Is it true that Z, O and V are the letters of the Pre -Slavic origin?

In social networks, the version of the ancient Slavic origin of the letters Z, O and V, which have become symbols of Russian invasion of Ukraine, actively spreads. We decided to check how true this is.

The text about the Pre -Slavic roots of the letters Z, O and V can be found in different social networks. For example, about that He wrote Blogger Yuri Podolyak (2.6 million subscribers): “We often hear that we cannot associate our liberation war with foreign symbols: z, o, v. Meanwhile, these are our old Pre -Slavic letters that we have already forgotten about. As some of us have already forgotten our common relationship. And therefore, it is these letters of the "Latin alphabet", like no others, are most suitable for our popular war for our common future. " Similar statements are found in "Zen", And on the site Pikabu. Most often they are accompanied by a table of the Pre -Slavic alphabet of 49 letters, common sitesrelated to neoism.

First you need to deal with the given table of the letters of the Pre -Slavic alphabet. Pre -Slavic called The language from which later Slavic languages ​​came. He did not have his own writing, the first written monuments belong to a later period when the Pre -Slavic language broke up on various dialects. The oldest Slavic literary language is Old Slavonic, belonging to the eastern subgroup of the South Slavic language group.

The first Slavic alphabet is Glagoliticcreated by the Byzantine Christian missionary Cyril. The oldest famous inscription made by the Glagolitsa was preserved in the church in Preslav (modern Bulgaria) and dates back to 893.

Cyrillic, as scientists now believe, appeared later And he was created by the student of Cyril Clement of Okrid. If the Glagolitic was mainly based on Greek cursive, then the Cyrillic alphabet took as a basis the Greek Unzial - a charter (solemn) letter.

Most of the works proving the existence of written monuments of the Pre -Slavic language are rather rude falsifications. Bright examples of such fakes are “Boyanov Anthem” and “Velesov Book”. A table of 49 letters, which has become distributed in the last ten years, is called “Book” in social networks.

This table, which is often illustrated by the thesis of the Pre -Slavic origin of the letter Z, is a mixture full of errors and an anachronisms. So, in Slavic alphabet The second letter was called “Buki”, not “gods”. And at the end, the letters ѧ and ѫ are indicated, respectively, not as a small and US large, but EN and OD. And if the first at least conveys the sound denoted by this symbol, then the origin of OD remains a mystery. The last letter (designated as izh) in the table does not exist at all: it is remotely similar to the letter from the verb alphabet, which corresponds to the Cyrillic small Yusa.

The main thesis of wire -packed bloggers is that the letters Z, O and V are not Latin, but in fact the original Slavic. If with the letter O, the same in almost all European languages, the situation is quite simple, then in the case of Z and V are not at all the case. In the Cyrillic alphabet there were two letters indicating the sound “h” - ѕ (Zelo) and ꙁ (Earth). At first they sounded differently-like “DZ” and “h”, respectively. But back in the XI century, this difference was erasing. Ꙁ really is directly related to Latin Z - both of these letters come from the Greek ζ (dzeta). Later, she began to be written as modern Z.

It should be noted that ꙁ was never written as Z. This can be traced on all possible letters: the charter (solemn writing) and its new option, a half -steam and even a permissive. For example, here is a sample of writing a letter in one of the Novgorod birch bark letters of the first half of the XI century:

IN Kyiv Psalter (1397), written by the Charter, the Earth only remotely resembles its Greek and Latin "relatives."

The charter replaces a new type of Cyrillic writing - half -steam. He, for example, was written by the Lavrentievsky Chronicle (XIV century). Throughout the annalistic text, different options for the letter Earth are found, and over time, they are increasingly similar to Z.

Thus, we can conclude that the letter Z, which has become the main symbol of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has nothing to do with the letter Earth of the Cyrillic alphabet: from the very beginning the letter was written differently, over time only moved away from the original appearance.

Another letter used by Russian troops and propagandists from the very beginning of the war is Latin V. In patriotic publics that refer to the so -called Pre -Slavic alphabet, the Slavic roots V prove the similarity with one of the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet - Izhynitsa. They actually have a common ancestor - the Greek letter Ipsilon. However, the Slavic option is more like the original - the letter ѵ has a small tail. Izhitsa used Very rarely, in a few words of Greek origin. In the position between vowels, she pronounced Like “B” (for example, the name Pyl in the Suprasl manuscript of the XI century), but over time it was completely replaced by the third letter of the alphabet - Vedi.

That is, with the letter V, exactly the same story as with Z. Both of them are Greek origin, but in the Slavic version, the mark of these letters from the very beginning was significantly different from Latin. Therefore, it would be wrong to say that the Russian army and state propagandists use the letters of the Slavic alphabet.

Photo on the cover: social networks

Not true

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