Old Permic alphabet by usual writing. The inclusion of the latter aided the alphabet in greater acceptance among the medieval Permic speakers of the time. The alphabet was in use until the 17th century, when it was superseded by the Cyrillic script. Abur was also used as cryptographic writing for the Russian language. April 26, which is the saint's day of Stephen of Perm, is celebrated as Old Permic Alphabet Day. The Abur inscriptions are among the oldest relics of the Uralic languages. Only one of them has earlier documents: Hungarian, which had been written using the Old Hungarian script first before the
Glagolitic script If they were added by Cyril, it is likely that they were taken from an alphabet used for Christian scripture. It is frequently proposed that the letters "sha" , "tsi" , and "cherv" were taken from the letters "shin" ש and "tsadi" צ of the Hebrew alphabet, and that Ⰶ "zhivete" derives from Coptic "janja" Ϫ. However, Cubberley (1996) suggests that if a single prototype were presumed, the most likely source would be Armenian. Other proposals include the Samaritan alphabet, which Cyril learned during his journey to the Khazars in Cherson. Glagolitic letters were also used as numbers, similarly to