The Cyrillic alphabet
Cyrillic is not one alphabet but a family: every language that uses it has its own, with a few letters more or less. It is written by over two hundred million people in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria, Serbia, North Macedonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and a dozen more countries.
It was born in Bulgaria at the end of the ninth century, in the school of the disciples of Cyril and Methodius, out of the Greek capitals: that is why А, Е, К, М, О and Т are the same as in Greek and in the Latin alphabet. What throws people off are the letters that look Latin and aren't —Р is an R, С is an S, Н is an N, В is a V— and the ones added for Slavic sounds: Ж, Ш, Ч, Ц, Ю, Я.
The good news: most of the letters are common to every variant. Learn one and you can read almost all of any other, and what changes from one language to the next fits on a line. Here is the table of what they all share, and below it, the rest of each one's letters: the ones that set it apart.
The 21 letters every variant shares
| Uppercase | Lowercase | Name | Sounds like | Looks like |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| А | а | A | A | |
| Б | б | Be | B | |
| В | в | Ve | V | B |
| Д | д | De | D | A |
| Ж | ж | Zhe | ZH | |
| З | з | Ze | Z | E |
| К | к | Ka | K | |
| Л | л | El | L | |
| М | м | Em | M | |
| Н | н | En | N | H |
| О | о | O | O | |
| П | п | Pe | P | |
| Р | р | Er | R | P |
| С | с | Es | S | C |
| Т | т | Te | T | |
| У | у | U | U | Y |
| Ф | ф | Ef | F | |
| Х | х | Kha | KH | X |
| Ц | ц | Tse | TS | |
| Ч | ч | Che | CH | Y |
| Ш | ш | Sha | SH |
The rest of each alphabet's letters
- Russian Русский · 33 letters and 39 levels Г г Е е Ё ё И и Й й Щ щ Ъ ъ Ы ы Ь ь Э э Ю ю Я я
- Ukrainian Українська · 33 letters and 39 levels Г г Ґ ґ Е е Є є И и І і Ї ї Й й Щ щ Ь ь Ю ю Я я
- Bulgarian Български · 30 letters and 35 levels Г г Е е И и Й й Щ щ Ъ ъ Ь ь Ю ю Я я
- Serbian Српски · 30 letters and 35 levels Г г Ђ ђ Е е И и Ј ј Љ љ Њ њ Ћ ћ Џ џ
How you learn it in Phabetia
Every new letter is introduced first with its name and its Latin equivalent, and you have to recognise it before you start practising it. Then come the exercises: letter to sound, sound to letter, quick memory, telling it apart from the Latin letter it resembles, spotting the intruder, completing a word and reading one.
Characters arrive two or three at a time and are never dropped: each level carries the previous ones along. What you get wrong comes back sooner and more often; what you have mastered shows up rarely, and anything you have not seen for days climbs back up on its own.
There are no lives and no punishment: getting one wrong interrupts nothing. To move on you only need 70 % right.
Frequently asked questions
How many letters does the Cyrillic alphabet have?
It depends on the language: 33 in Russian and Ukrainian, 30 in Bulgarian and Serbian. The 21 they all share make up most of any of them.
If I learn Russian Cyrillic, can I read Ukrainian or Serbian?
Almost all of it. They share most of the letters; each language adds a few of its own —Ukrainian Ї and Є, Serbian Ђ and Џ— and one or two are read differently. They take minutes to pick up on top of what you already know.
Which one should I start with?
The one for the language you care about. If it makes no difference, Russian is the most widespread and has the most material; from there, the others are a short step.