# Cyrillic letter origins: [Ч], [Ъ], and [Ь] ?



## Delvo

I've been reading lately about the origins of alphabets and individual letters in them, and these are the last few that I don't see anything about.

Che (Ч,ч) is similar to tse (Ц,ц) in both appearance and sound, so I suspect they share a common origin. Apparently tse is believed to have come from Hebrew tsade (צ,ץ), so my theory would imply that che also comes from tsade. But does it, or could this be a case of the obvious answer being wrong? I haven't seen it written/said anywhere.

The two "yer" letters, [Ъ,ъ] and [Ь,ь], are worse; I can't even come up with a theory for them. From just the way they look, derivation from "b" or such would seem to fit, but appearance can mislead, and their sounds are not like /b/. (There are letters derived from Greek beta, but they're different: [Б,б] for the sound /b/ and [В,в] for the sound /v/.) And they're also nothing like any Glagolitic letter for anything close to the right sound. So what happened there?


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## sumelic

Wikipedia gives ⱏand ⱐas the Glagolitic counterparts of ъ and ь, could this work? It seems possible that these might be related; they look about as similar as uppercase and lowercase B and b. I don't have any idea where the Glagolitic letters come from though.


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## Hulalessar

Not sure about the hard and soft signs, but most of (?all) the letters not derived from Greek are borrowed from Glagolitic.


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## rusita preciosa

Russian Wiki says the following:

Ц:
The origin has not been determined; there are similar letters in Ethiopian (ሃ), Aramaic and its derivatives such as Hebrew (צ / ץ) and Coptic ϥ.

Ч:
As with ц, its origin is often linked with the Semitic letter “tsade” (צ )

I do not know about other Slavic languages, but in modern Russian these letters are not at all perceived as similar, neither in apprearance nor in sound.


Ы:
Was not present in older versions of the Cyrillic script, it was later derived from mechanical joining of Ы or Ь with the letters I or И.

Ъ and Ь:
Are not independent letters, they could be considered diacritics. They are thought to be derived from the letter O (here's what it looked in Glagolitic ); rather than B


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## DarkChild

Bulgarian wiki says that Ц comes from Glagolitic Ⱌ, while Ч from Ⱍ but these are the same sounds, while the same doesn't look similar to me at all.
About Ъ (by the way, this is an independent letter in Bulgarian) and ь (not independent, can't even type it in uppercase) it lists the Greek O as the origin


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## Hulalessar

Whilst some of the letters in question may look like letters in the Ethiopic, Aramaic, Hebrew or Coptic scripts, the more obvious explanation is that they are borrowed from Glagolitic which those who devised the earliest form of Cyrillic would have been familiar with. The outer form of the Glagolitic letters are probably "just made up" rather than being derived from any particular script(s). If you design a script from scratch at least some letters will inevitably resemble those in some other writing system.


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## Christo Tamarin

Glagolitic was a new alphabet invented/designed/created by a single person, the inventor/designer/creator being St. Cyrill, most probably. He probably used the idea of Armenian and Georgian alphabets and following that idea, he designed unique shapes of Glagolitic letters. The inventor/designer/creator of Glagolitic did not know anything about the alphabet which is now called Cyrillic. 
At the time of its appearance, the alphabet which is now called Cyrillic could not be considered as a new alphabet, noone could claim to be the inventor/designer/creator of Cyrillic. Everyone literate probably knew that the alphabet which is now called *Cyrillic is just an extension of the Greek alphabet: 11 new letters were added to the original 24 Greek letters*.
Just for reference: The modern Roman alphabet contains 3 new letters introduced in the last millenium: J, U, W. The German alphabet, e.g., also introduces new letters: ß, ä, ö, ü, and it is still considered a version of the Roman alphabet. 
Thus, at the time of its appearance, the alphabet which is now called Cyrillic was just a version and an extension of the Greek alphabet, another such an extension being the Coptic alphabet. The source of the additional Coptic letters is recognizable: this was the ancient demotic script of Egypt. Unfortunately, those who introduced the 11 new letters for Slavonic/Cyrillic, did not know anything about Coptic. And, the source of those additional letters is not known to us now.
The alphabet which is now called Cyrillic at the time of its appearance really was just a an extension of the Greek alphabet. Please consider: every Greek text could be written in "Cyrillic" of that time using only the 24 original letters and avoiding the additional 11 Slavonic letters, and noone would notice that another alphabet was used. At that time, the Roman alphabet was already an alphabet different than the Greek alphabet. Now, the modern Cyrillic alphabet is already an alphabet different than both the Greek and the Roman alphabets.
*Here is the list of the 11 addional Cyrillic letters: Б, S, Ж, Ъ, Ь, Ѣ, Ш, Ц, Ч, Ѫ, Ѧ. Most probably, there was not a common source of them. *
In Greek of that time, there were three special additional letters beyond the basic 24 letters. Those 3 special additional Greek letters had no phonetic values and were used to denote the numbers 6, 90, and 900. In Cyrillic, these were *S, Ч,* and *Ц*, already with phonetic values assigned.
Probably, the letter *Б* was just a version of the letter *B*.
It is unprobable that the letters *Ъ* and *Ь* were versions of the letter O. Most probably, *Ь* was a new plausible shape of letter and the letters *Ъ* and *Ѣ* (and perhaps *Б*) were versions of it.
The letter *Ш* is the only among the 11 additional Cyrillic letters which seems to share its shape with Glagolitic. Probably, the common source was Syriac/Aramaic/Hebrew.


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## Christo Tamarin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koppa_(letter)

Most probably, this letter was the source of the Cyrillic *Ч*. The Cyrillic *Ч *inherited the numerical value of 90 and was assigned a phonetic value in Cyrillic/Slavonic. No phonetic value was known for the letter Koppa at that time. Note: The Greek letter Koppa is the source of the Roman letter Q. Thus, Roman Q and Cyrilic Ч have a common source, most probably.

It is unprobable that the Greek letter Sampi which had the same numerical value of 900 was the source of the Cyrillic *Ц*. Most probably, the shape of *Ц* was a version of *Ч*.


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## Christo Tamarin

rusita preciosa said:


> Ц:
> The origin has not been determined; there are similar letters in Ethiopian (ሃ), Aramaic and its derivatives such as Hebrew (צ / ץ) and Coptic ϥ.


The Ethiopian connection is totally unprobable. 



rusita preciosa said:


> Ч:
> As with ц, its origin is often linked with the Semitic letter “tsade” (צ )


No, it was the Greek letter Koppa (the same source as the Roman letter Q).



rusita preciosa said:


> I do not know about other Slavic languages, but in modern Russian these letters are not at all perceived as similar, neither in apprearance nor in sound.


Actually, *Ъ* and *Ь* coincided in those Slavic dialects which later developed to Serbo-Croatian/Slovak/Czech. By the 10 century, they had already coinceded in those dialects, most probably.



rusita preciosa said:


> Ы:
> Was not present in older versions of the Cyrillic script, it was later derived from mechanical joining of Ы or Ь with the letters I or И.


It was *Ъ* + (*I* or И). By the way, I and И (Greek I and H) have the same phonetic value in both Greek and Slavonic and there was no rule which letter to use in Slavonic. In Russian of the 19-th century, there was already such a rule elaborated.



rusita preciosa said:


> Ъ and Ь:
> Are not independent letters, they could be considered diacritics. They are thoughts to be derived from the letter O (here's what it looked in Glagolitic ); rather than B


No, Ъ and Ь could not be derived from the letter O.

Ъ and Ь could be considered diacritics in modern Russian only (non-slavic languages are out of consideration). In modern Bulgarian, Ь could be considered diacritic as well. In Bulgarian, the letter *Ъ* still has its original phonetic value.


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## Ben Jamin

The source of the letters *Ж *and*Ш*is said to be Coptic.


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## Ben Jamin

Delvo said:


> Che (Ч,ч) is similar to tse (Ц,ц) in both appearance and sound,


Not for Slavic speakers.
Would you say that *t* and *ch,*i or *t* and *s* in English are almost the same in sound?


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## berndf

Christo Tamarin said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koppa_(letter)
> 
> Most probably, this letter was the source of the Cyrillic *Ч*. The Cyrillic *Ч *inherited the numerical value of 90 and was assigned a phonetic value in Cyrillic/Slavonic. No phonetic value was known for the letter Koppa at that time. Note: The Greek letter Koppa is the source of the Roman letter Q. Thus, Roman Q and Cyrilic Ч have a common source, most probably.
> 
> It is unprobable that the Greek letter Sampi which had the same numerical value of 900 was the source of the Cyrillic *Ц*. Most probably, the shape of *Ц* was a version of *Ч*.


The reflex of the Greek Koppa in early Cyrillic was Ҁ and it had the numeric value 90. Ч was assigned the numerical value 90 only after the loss of Ҁ. I don't think Ч has anything to do with Koppa.


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## Hulalessar

In respect of almost every, if not every, letter in the Cyrillic alphabet we can point to a letter in some ancient alphabet which has a similar outward form with a similar value. However, just because, for example, the Cyrillic letter Ш looks like the Hebrew letter ש and the Coptic letter "shay" does not mean that whoever devised the Cyrillic alphabet borrowed it directly from either. It may be noted that whilst the Hebrew and Coptic letters look similar, the immediate parents of each are different, the Hebrew letter deriving from the Phoenician waw (which looks something like W) and the Coptic from a Demotic sign. Whether the Phoenician sign derives from the Demotic sign is unknown.Whilst it does not have to be the case, the simplest explanation is likely to be the correct one. Cyrillic is probably exactly what it looks like: essentially Greek supplemented by symbols from Glagolitic to represent sounds not found in Greek. In this respect it resembles Coptic which is essentially Greek supplemented by symbols from Demotic also to represent sounds not found in Greek. Glagolitic, while Greek in its inner form (that is a "true" alphabet) has signs which appear to be have been invented by whoever designed it. Obviously the inventor must have been literate and it is not surprising if some of the outer forms look like letters from other alphabets and in some cases have the same value; whether that was a conscious decision of the inventor we cannot know.


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## Delvo

Ben Jamin said:


> The source of the letters *Ж *and*Ш*is said to be Coptic.


The only source for them that I've seen before is Hebrew ש (shin/šin), which is much more believable because the population and cultural influence of Jews in Slavic territory far exceeds that of Egyptians.



Ben Jamin said:


> Not for Slavic speakers.
> Would you say that *t* and *ch,*i or *t* and *s* in English are almost the same in sound?


Maybe not "almost the same", but "similar", particularly "similar enough to be related in phonetic evolution", yes, without any doubt.


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## Delvo

Hulalessar said:


> just because, for example, the Cyrillic letter Ш looks like the Hebrew letter ש and the Coptic letter shay does not mean that whoever devised the Cyrillic alphabet borrowed it directly from either. It may be noted that whilst the Hebrew and Coptic letters look similar, the immediate parents of each are different, the Hebrew letter deriving from the Phoenician waw (which looks something like W) and the Coptic from a Demotic sign.


That Hebrew letter and its Phoenician origin which resembled [W] are "shin/šin". The Phoenician letter represented an S-like sound, and its Arabic descendants are šin (ش) and sin (س), which also still share the three upward points like a [W]. In Greek, it turned sideways and became sigma (Σ), which would later evolve into Latin [S] and Cyrillic [C].


None of that is connected at all to the letter "waw", which looked more like a [Y] in Phoenician and represented a sound nowhere near /s/, more like /w/ and /u/.


Its descendants in modern Aramaic-derived alphabets are called "waw", "wa", or "vav". It lost its upper right branch in the Aramaic era, after which the upper left one changed differently in different descendant alphabets. It shrank to merely a little flag-like brush-flourish at the top of a long vertical line in Hebrew, comparable to the little hooks or spikes in our "serif" fonts (ו), which is now missing in some simplified Hebrew fonts which have vav as nothing but a vertical line. In the Nabataean alphabet, it curled down until it formed first a large hook and then a closed loop with the vertical line (see this image). Then, as the Nabataean alphabet became the modern Arabic one, the vertical line below swept to the left (و), giving the modern letter ‎ its resemblance to our number 9 and lowercase letter [g] while it still acts like a [w].


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## Hulalessar

Delvo said:


> That Hebrew letter and its Phoenician origin which resembled [W] are "shin/šin". The Phoenician letter represented an S-like sound, and its Arabic descendants are šin (ش) and sin (س), which also still share the three upward points like a [W]. In Greek, it turned sideways and became sigma (Σ), which would later evolve into Latin [S] and Cyrillic [C].
> 
> 
> None of that is connected at all to the letter "waw", which looked more like a [Y] in Phoenician and represented a sound nowhere near /s/, more like /w/ and /u/.


I knew all that! I had a mental aberration and referred to "shin" as "waw" thinking about it looking like a "W".


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## Ben Jamin

Delvo said:


> The only source for them that I've seen before is Hebrew ש (shin/šin), which is much more believable because the population and cultural influence of Jews in Slavic territory far exceeds that of Egyptians.


 Hardly possible. Jews began to settle down i those territories much later. Hebrew influence must have come through Christianity, and it is more likely that Cyril and Metodius (Greek monks i Byzantium) had contact with Coptic Christians in Egypt than the Slavic population had with Jews at that time.


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## berndf

Delvo said:


> The only source for them that I've seen before is Hebrew ש (shin/šin), which is much more believable because the population and cultural influence of Jews in Slavic territory far exceeds that of Egyptians.


I agree with Ben Jamin here. As both Glagolitic and Cyrillic are artificially created writing systems created by a small number of Christian scholars, cultural contact has little relevance. The Coptic Church had a much greater importance in Christianity back in Cyril’s days than it has today and it is highly plausible to assume that those scholars were familiar with the Coptic writing system.


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## fdb

Ben Jamin said:


> and it is more likely that Cyril and  Metodius (Greek monks in Byzantium) had contact with Coptic Christians in  Egypt than the Slavic population had with Jews at that time.


*Even if we were to accept that Cyril and Methodius invented the Cyrillic script (the tradition would even have us believe that they invented both Cyrillic and Glagolitic scripts), it is most unlikely that they should have had any contacts with Copts, or that they should have known anything about Coptic. The Byzantine and Coptic churches are not even in communion with each other (each regards the other as dangerous heretics).  Hebrew, on the other hand, is the language of the larger part of the Christian Bible. A modicum of Hebrew has always existed among Christian scholars.
*


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## berndf

Hmm. I though the Coptic romance with Arianism had ended already during the time of St. Basil.


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## fdb

No, the Coptic Church is monophysite. The split with the "orthodox/catholic" churches was cemented at Chalcedon in 451.


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## berndf

Oh right. I was never aware that the Chalcedonian churches regarded monophysite as heretic.


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## sotos

Ben Jamin said:


> Hardly possible. Jews began to settle down i those territories much later. Hebrew influence must have come through Christianity, and it is more likely that Cyril and Metodius (Greek monks i Byzantium) had contact with Coptic Christians in Egypt than the Slavic population had with Jews at that time.


In all biographies of St. Cyril I read that he knew (among others) the syrian language.  Somewhere  I red that when he got in Russia first time,  he found ecclesiastic books in russian language written with syrian letters. This latter was not referenced, though.


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## Ben Jamin

sotos said:


> In all biographies of St. Cyril I read that he knew (among others) the syrian language.  Somewhere  I red that when he got in Russia first time,  he found ecclesiastic books in russian language written with syrian letters. This latter was not referenced, though.


Well, Russian language did not exist at that time, only eastern dialects of the Common Slavic Language. The oldest texts written in a Slavic language in the Rus territory were written in Old Church Slavonic (Macedonian variety of Slavic), not local dialects.

There was no political entity called Russia either. The Slavic population dwelled in the territory of today's Ukraine and Belorussia plus Novgorod region.

There are no records of Cyril and Methodius travelling that far north east either, according to Byzantine sources they carried out their christening activity among Slavic peoples of todays Macedonia and Moravia.


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## sotos

Cyril had been  in Crimea and in the lands of Khazars. 

http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/ChurchHistory220/LectureTwo/CyrilMethodius.htm


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## Ben Jamin

sotos said:


> Cyril had been  in Crimea and in the lands of Khazars.
> 
> http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/ChurchHistory220/LectureTwo/CyrilMethodius.htm


Still far from "'Russia" of that time (i.e. East Slavs").


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