The long-existing Latin that the Romans spoke spoke of left an indestructible mark. We are talking about all European languages, which are divided into Romance 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. So, the main alphabets among the Slavic-European peoples are Cyrillic and Latin, which we still use.
Origin of languages
The sources from which it is possible to 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, Cyrillic and Latin are some kind of exception, since the origin of these alphabets is more or less clear.
Latin
We begin with the language that was spoken in ancient Rome, and which today, although 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 tribes of the same name inhabiting the center of modern Italy.
The new Roman civilization systematized all the dialects and achievements of their ancestors, forming a full-fledged Latin alphabet. It consisted of 21 letters: ABCDEFHIKLMNOPQRSTVXZ. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Latin spread widely throughout Europe and assimilated with various tribal dialects (Celtic, Welsh, Gothic, etc.).
So languages of the Romance-Germanic group appeared - French, Italian, German, English and many others. Today, they use a single alphabet of 26 letters to write them.
Old Slavonic
For the Slavic peoples, Latin was alien and unacceptable. But given the fact that some lands were subordinate to papal authority, while others converted to Orthodox Christianity, it was necessary to educate people in the Holy Word. The Greek brothers Cyril and Methodius created an alphabet of 43 letters, which became clear to the Slavic people.
It was named after the elder brother of Cyril, and it became the basis for the new Old Slavonic language. Later, the number of letters was reduced, and the language itself spread to very vast territories. Of course, it underwent changes due to various dialects, and as a result, it broke up into many independent languages. This alphabet became the basis for the Eastern European scriptures, the South European and Russian.
Modern international writing systems
Nowadays, Cyrillic and Latin are used to exchange information at the international level, even in eastern countries. These are two universal alphabets that have a similar structure and symbols, and they are also able to replace each other. But it is worth noting that each of them has its own advantages.
Undoubtedly, the Latin alphabet is more common on the globe. 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 for sure that the Cyrillic alphabet is a much richer and more convenient alphabet due to the fact that its symbols convey a wider range of sounds.
Alphabetical Reforms
Replacing the Cyrillic alphabet with the Latin alphabet is a very important issue that has repeatedly arisen in many Slavic states. For the first time, Latin writing supplanted Slavic in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Principality of Lithuania. Until now, Lithuania and Poland, despite the Slavic roots of their languages, use the Latin alphabet.
Translation from Cyrillic to Latin also affected the South-European countries. For example, Romania, which used Cyrillic script, adopted the Latin alphabet in the 19th century. Similarly done in Montenegro, Serbia and the Czech Republic.
What Russia went through
On the territory of our state, Cyrillic and Latin fought for a place in the sun more than once. Undoubtedly, the Cyrillic script was native to the Russian person, but repeated attempts to Catholicize the country involved abandoning it and introducing the Latin alphabet as the basis of written speech.
The first to want the Slavic alphabet was Peter the Great. He even carried out language reform, throwing many letters out of the alphabet and replacing some of them with European ones. But later he left this idea, returning everything to its place.
The second attempt to Latinize Russian society occurred after the revolution. At that time, Lenin carried out a reform of unification. The European units of measurement were adopted, the transition to the European calendar took place, and it was assumed that the language would be translated.
The linguists did a tremendous job of changing all the Russian sources that were written in Cyrillic. But Stalin, who came to power soon, realized that the idea was devoid of common sense, and returned everything to normal.
Latin and Cyrillic: the difference
It is impossible not to notice that these two alphabets are incredibly similar to each other. They even contain exactly the same letters: A, B, E, K, M, N, O, P, C, T, U, X. But as has been rightly noted above, the Cyrillic functional is much wider. Due to such letters as “Sh” or “Sh”, for example, sound is transmitted, which is written in Latin using two, three or four characters.
We should also say about the letters “C” and “K”, which in our letter are strictly delimited 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 from the Cyrillic alphabet is that its sound corresponds to each sound.
The combination of letters in a word does not affect their sound, doubling of consonants is pronounced clearly, there are no dumb vowels and dumb syllables.