Old Bulgarian Alphabet: The Lost Letters Ѣ, Ѫ and More
Old spelling vs. today: хлѣбъ becomes хляб (hlyab, bread); рѫка becomes ръка (raka, hand); градъ becomes град (grad, city). The 1945 reform removed Ѣ and Ѫ and the silent Ъ at the end of words.
The Old Bulgarian alphabet is the early Cyrillic alphabet used to write Old Bulgarian (Old Church Slavonic) from the late 9th century, with more than 40 letters. The term also covers the 32-letter alphabet Bulgarian used until 1945. Modern Bulgarian has 30 letters, after dropping old letters such as Ѣ (yat), Ѫ (big yus) and Ѧ (little yus).
The Old Bulgarian alphabet is the early form of Cyrillic used in the First Bulgarian Empire, and it had many more letters than the 30 Bulgarians use now. Scribes at Preslav in the late 9th and early 10th centuries built it from Greek letters plus signs for Slavic sounds. Britannica counts 43 letters in the original Cyrillic alphabet.
People also use the phrase “Old Bulgarian alphabet” for the spelling in use before 1945, which still had two historical letters. This page covers both, and shows what happened to each lost letter.
Two meanings of “Old Bulgarian alphabet”
- The medieval alphabet. The early Cyrillic alphabet used for Old Church Slavonic, which Bulgarian scholars call Old Bulgarian (старобългарски, starobalgarski). Some Old Bulgarian texts were also written in Glagolitic.
- The pre-1945 alphabet. From the 1870s, Bulgarian used a 32-letter alphabet associated with the scholar Marin Drinov. It was today’s 30 letters plus Ѣ and Ѫ.
Letters of the Old Bulgarian alphabet that are gone
The table lists the main letters that modern Bulgarian no longer uses. The sound values are those usually given for the early period. Some, especially for Ѣ, are still debated.
| Letter | Name | Old sound | Fate in Bulgarian | Unicode (capital) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ѣ ѣ | yat (ят) | [æ] or [ja], debated | Kept until 1945; now я or е | U+0462 |
| Ѫ ѫ | big yus (голям юс) | [ɔ̃], nasal o | Kept until 1945; now usually ъ | U+046A |
| Ѧ ѧ | little yus (малък юс) | [ɛ̃], nasal e | Dropped earlier; now е or я | U+0466 |
| Ѭ ѭ | iotated big yus | [jɔ̃] | Dropped earlier | U+046C |
| Ѩ ѩ | iotated little yus | [jɛ̃] | Dropped earlier | U+0468 |
| Ꙗ ꙗ | iotated a | [ja] | Replaced by я | U+A656 |
| Ѥ ѥ | iotated e | [jɛ] | Dropped | U+0464 |
| Ѕ ѕ | dzelo | [dz] | Dropped; written дз | U+0405 |
| І і | decimal i | [i] | Replaced by и | U+0406 |
| Ѡ ѡ | omega | [o] | Replaced by о | U+0460 |
| Ѳ ѳ | fita | [θ], later [f] or [t] | Replaced by ф or т | U+0472 |
| Ѵ ѵ | izhitsa | [i] or [v] | Replaced by и or в | U+0474 |
| Ѯ ѯ | ksi | [ks] | Replaced by кс | U+046E |
| Ѱ ѱ | psi | [ps] | Replaced by пс | U+0470 |
Several of these letters were only needed for Greek loanwords or as numbers. Ѳ, Ѵ, Ѯ and Ѱ mostly appear in Greek names and church terms. Others, like the yuses, stood for real Slavic sounds that later changed.
Nasal vowels: the yuses
Old Bulgarian had two nasal vowels, a bit like French on and in. Big yus Ѫ wrote [ɔ̃] and little yus Ѧ wrote [ɛ̃]. Their iotated forms Ѭ and Ѩ added a y sound in front.
Over the centuries the nasal sound disappeared from most Bulgarian dialects. In the east, big yus came to sound like Ъ [ɤ]. That is why old мѫжъ is modern мъж (mazh, man). Ѫ stayed in Bulgarian spelling for historical reasons until 1945, long after its nasal sound was gone.
Yat: the hardest letter of the Old Bulgarian alphabet
Ѣ, called yat (ят, yat), is the letter that caused the most debate. Its original sound is uncertain, but in modern dialects it splits along a line known as the “yat border,” running roughly from Nikopol on the Danube to Thessaloniki.
- West of the line, yat is always [ɛ], written е.
- East of the line, yat is [ja] in stressed syllables not followed by a front vowel such as е or и, and [ɛ] elsewhere.
Writing Ѣ let both groups read the same spelling in their own way. The 1945 reform dropped it and wrote the eastern pronunciation instead. This is why modern Bulgarian alternates between я and е in one root: мляко (mlyako, milk) but млекар (mlekar, milkman), or бял (byal, white) but бели (beli, white, plural). For learners, this я/е switch is one of the trickiest parts of Bulgarian pronunciation and spelling.
The 1945 reform
An earlier attempt to drop Ѣ and Ѫ came in 1921, under education minister Stoyan Omarchevski. It was repealed in 1923 after a change of government. In February 1945, the Council of Ministers adopted a decree-law on spelling reform, according to the Bulgarian news agency BTA. It made three main changes.
- Ѣ was removed and replaced by я or е according to eastern pronunciation.
- Ѫ was removed and replaced, in most words, by ъ.
- The silent Ъ and Ь at the ends of words were dropped, so градъ became град.
The alphabet went from 32 to 30 letters, which it still has today. See how many letters in the Bulgarian alphabet for the modern count, and Bulgarian alphabet history for the full timeline.
Old letters as numbers
Like Greek, the Old Bulgarian alphabet used letters as numerals. A titlo, a small wavy line above the letter, marked a number. Letters from Greek kept their Greek values: А = 1, В = 2, Г = 3, Д = 4, Е = 5, and so on up to Р = 100 and С = 200. You will still see these numerals in church books and old inscriptions.
Typing old letters: Unicode
Most of these letters are in Unicode’s main Cyrillic block (U+0400 to U+04FF). Rarer forms sit in Cyrillic Extended-B (U+A640 to U+A69F), including iotated a (Ꙗ, U+A656). Cyrillic Extended-A (U+2DE0 to U+2DFF) holds small combining letters written above the line in manuscripts. Unicode 5.1, released in 2008, greatly improved support for early Cyrillic. You need a font that includes these characters to see them.
Common mistakes
- Reading Ѣ as “e” everywhere. In standard Bulgarian it became я or е depending on the word.
- Thinking Ѫ is a kind of Ж. They look alike, but Ѫ was a vowel and Ж is [ʒ].
- Calling the pre-1945 alphabet “Russian spelling.” Russian dropped yat in 1918, but the Bulgarian pre-1945 system had its own history and rules.
- Assuming Ъ was always silent. At word ends before 1945, yes. Inside words it was, and still is, a vowel.
Frequently asked questions
What letters were in the Old Bulgarian alphabet?
The early Cyrillic alphabet had more than 40 letters, including Ѣ (yat), Ѫ (big yus), Ѧ (little yus), Ѳ (fita), Ѯ (ksi), Ѱ (psi) and Ѡ (omega), alongside most of today’s letters.
When was Ѣ (yat) removed from the Bulgarian alphabet?
In the spelling reform of 1945. A 1921 reform had dropped it too, but that reform was repealed in 1923.
How was big yus (Ѫ) pronounced?
In Old Bulgarian it was a nasal vowel, roughly [ɔ̃]. In later standard Bulgarian it sounded like Ъ, and today it is written ъ, as in ръка (raka, hand).
Is the Old Bulgarian alphabet the same as Old Church Slavonic?
Old Church Slavonic is the language; the Old Bulgarian alphabet is the early Cyrillic script used to write it in Bulgaria. Bulgarian scholars also call the language itself Old Bulgarian.
How many letters did Bulgarian have before 1945?
32. The alphabet associated with Marin Drinov, used from the 1870s, was today’s 30 letters plus Ѣ and Ѫ.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Early Cyrillic alphabet
- Wikipedia: Yus
- Wikipedia: Yat
- BTA: On this day, 12 February (1945 spelling reform)
- Britannica: Cyrillic alphabet