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
Khitan small script scripts appeared most often on epitaphs and monuments, although other fragments sometimes surface. The Khitan small script was invented in about 924 or 925 CE by a scholar named Yelü Diela. He drew his inspiration from “the Uyghur language and script,” which he was shown by a visiting Uyghur ambassador at the Khitan court. For this reason, Khitan small script was originally thought to be a daughter script of the Old Uyghur alphabet. Using a smaller number of symbols than large script, small script was less complex, yet still “able to record any word.” While small-script inscriptions employed some logograms