract attention precisely to the sound, and not to the pictorial image. This was essential for those words that cannot be replaced by pictures (pronouns, suffixes, prepositions and prefixes). But here some difficulties arose. The reader could not always determine what the drawing meant - sound or image. In addition, the number of some characters in logographic writing is very large (for example, among the Chinese it is in the thousands). In addition, for the symbols that were depicted in drawings, the accuracy of the image itself was necessary, and it was often very difficult to reproduce them.
ABC
The alphabet came from the Greek version of the alphabet, and the word itself was made up of its first letters: alpha and beta. In the Slavic version - az and beeches. It is believed that the names of the Slavic letters were invented by Cyril in the 9th century, wanting them to be not just a meaningless set of sounds, but to have their own meaning. Then the alphabet was developed by the brothers Cyril and Methodius. It spread very quickly throughout the Slavic countries and to this day is their unchanging alphabet.
Russian alphabet
It is quite difficult to say now how many letters were in the Russian alphabet initially, since it was modified many times (some letters were added, others were removed). Establishing their exact initial quantity is quite problematic. The alphabet has been subject to modification throughout its existence. For example, Peter I decided to completely remove letters from it, which he simply considered unnecessary. He removed the letter “psi” from the alphabet and tidied up the double and triple designations of sounds. "Omega", "earth" and "izhitsa" were also removed.
One could count how many letters there were in the Russian alphabet after the deletion that Peter made, but he did not stop there and after some time added the “missing ones.” The well-known “e” and “ya” were added, which the king officially legalized. Later (after the revolution of 1917), the Russian language underwent so-called Europeanization, and some letters from it disappeared forever.
Princely fun
In general, it is possible to count how many letters there have ever been in the Russian alphabet several times, since it has been constantly changing since ancient times. Some letters consisted of entire words or a combination of several characters. As a result, it turned out that the alphabet could contain 37 letters in one Russian principality, and at the same time 50 or even more in another. In times of fragmentation of the state, each prince tried to be different from his neighbor in some way, sometimes even in this way.
Reforms in the alphabet
Research into the history of the Russian alphabet has shown that there are a lot of “blank spots” in it, around which endless disputes arise, and they are still relevant to this day. Even the graphics and their alphabetical part have undergone many changes, which are not yet fully detailed. Particular attention can be paid to the letter “е”. If we rely on historical facts, then she has always aroused great interest, since she was in a “homeless” situation. The scientific basis for the fact that this letter is really needed in the alphabet has been given by many outstanding linguists. There is even a book dedicated exclusively to her. It describes not only the history of the origin of the letter “ё”, but also the rationale for its necessity, and also provides a list of words with it. In online communities to this day, the use of this letter is constantly discussed, which leads to heated debates.
If we turn to the history of the reform of the alphabet in Rus', then the Slavic letter, unlike its Western European counterpart, was constantly developing, following the modification of the language as a system. Moreover, until the 18th century, development occurred spontaneously, and after that - in the form of government reforms. The most important of the latter were carried out during periods of great restructuring in society. For example: Peter's reform, Soviet reform. In the interval between them, three more small ones were carried out concerning Russian writing. They had a great influence on Russian graphics. Changes in the Russian language in history can be divided into three categories: in alphabetical composition, punctuation and spelling, and graphic.
Depth of reforms
The alphabet became more or less established after the reforms of Peter the Great. Then, according to the emperor, he counted 9 “unnecessary” letters, which were successfully “cut out”. Then Peter I carried out a reform of graphics, which played an important role in Russian writing. The reform had a huge impact on the future of the alphabet and entailed a number of subsequent changes that were carried out by the Academy of Sciences. The latter excluded a number of letters, but returned some of those removed by Peter I, moreover, restored Izhitsa, which was almost never used in writing.
Some reforms affected a group of letters whose sounds have changed over the course of history. This applies to hard and soft signs. Having lost their sound meaning, they began to mean hardness or softness. The exclusion of the letters “er” and “yat” caused resistance from the intelligentsia. Books printed without them were associated with the new regime, and the new spelling seemed to many to be a gross violation of literacy. Therefore, printing houses often printed publications based on the old spelling. Representatives of the new government periodically forcibly confiscated typesetting letters with “er” and “yat”. This led to the fact that after the revolution an apostrophe was often used instead of “er”.
So how many letters are there?
It was at this time that it was interesting to count the number of letters in the Russian alphabet, since some of the texts were printed with the old set of letters, and some with the new one. Many “enemies of Soviet power” did not recognize the new spelling, and publications published abroad by Russians were printed in the old way.
Solzhenitsyn, in his own words, “spoke with disgust” about the new spelling and, at the slightest opportunity, wrote using the old one. Today we can say with confidence how many letters are in the Russian alphabet. There are 33 of them in total.
The modern Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. The alphabet in its current form has existed since 1942. In fact, the year 1918 can be considered the year of the formation of the modern Russian alphabet - then it consisted of 32 letters (without the letter ё). The origin of the alphabet, according to historical documents, is associated with the names Cyril and Methodius and dates back to the 9th century AD. From its origin until 1918, the alphabet changed several times, adding and excluding characters. At one time it consisted of more than 40 letters. The Russian alphabet is also sometimes called the Russian alphabet.
Russian alphabet with letter names
On our website, for each letter of the Russian alphabet there is a separate page with a detailed description, examples of words, pictures, poems, riddles. They can be printed or downloaded. Click on the desired letter to go to its page.
A a B b C c D d E d e e e f f g h h i i j j K k L l M m N n O o P p R r S s T t U u F f X x C t H h Sh sh sch q y y b ee y y I
Often in written speech the letter e is used instead of the letter е. In most cases, the replacement does not cause difficulties for the reader, but in some contexts it is necessary to use the letter ё to avoid ambiguity. Russian letters are a neuter noun. It is worth considering that the style of letters depends on the font.
Numbering of letters
In some logical tasks to determine the next element in a series, in games when solving comic ciphers, in competitions for knowledge of the alphabet and in other similar cases, you need to know the serial numbers of the letters of the Russian alphabet, including numbers when counting from the end to the beginning of the alphabet. Our visual “strip” will help you quickly determine the number of a letter in the alphabet.
- A
1
33 - B
2
32 - IN
3
31 - G
4
30 - D
5
29 - E
6
28 - Yo
7
27 - AND
8
26 - Z
9
25 - AND
10
24 - Y
11
23 - TO
12
22 - L
13
21 - M
14
20 - N
15
19 - ABOUT
16
18 - P
17
17
- R
18
16 - WITH
19
15 - T
20
14 - U
21
13 - F
22
12 - X
23
11 - C
24
10 - H
25
9 - Sh
26
8 - SCH
27
7 - Kommersant
28
6 - Y
29
5 - b
30
4 - E
31
3 - YU
32
2 - I
33
1
Letters of the Russian alphabet
Frequent questions about the letters of the Russian alphabet are: how many letters are in the alphabet, which of them are vowels and consonants, which are called uppercase and which are lowercase? Basic information about letters is often found in popular questions for primary school students, in tests of erudition and determining IQ level, in questionnaires for foreigners on knowledge of the Russian language and other similar problems.
Number of letters
How many letters are in the Russian alphabet?
There are 33 letters in the Russian alphabet.
To remember the number of letters in the Russian alphabet, some people associate them with popular phrases: “33 pleasures”, “33 misfortunes”, “33 cows”. Other people associate it with facts from their lives: I live in apartment number 33, I live in region 33 (Vladimir region), I play in team number 33 and the like. And if the number of letters of the alphabet is forgotten again, then associated phrases help to remember it. It will probably help you too?!
Vowels and consonants
How many vowels and consonants are there in the Russian alphabet?
10 vowels + 21 consonants + 2 do not mean sound
Among the letters of the Russian alphabet are:
- 10 vowels: a, o, u, s, e, i, e, e, yu, and;
- 21 consonant letters: b, v, g, d, j, g, z, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, f, x, c, h, w, sch;
- 2 letters that do not mean sounds: ь, ъ.
The letter means sound. Compare: “ka”, “el” - names of letters, [k], [l] - sounds.
Uppercase and lowercase
Which letters are uppercase and which are lowercase?
Letters can be uppercase (or capital) and lowercase:
- A, B, V... E, Yu, Z - capital letters,
- a, b, c... e, yu, i - lowercase letters.
Sometimes they say: large and small letters. But this formulation is incorrect, since it means the size of the letter, and not its style. Compare:
B is a large capital letter, B is a small capital letter, b is a large lowercase letter, b is a small lowercase letter.
Proper names, the beginning of sentences, and “you” are written with a capital letter as an expression of deep respect. In computer programs, the term "letter case" is used. Capital letters are typed in uppercase, lowercase letters are typed in lowercase.
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There are 33 letters in the Russian alphabet (thirty-three letters)
If you don't know this, the teacher will give you a bad grade. It’s true that in school they don’t give you “F” grades in first grade. Namely, in the first grade, most often children do not know how many letters are in the alphabet.
How many letters are in the Russian alphabet
Here it is, the Russian alphabet:
In Russian everything 33 letters.
10 of them are vowels, 21 consonants and 2 signs: hard and soft.
This alphabet has existed since 1918, but until 1942 e and were counted as one letter.
In the Russian alphabet there are 33 letters. Each letter has its own style - uppercase and lowercase. Only the capital letters b and b are not used as such, because Words don't start with them.
So, A, B, C, D, D, E, F, Z, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, F, X, C, H, Sh, Shch, b, s, b, e, yu, ya.
But in the photo the Russian alphabet is shown in the correct form of letters.
Just today in the program Military Secret with Dmitry Prokopenko they showed how the program reporter asked this question on the streets of Moscow. I was shocked when I saw that every second (if not the first) person surveyed (young people 17-25 years old) said that there are 32 letters.
There are, of course, 33 of them, but for several years now there have been persistent rumors that the Russian alphabet will abandon the letter. Maybe Muscovites have already given up and they have 32 letters 🙂?
The Russian alphabet has had 33 letters since 1942, officially since 1917-1918. Until this time, the Russian alphabet had 35 letters. The modern Cyrillic alphabet is derived from the Old Church Slavonic Cyrillic alphabet, which was borrowed from the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet and had 43 letters.
Initially, our Russian alphabet originated from the Bulgarian alphabet, more precisely from the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet, and contained forty-six symbols, over time, about fourteen symbols were removed as unnecessary, since they duplicated other symbols, thirty-two letters remained in the alphabet, the dispute was over the letters E and, many considered them as one letter, many as two different ones, only in nineteen forty-two they officially began to count thirty-three letters in the Russian alphabet.
I recently answered a similar question, but it was about the English alphabet. Well, as for the Russian alphabet, all students of the Russian language should know that there are only 33 letters, of which there are 10 vowel sounds and 21 consonant sounds. Do not forget that b and b are not sounds.
It is interesting that such a question receives attention - in theory, any person capable of speaking and writing in Russian should know this simple truth - there are only 33 letters in the Russian language, in the Russian alphabet. Although, for example, I don’t dare call a soft and hard sign letters. These are more signs than letters. But nevertheless, it is not customary to separate them. Each of these signs has its own place in the alphabet - a hard sign after the letter Ш, and a soft sign after the letter Y. Why they are located this way, I don’t know.
In the Russian alphabet just 33 letters.
This is not Chinese or Japanese. We are not destined to split hairs. 33 letters are enough for complete communication.
After all, all the words that we make up from these letters have very diverse meanings. Here we are more interesting than all nations.
No one will be surprised by this: A woman is chasing a cow, and she is constantly mooing. The woman cannot restrain herself and shouts: Shut your mouth, dog! Everyone passing by understands that the woman is tired of the cow's mooing. So why do we need more letters? :)
I studied Russian from the 5th grade and I know for sure that if you know the language well, then you know the number of letters in the alphabet of this language just as well. In this case, the first time I remembered all the letters and their number in the alphabet, although I don’t remember all the priority - I confess that I rearranged some letters among themselves.
Nevertheless, the Russian alphabet has the same number of letters as my native language - 33 beauties. Here they are with numbers.
For adults, they all seem easy, but the hardest thing for me to learn to write in words was the hard sign(s) and the letter Y - I couldn’t write the first option in words together, and in the second without lifting my hand on this letter - I struggled with dictations So first, in terms of speed.
And all the letters are easy to write, but I ask parents to practice with their child. Some more practice with the letter e won't hurt.
Here is a poem by Irina Tokmakova about the residents of the city of Bukvarinsk, only 29 letters are listed, there were no professions for the letters Y, Y, ь, Ъ, but nevertheless, 33 letters live in the nice little dust-free Bukvarinsk.
When I was in school, it was 33 =)), now it’s probably the same =)))
Cool question! I'm already thinking about it. :-) It seems like there were 33 things. Damn... I need to go and count in my son's talking alphabet book.
The Russian alphabet has thirty-three letters. There are 10 vowels, 21 consonants, two signs - soft and hard.
I wonder what percentage of people can accurately name all the letters of the alphabet in the correct order?
Hm... 33, what? Did you forget, didn’t know, or is there a catch?
Old Church Slavonic, being the language of the church, was influenced by the Old Russian language. It was an Old Church Slavonic language with elements of living East Slavic speech. Thus, the modern Russian alphabet comes from the Cyrillic alphabet of the Old Church Slavonic language, which was borrowed from the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet and became widespread in Kievan Rus.
Later, 4 new letters were added, and 14 old ones were excluded at different times as unnecessary, since the corresponding sounds disappeared. The first to disappear was the iotized yus (Ѩ, Ѭ), then the large yus (Ѫ), which returned in the 15th century, but disappeared again at the beginning of the 17th century [ ], and iotinated E (Ѥ); the remaining letters, sometimes slightly changing their meaning and form, have survived to this day as part of the Church Slavonic alphabet, which for a long time was mistakenly considered identical with the Russian alphabet. Spelling reforms of the second half of the 17th century (related to the “correction of books” under Patriarch Nikon) fixed the following set of letters: A, B, C, D, D, E (with a spelling different variant Є, which was sometimes considered a separate letter and placed in the alphabet on place of the present E, that is, after Ѣ), Ж, S, З, И (with the orthographically distinct variant И for the sound [j], which was not considered a separate letter), I, K, L, M, N, O (in two orthographically different styles: “narrow” and “wide”), P, R, S, T, U (in two orthographically different styles:), Ф, Х, Ѡ (in two orthographically different styles: “narrow” and “wide” , as well as as part of the ligature “ot” (Ѿ), usually considered a separate letter), Ts, Ch, Sh, Shch, b, ы, b, Ѣ, Yu, Ya (in two styles: Ꙗ and Ѧ, which were sometimes considered in different letters, sometimes not), Ѯ, Ѱ, Ѳ, Ѵ. Sometimes the big yus (Ѫ) and the so-called “ik” (in the form of the current letter “u”) were also included in the alphabet, although they had no sound meaning and were not used in any word.
The Russian alphabet remained in this form until the reforms of Peter I of 1708-1711 (and the Church Slavonic alphabet remains like this to this day), when superscripts were abolished (which, incidentally, “abolished” the letter Y) and many doublet letters were abolished,
