Talk:Cyrillic script

Romanian as the example

I mean I don't really care but is Romanian the best example we can give in the infobox of an article about the Cyrillic script? Super Dromaeosaurus (talk) 09:26, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

I mean, yeah but some Romanians still use the script, especially in Moldova. I say we should either use the Romanian or a Church Slavonic script. KeymasterOne (talk) 16:51, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Organization, controversy, and more issues. Help fix this page.

This article is kind of controversial. Here are the following major issues which I have seen in the article and talk pages. Reply to this to help organize the details. Be civil, but please provide your opinion:

1. Cyrill and Methodius - These brothers did not invent the Cyrillic Alphabet, rather it was St Clement of Ohrid. The saints, Cyrill and Methodius invented the glagolitic alphabet.
2. Ethnicity of St Clement of Ohrid - He was not Macedonian, although he lived in the modern day territory of North Macedonia, it is very important to note that he lived over 1000 years ago, in the First Bulgarian Empire. "Macedonian" was not even classified as an ethnicity until recent centuries.
3. Ethnicity of Saints Cyrill and Methodius - They were born in the Eastern Roman Empire, however they spoke both Greek and Bulgarian, it is believed that they can be both, for example, their father being Greek and their mother being Bulgarian... and for Macedonians saying the brothers are Macedonian, I would like to see good evidence backing that up because this likely isn't the case.

KeymasterOne (talk) 16:49, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Hello. The article makes no such claims. As for the talk page, all sorts of editors come here. Most of the threads can be archived here and preferably they should be, since the talk page is getting a bit large. StephenMacky1 (talk) 17:04, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Should typography section have its own article?

There's an article for

• Arabic typography
• East Asian typography
• Thai typography

But not one for Cyrillic typography, Could there be one?

- 🐲 Jo the fire dragon 🐉(talk|contributions) 03:58, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

The immediate problem is that those articles are misnamed. IMO, they should be AAAAAA orthography – typography is about page design (which includes typeface selection). That detail apart, it would make sense to have an article on Cyrillic orthography but it will be quite a task:

An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word boundaries, emphasis, and punctuation.

(which doesn't even mention script!) Definitely worth writing, though.--𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:56, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Or did you mean Cyrillic type design?

Type design is the art and process of designing typefaces. This involves drawing each letterform using a consistent style.

Compare and contrast with

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line spacing, letter spacing, and spaces between pairs of letters.

An article about Cyrillic type design should be fairly easy to write. Cyrillic orthography is still definitely worth doing but is a significant task.

(btw, I have asked for advice at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Typography#Misnamed articles? on what if anything should be done about the names of those articles. I am no longer confident in my assertion on how they should be named) --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 12:45, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

By the convention that I've seen on Wikipedia, α orthography articles would have α as a language such as Russian orthography or Spanish orthography etc. 🐲 Jo the fire dragon 🐉(talk|contributions) 16:33, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

@Jothefiredragon "Cyrillic orthography is still definitely worth doing but is a significant task." I disagree. An alphabet such as cyrillic is a system of graphic units. An orthography is a set of rules for application of those graphic units. The former does not determine the latter, and indeed the various cyrillic orthographies do not represent a unified whole. Even within Slavic languages they range from phonetic Serbian to morphological/etymological Russian. Serbian has the exact same orthography for cyrillic and for latin spelling (Serbian orthoghraphy also largely coincides with Croatian orthography, they are based on the same principles, and yet Croatian never uses cyrillic). Similarly so, OCS used to be written in glagolitic and cyrillic with largely the same orthography. On the other hand, non-Slavic languages had to adapt cyrillic to their own, completely different phonological and grammatical systems.

It is clear, then, that cyrillic orthography does not exist as a unified concept. To write such an article you'd have to cut off closely related systems from each other (Serbian and Croatian orthography) and unite different systems (Serbian, Russian, Mongolian). Just like how there is no such thing as latin orthography – such articles would boil down to retelling and compressing the info already present on pages for individual language orthographies. — Phazd (talk|contribs) 16:47, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, you are absolutely correct, a thoughtless error on my part. Russian orthography and Serbian orthography already exist, so problem as stated is already solved. To respond to the intent behind the question, Cyrillic type design it must be. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:35, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Timeline

The History section is lacking dates. When did all those events happen? When is the "official" start year of Cyrillic? Please add the years to the relevant events discussed there. Florin Andrei (talk) 18:21, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Original research plus unreferenced

You silly, it does not need both tags. If it is unreferenced then it is already original research. Doesn't mean you should just remove it instead of try to research. Not sure comment about the world alphabet is needed though. FourLights (talk) 19:58, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

See WP:NPA and WP:AGF: try making your point without being adolescent about it.

Material can be contributed that is honestly believed to represent expert consensus, that the contributor is confident is supportable as soon as they find the references. Yes, they should do both at once. If the assertion looks credible, we attach a {{cn}} and allow a few weeks grace.

Material can also be contributed that is obvious to the editor concerned because Jupiter, Mars and the Moon are aligned in opposition the Sun in Aquarius, so obviously etc.

Yes, all OR is by definition not citable to an RS but first it is essential to confirm that it is in fact OR. Meanwhile, applying both tags means that the assertion does not really seem credible and that readers should treat it sceptically.

The correct response would have been simply to delete it as the contributor has had long enough to produce the evidence. To my mind, seven days is the maximum. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 23:00, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Late to the party, but let's just be very clear about something: "unreferenced" and "original research" are *not* the same thing. It's like a Venn diagram with two overlapping circles that define four spaces: there is an area of overlap where both apply (the obvious case), but there are two non-overlapping regions that are only one and not the other. If you replace the entire Wikipedia article with the contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica article about Cyrillic script without citing it, then what you have is an article that is verifiable, unreferenced, and without original research (the lune on the left, say). On the other hand, if you get some well-meaning but uninformed know-it-all who thinks they have the last word on ancient migrations into Melanesia and writes an article about it, citing some of the top sources in the field but getting it all horribly, laughably, mind-bogglingly wrong—then you have the lune on the right: a well-cited article that is pure OR. (Believe me, this happens.) Of course, a prankster could end up with the identical result, the only difference being intent: the prankster is a vandal, and the know-it-all is not. Mathglot (talk) 07:27, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

RfC about script type

The Cyrillic script has the letters Я, Е, and Ю which make the sounds /ja/, /je/, and /ju/ respectively. Wouldn't this make it a semi-syllabary? I tried changing the script type twice and both attempts have been reverted. I just want to stop an edit war before it starts. 134.22.84.45 (talk) 23:34, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Seems like it makes more sense to find a single reliable source that says this before you waste the time of others with an RfC. Have you pondered the so-called long vowels in English? Phonetic diphthongs are not an equivalent concept to moras, which is what syllabograms represent. Everyone can notice edge cases, that's why we only write based on RS, and not fun characterizations editors just came up with. Remsense诉 23:35, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

It's just that the existence of the "backwards R" and the other 2 letters makes the traditional "alphabet" classification a little inaccurate. Once again, I want to prevent an edit war. (Oh, and I apologize for my tone that might have made it sound like I was playing the victim. Saints Cyril and Methodius probably aren't rolling in their graves over 3 letters.) 134.22.84.45 (talk) 23:55, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

We go by what sources say. Remsense诉 00:01, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Untagging, as a discussion could solve the problem before an RFC. SWinxy (talk) 02:23, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Good call. I was going to strike the Rfc header as a violation of WP:RFCBEFORE, but you beat me to it. Mathglot (talk) 03:44, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

A syllabary is based on syllables. In Russian, Я, Е, Ю, when used word-initially or after a vowel, do not have to and are not intended to represent syllables, they only represent a '/j/ + vowel' sequence, regardless of its relationship to syllables. E.g.: он ел ('he ate'), /jel/ is a single syllable, it's not /je.l̩/. As far as I see, this idea about a semi-syllabary can be rejected completely. (It is also problematic that the idea seems to be based on equating cyrillic with Russian cyrillic. In truth, multiple cyrillic alphabets don't have Я and Ю letters at all, and E can behave differently. Maybe Russian cyrillic might somehow count as a semi-syllabary, but Serbian or Macedonian certainly can't.) — Phazd (talk|contribs) 03:12, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

To return to your original question: Cyrillic is *definitely* not a syllabary, anymore than the English (Latin) alphabet represents a syllabary. You are confusing the name of the letter (how it is pronounced when reciting the alphabet) with the sound it represents when reading written text aloud containing those letters. English is not a syllabary, just because we call the letters #2 and 4 BEE and DEE, or #10 and 11 JAY and KAY. None of those four letters are part of a syllabary, and neither are the letters Я, Е, and Ю. As far as labeling it a semi-syllabary, see Semi-syllabary. Trying to shoehorn Cyrillic into that group is doomed, as original research. Hope this clears things up. Mathglot (talk) 23:27, 16 July 2024 (UTC)