Early Cyrillic alphabet Bulgarian Empire in order to write the Old Church Slavonic language. The modern Cyrillic script is still used primarily for some Slavic languages and for East European and Asian languages that were under Russian cultural influence during the 20th century. Among some of the traditionally culturally influential countries using it are Bulgaria, Serbia, Russia, Ukraine. The earliest form of manuscript Cyrillic, known as "ustav," was based on Greek uncial script, augmented by ligatures and by letters from the Glagolitic alphabet for consonants not found in Greek. The Glagolitic alphabet was created by the monk Saint Cyril, possibly with the aid
Glagolitic script Glagolitic script The Glagolitic script (, "Glagolitsa") is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is generally agreed to have been created in the 9th century by Saint Cyril, a Byzantine monk from Thessaloniki. He and his brother, Saint Methodius, were sent by the Byzantine Emperor Michael III in 863 to Great Moravia to spread Christianity among the West Slavs in the area. The brothers decided to translate liturgical books into the Old Slavic language that was understandable to the general population, but as the words of that language could not be easily written by using either the Greek or Latin