Welcome to the Russian language! And Привет (pree-vet = Hello) to you, my fellow Langventurists! How about instead of kicking off with facts and things like number of speakers, geographical distribution or any other impressive facts, we get to know the language the Russian way? Meaning, we connect straight to the core, the soul and pecularities of what makes it so distinctive, sometimes even bizzare, and also so hard to understand and learn for English speakers.

And to do it the best way possible, we do need to peer into the mysterious story of the "matter" of Russian, the one not even so many Russians really know about (I know I didn't) —and it is the Russian script, a.k.a. the infamous Cyrillic. Not exactly sure why it only carries the name of just one, and not both, language propagators, Cyril (7th child), and why the name of his older brother Methodius (1st child), the "coauthor" in fact, was rudely excluded from the "brand", but when you look at the Cyrillic letters, it becomes quite easy to notice the similarities with their "brother" —the Latin script. Here, take a look:

^{The Cyrillic script (printed version)}

Guess what: Russian and Latin scripts have the same "father" (quite a Star Wars moment there 😊)! And it is... Anciant Greek! The difference will be that the Latin letters, that came to "fruition" in the 7th century BC, did so via historical borrowing, whereas Cyril and Methodius (actually named Constantine and Michael before taking their monastic vows) shaped "the Russian alphabet" intentionally by themselves, only in the 9th century, current era (in 863). And —ta-da!— it wasn't Cyrillic... per se...

To be fair, at the time it was indeed called Cyrillic but it wasn't the one we know today, it looked differently, had more letters than the modern one and we all call it now Glagolitic script. That was the alphabet made by the brothers-missionaries, or more correctly, taken from the Greek and transformed into "Slavic letters" for all the Slavic nations to use. With some symbols taken from Hebrew, it still looked quite similar to the original Greek script and for a long time people often confused the two.

As the story goes, Methodius helped to create and "promote" it, and it was his follower, Clement, who took the script one step further in the 10th century and gave it a form of good ol' Cyrillic. Of course, turning into Cyrillic script from the picture above, the one the Russians actually use today, took time and happened so much later, only in 1918. And even then it had 32, not 33, letters in the alphabet as we are used to now, for one letter —letter ё (yo)— was still not recognized as a separate symbol. It only became a letter in 1942 —how about that?

And suddenly modern Cyrillic is modern indeed.

I believe now is a good time to try and absorb what Russian alphabet is like. I found this great video that explains it the best (5:21)! Check it out:

More than 120 languages in the world either use the Cyrillic script or base their national alphabet on it. This might be the reason why so many people often confuse Russian language with, say, Belorussian or Ukrainian (yes, they have their own languages!) —but let's get back to that in another Episode.

Cyrillic may seem intimidating at first but really, as aforementioned video shows, it is quite close to the English alphabet and only a couple of sounds may require some "special attention". The good thing is that it is almost like Spanish in the sense that what you see is what you get: that wide range of 33 letters covers all the necessary sounds, so things like in English —when one letter can be pronounced in several different ways— do not happen in Russian.

Although, again just like in Spanish, some simple reading rules must be followed.

One more tricky thing is, surely, Russian cursive everyone loooves so much to complain about. English also has it in some sense, but for the Cyrillic its cursive version takes it a notch father. At school, we usually start learning the alphabet in the 1st very grade by scribbling some doodles, or hooks and sticks, as we call them, which later on in the same year are joined together to form separate letters we also write time and time again with different ways of connecting to the letters around (from below, from the middle, or from the top of a given letter), and then, finally, full words and first simple sentences.

But that's for kids. A grown up can learn to write in Russian cursive quite fast especially if you don't much overcomplicate it. Because here is a little secret I'll let you in on: if you can write in English, you already CAN write at least 15 Russian letters in cursive! And that's almost a HALF of the whole Cyrillic alphabet! The other half is combined out of the symbols you also already know how to get on the page, just tweak it a tad.

Phrase on the image: "Life is everything around".

So if Cyrillic was your fear blocking you from learning Russian, fear no more! Look at the phrase on the picture above, for example. I am sure you will be able to recognize at least 7 letters (sure, they don't have the same sound as in English, but you are able to write them!).

But back to the monk brothers. In their version of the script —written, let me remind you, for the church purposes— every letter had a name and a meaning. For example:

• А was called uz = I, my presence here;
• Б — bookie = letter, writings, book (came from the name of the table on which the writing process occurred called bookie);
• В — veddy = knowledge, to discover, to see, to experience.
• and so on.

It wasn't ah, beh, veh like it is now. And if you went like this through the whole old Russian alphabet, you could read a whole message! The first three letters that I showed you just now —uz bookie veddy— already create a part of it: "I learned a letter", in other words "I experienced the sacred writings".

The full message of the Cyril and Methodius's script system, described in a nutshell, called out to people to share the Truth and Knowledge, live in harmony via contemplation and thinking and be true to yourself. Isn't that something so deep and symbolic —to integrate a whole philosophy of human living into the items of one nation's writing system! Sure, separate letters have meaning in some other scripts, but a complete message embedded in letters of the alphabet —this is definitely unique to the Russian heart and language!

^{Old Russian azbuka}

I just loved finding that about my native language! They should totally mention this at school —before my research to write the article you are reading now, I knew nothing about hidden notes left to us by Cyril and his brother. By the way, alphabet (or алфавит —alpha-vit) used to be called azbuka (uz-boo-kah) —as in made out of the two first letters' names. And Russians still call it that sometimes.

And on that sweet note ends our first dip into the mysterious and heartful Russian language. I truly could not foresee it would turn out to be so much more intriguing and unexpected. I believed I knew everything there was to know about it! Yet, there is more to come; it is just the begininning!

But do you feel how Russian is deep, and unpredictable, and symbolic, and beautifully built, and almost like a blockbuster with perplexing plots and love lines? Or maybe I'm biased :)

Now that you are finally friendly with Cyrillics, let me bestow upon you everything you need to know about the language in order to cruise it with ease. There are just 3 things! Ready?

See you in the next Episode.

Пока! (Puh-kuh) Bye!

Way to go, monk brothers! Uz like!

Discover more about Russian and other languages at langventure.mystrikingly.com!