We’re in Bulgaria, the first place I’ve been where Cyrillic script is used extensively. It looked so strange to me, like something out of a Tolkien book. I wanted to know more. It turns out that two brothers, Cyril and Methodius, invented it to solve a tough problem. Here’s the story…
Quick Recap
As noted last time, in the 9th century, a large swath of Eastern Europe was called Great Moravia. The Moravian king sought help from Constantinople to bring Christianity to his people. The Emperor there sent two of his best scholars – Cyril and Methodius – to get the job done.
Cyril and Methodius were brothers in the cloth and also actual brothers. My guess is that as scholarly types, they were probably ill-suited to make the 900-mile trek to Moravia. But they made it, arriving with Bibles in hand.
A serious problem presented itself immediately. Cyril and Methodius used Bibles written in greek, but greek was unknown in Moravia. In fact, the Moravian king, when presented with their version of the Bible, made the now famous and oft-repeated comment, “That’s greek to me!”
OK. So you saw that coming. Let’s move on… (quickly!)
The Task Gets Even More Difficult
The problem was compounded by the fact that the Slovak script used in Moravia was incompatible with greek. But Cyril and Methodius weren’t quitters.
They started work on the development of a completely new form of writing. They used Greek letters where they could, and they made up new symbols to correspond with sounds of spoken Slovak.
The result was a brand new alphabet with strange-looking characters no one had ever seen before. But when someone knew what sounds to make when they read the new characters, presto! The result sounded like the spoken Slovak used in Moravia.
Cyril and Methodius used their new alphabet to translate the greek Bible into a Bible people in Moravia could use. Once that was done, they could begin teaching people there the Orthodox Christian faith.
The new written language caught on. Cyrillic script is used in more than fifty countries today.
Some Useful Examples?
Most of the time when I’ve seen Cyrillic script, it’s been on something Russian. Here’s the Russian alphabet, so you can see what it looks like:
а б в г д е ё ж з и й к л м н о п
р с т у ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ы ь э ю я
Since we’re still in Bulgaria, maybe we should learn a phrase or two. Every traveler needs to know how to ask where the lavatory is. This might be the way to write “Where’s the bathroom?” in Cyrillic script…
Когато е баня?
If you’re wondering how to pronounce it, well… I guess that’s going to have to be your homework assignment. Either that, or next time you’re in Bulgaria and you need to go, write it down and hold it up in front of the first person you see.
One of the biggest cities in Bulgaria is Plovdiv. Maybe you’ll want to go there someday. If so, this could come in handy…
Когато е следващото влак до Пловдив?
It means, “When is the next train to Plovdiv?” You’ll want to write this down somewhere, too, I’m sure.
Meanwhile, we’ll be on our way to the next country – Romania.
To be continued…
Photo of a monument celebrating Cyril and Methodius at the top of this post, credit: CyrillSvetlanka777/istockphoto
