All Russian alphabets. Letters

The Khmer alphabet has the largest number of letters in the Guinness Book of Records. It has 72 letters. This language is spoken in Cambodia.

However, the Ubykh alphabet contains the largest number of letters - 91 letters. The Ubykh language (the language of one of the Caucasian peoples) is considered one of the record holders for sound diversity: according to experts, it has up to 80 consonant phonemes.

Under Soviet rule, serious changes were made to the alphabets of all peoples living on the territory of the USSR: in the Russian language towards reducing the number of letters, and in other languages, mainly towards increasing them. After perestroika, the number of letters in the alphabets of many peoples living on the territory of the former Soviet republics decreased.

In modern Russian there are 33 letters. According to official sources, before the reform of Cyril and Methodius, the Russian language had 43 letters, and according to unofficial sources - 49.

The first 5 letters were thrown out by Cyril and Methodius, because there were no corresponding sounds in the Greek language, and for four they were given Greek names. Yaroslav the Wise removed one more letter, leaving 43. Peter I reduced it to 38. Nicholas II to 35. As part of Lunacharsky’s reform, the letters “yat”, “fita” and “and decimal” were excluded from the alphabet (E, F should be used instead , И), and also the hard sign (Ъ) at the end of words and parts of complex words would be excluded, but retained as a dividing sign (rise, adjutant).

In addition, Lunacharsky removed images from the Initial Letter, leaving only phonemes, i.e. the language has become unimaginative = ugly. So instead of the Primer, the Alphabet appeared.

Until 1942, it was officially believed that there were 32 letters in the Russian alphabet, since E and E were considered to be variants of the same letter.

The Ukrainian alphabet includes 33 letters: compared to Russian, Ёё, Ъъ, ыы, Ее are not used, but Ґґ, Єє, Іі and Її are present.

The Belarusian alphabet currently has 32 letters. Compared with Russian alphabet i, ь, ъ are not used, but the letters i and ў are added, and the digraphs j and d are also sometimes considered to have the status of letters.

The Yakut language uses an alphabet based on Cyrillic, which contains the entire Russian alphabet, plus five additional letters and two combinations. 4 diphthongs are also used.

The Kazakh and Bashkir Cyrillic alphabet contains 42 letters.

The current Chechen alphabet contains 49 letters (compiled on a graphical basis Russian alphabet in 1938). In 1992, the Chechen leadership decided to introduce an alphabet based on the Latin script of 41 letters. This alphabet was used to a limited extent in parallel with the Cyrillic alphabet in the period from 1992 to 2000.

The Armenian alphabet contains 38 letters, however, after the reform in 1940, the ligature "և “undeservedly received the status of a letter that does not have a capital letter - thus the number of letters became, as it were, “thirty-eight and a half.”

The Tatar alphabet after the translation of Tatar writing in 1939 from Latinized alphabet on alphabet based on Russian graphics contained 38 letters, and after 1999 an alphabet based on the Latin script of 34 letters was widely used.

The Kyrgyz Cyrillic alphabet, adopted in 1940, contains 36 letters.

The modern Mongolian alphabet contains 35 letters and differs from Russian by two additional letters: Ө and Ү.

In 1940, the Uzbek alphabet, like the alphabets of other peoples of the USSR, was translated into Cyrillic and contained 35 letters. In the 90s of the last century, the Uzbek authorities decided to translate the Uzbek language into the Latin alphabet and the alphabet became 28 letters.

The modern Georgian alphabet consists of 33 letters.

There are 31 letters in the Macedonian and Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet. The Finnish alphabet also consists of 31 letters.

The Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet includes 30 letters - compared to Russian, it lacks the letters Y, E and E.

The Tibetan alphabet consists of 30 letter-syllables, which are considered consonants. Each of them, constituting the initial letter of a syllable and not having another vowel sign, is accompanied by the sound “a” when pronounced.

The Swedish and Norwegian alphabet has 29 letters.

The Arabic alphabet contains 28 letters. The Spanish alphabet has 27 letters.

There are 26 letters in the Latin, English, German and French alphabet.

The Italian alphabet “officially” consists of 21 letters, but in reality it has 26 letters.

The Greek alphabet has 24 letters, and the standard Portuguese alphabet has 23 letters.

There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet; there is no difference between uppercase and lowercase letters.

The least number of letters in the alphabet is the Rotokas tribe from the island of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. There are only eleven of them (a, b, e, g, i, k, o, p, t, u) - 6 of them are consonants.

Considering how many letters there are in the language of one of the Papuan tribes, it is interesting that in all alphabets the number of letters gradually changes, usually downward.

A change in the number of letters in the alphabet in all countries of the world, as a rule, occurs with the advent of a new government so that the younger generation finds itself cut off from the language, literature, culture and traditions of their ancestors, and after some time speaks a completely different language.

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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An alphabet is a collection of letters or other signs used to write in a particular language. There are many different alphabets, each with its own characteristics and history.

In this case we will talk about the Russian alphabet. Over the course of several centuries of existence, it developed and underwent changes.

History of the Russian alphabet

In the 9th century, thanks to the monks Cyril and Methodius, the Cyrillic alphabet appeared. From this moment on, Slavic writing began to develop rapidly. This happened in Bulgaria. It was there that there were workshops where liturgical books were copied and also translated from Greek.

A century later, the Old Church Slavonic language came to Rus', and church services were conducted in it. Gradually, under the influence of the Old Russian language, Old Church Slavonic undergoes some changes.

Sometimes they put an equal sign between the Old Church Slavonic and Old Russian languages, which is completely wrong. These are two different languages. However, the alphabet, of course, originated from Old Church Slavonic.

At first, the Old Russian alphabet consisted of 43 letters. But the signs of one language cannot be accepted by another language without amendments, because the letters must somehow correspond to the pronunciation. How many Old Church Slavonic letters were removed from, how many and which letters were destined to appear is the subject of a separate article. We can only say that the changes were significant.

Over the next centuries, the alphabet continued to adapt to the requirements of the Russian language. Letters that were not in use were abolished. A significant reform of the language took place under Peter I.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian alphabet had 35 letters. At the same time, “E” and “Yo” were considered one letter, just like “I” and “Y”. But the alphabet contained letters that disappeared after 1918.

Most of the letters of the alphabet, until the beginning of the 20th century, had names different from modern ones. If the beginning of the alphabet is familiar (“az, beeches, lead”), then the continuation may seem unusual: “verb, good, is, live...”

Today the alphabet consists of 33 letters, of which 10 are vowels, 21 and two letters that do not indicate sounds (“b” and “b”).

The fate of some letters of the Russian alphabet

For a long time, “I” and “Y” were considered variants of the same letter. Peter I, while reforming, abolished the letter “Y”. But after some time, she again took her place in writing, since many words are unthinkable without her. However, the letter “Y” (and short) became an independent letter only in 1918. Moreover, “Y” is a consonant letter, while “I” is a vowel.

The fate of the letter “Y” is also interesting. In 1783, the director of the Academy of Sciences, Princess Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova, proposed introducing this letter into the alphabet. This initiative was supported by the Russian writer and historian N.M. Karamzin. However, the letter was not widely used. “Yo” established itself in the Russian alphabet by the middle of the 20th century, but its use in printed publications continues to remain unsteady: sometimes “Yo” is required to be used, sometimes it is categorically not accepted.

The use of the letter “Ё” vaguely resembles the fate of the Izhitsa “V”, the letter that once completed the alphabet. It was practically not used, because was replaced by other letters, but continued to proudly exist in some words.

The next letter worthy of special mention is “Ъ” - a hard sign. Before the reform of 1918, this letter was called “er” and was used in writing much more often than now. Namely, it was necessarily written at the end of words ending with a consonant. The abolition of the rule to end words with “erom” led to large savings in the publishing industry, since the amount of paper for books was immediately reduced. But the hard sign remains in the alphabet; it performs a very necessary function when it stands inside a word.

Emperor Michael III streamlined the writing system for the Slavic language. After the appearance of the Cyrillic alphabet, which dates back to the Greek statutory (solemn) letter, the activity of the Bulgarian school of scribes (after Cyril and Methodius) developed. Bulgaria becomes the center of the spread of Slavic writing. The first Slavic book school was created here - Preslav Book School, in which the Cyril and Methodius originals of liturgical books (Gospel, Psalter, Apostle, church services) are rewritten, new Slavic translations from Greek are made, original works appear in the Old Slavonic language (“About the writing of Chrnoritsa Khrabra”). Later, Old Church Slavonic penetrates Serbia, and at the end of the 10th century it becomes the language of the church in Kievan Rus.

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,

In writing we use letters, in speaking we use sounds. We use letters to represent the sounds we pronounce. There is no simple and direct correspondence between letters and sounds: there are letters that do not denote sounds, there are cases when a letter means two sounds, and cases when several letters mean one sound. Modern Russian has 33 letters and 42 sounds.

Kinds

Letters are vowels and consonants. The letters soft sign and hard sign do not form sounds; there are no words in the Russian language that begin with these letters. The Russian language is “vocal”; Russian words have many vowels (o, e, i, a) and voiced consonants (n, l, v, m, r). There are significantly fewer noisy, deaf, hissing ones (zh, ch, sh, shch, c, f). The vowels yu, e, ё are also rarely used. On a letter, instead of the letter ё, the letter e is often written without losing the meaning.

Alphabet

The letters of the Russian language are listed below in alphabetical order. Uppercase and lowercase letters are shown and their names are indicated. Vowels are marked in red, consonants are in blue, letters ь, ъ are in grey.

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

The letter L is called "el" or "el", the letter E is sometimes called "E reverse".

Numbering

Numbers of letters of the Russian alphabet in forward and reverse order:

Letter	A	B	IN	G	D	E	Yo	AND	Z	AND	Y	TO	L	M	N	ABOUT	P	R	WITH	T	U	F	X	C	H	Sh	SCH	Kommersant	Y	b	E	YU	I
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33
	33	32	31	30	29	28	27	26	25	24	23	22	21	20	19	18	17	16	15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1