Cyrillic and Latin: difference and translation

Once upon a time, the existing Latin, spoken by the Romans, left an indelible mark. It is a question of all European languages, which are divided into Romanesque and Germanic. As for the Slavic peoples, a fundamentally new writing system was specially developed for them, in which the echoes of Europe and the Balkans were traced. Thus, the main alphabets among the Slavic-European peoples are Cyrillic and Latin, which we use so far.

Origin of languages

The origins by which one can calculate the birth of a particular language are very vague. Until now, ancient linguistics and etymology constitute one of the greatest difficulties for researchers. However, the Cyrillic alphabet and the Latin alphabet are an exception, since the origin of these alphabets is more or less clear.

Latin

We will begin with the language spoken in ancient Rome, and which today, though dead, is widely used in medicine, history and philology. The prototype of Latin was the Etruscan unwritten language, which existed mainly in oral form and was used among the same tribes inhabiting the center of modern Italy.

The new Roman civilization systematized all the adverbs and achievements of its ancestors, forming a full-fledged Latin alphabet. It consisted of 21 letters: ABCDEFHIKLMNOPQRSTVXZ. After the dissolution of the Roman Empire, Latin widely spread throughout Europe and assimilated with various tribal dialects (Celtic, Welsh, Gothic, etc.).

So the languages of the Romance-German group appeared - French, Italian, German, English and many others. Today, a single alphabet consisting of 26 letters is used for their recording.

Old Church Slavonic

For the Slavic peoples, Latin was alien and unacceptable. But given the fact that some lands were subordinate to papal authority, and others adopted Orthodox Christianity, it was necessary to teach people the Holy Word. Greek brothers Cyril and Methodius created an alphabet of 43 letters, which became understandable for the Slavic people.

They named him after his elder brother Cyril, and he became the basis for a new Old Slavonic language. Later, the number of letters decreased, and the language itself spread to very large territories. Of course, he underwent changes due to different dialects, and as a result disintegrated into many independent languages. This alphabet became the basis for Eastern European writings, South European and Russian.

Modern international writing systems

Nowadays, for the exchange of information at the international level, even in Eastern countries, Cyrillic and Latin are used. These are two universal alphabets that have a similar structure and symbols, and also they are able to replace each other. But it should be noted that each of them has its own merits.

Indisputably, Latin is more common on the Earth. With its help, many Chinese and Japanese words are recorded, it is widely used in banking documents (even in Russia) to record personal data. But any linguist will tell you exactly that the Cyrillic alphabet is a much richer and more convenient alphabet due to the fact that its symbols transmit a larger spectrum of sounds.

"Alphabetical" reforms

The replacement of the Cyrillic alphabet by the Latin alphabet is a very important issue that has repeatedly appeared in many Slavic states. For the first time the Latin letter supplanted the Slavic in the Rzeczpospolita and the Principality of Lithuania. Until now, Lithuania and Poland, despite the Slavic roots of their languages, use the Latin alphabet.

The translation of the Cyrillic alphabet into Latin script affected also the south-European countries. For example, Romania, which used the Cyrillic script, in the XIX century adopted the Latin alphabet. Similarly arrived in Montenegro, Serbia and the Czech Republic.

What has Russia gone through

On the territory of our state the Cyrillic and Latin script fought for a place under the sun repeatedly. Undoubtedly, a Cyrillic letter was native to the Russian people, but repeated attempts at Catholicism of the country suggested abandoning it and introducing the Latin alphabet as the basis for a written speech.

The first to reject the Slavic alphabet was Peter the Great. He even conducted language reform, throwing out a lot of letters from the alphabet and replacing some of them with European ones. But later he abandoned this idea, returning everything to its proper place.

The second attempt to romanization of Russian society occurred after the revolution. At that time, Lenin was reforming the unification. European units of measurement were adopted, a transition to the European calendar occurred, and it was assumed that the language would also be translated.

Linguists have done a tremendous job of changing all Russian sources that were written in Cyrillic. But Stalin, who came to power shortly after, realized that the idea was devoid of common sense, and returned everything to normal.

Latin and Cyrillic: difference

It is impossible not to notice that the two given alphabets are incredibly similar to each other. They even contain exactly the same letters: A, B, E, K, M, H, O, P, C, T, U, X. But as has already been fairly noted above, the Cyrillic functional is much wider. Due to such letters as "Ш" or "Щ", for example, a sound is transmitted, which is written in Latin alphabet using two or three-four characters.

Separately, it is worth mentioning about the letters "C" and "K", which in our letter are strictly delineated by sound. And in the languages of the Latin group, their transcription depends on the vowel ahead. Well and most importantly, what distinguishes the Latin alphabet from the Cyrillic alphabet is that each sound corresponds to its letter.

The combination of letters in the word does not affect their sound, the doubling of the consonants is pronounced clearly, there are no mute vowels and mute syllables.