The Romanian transitional alphabet ( ro, Alfabetul român de tranziție), also known as the civil alphabet ( ro, alfabetul civil), was a series of
alphabets containing a mix of
Cyrillic
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = G ...
and
Latin characters used for the
Romanian language in the 19th century. It replaced the
Romanian Cyrillic alphabet and was in turn replaced by the
Romanian Latin alphabet
The Romanian alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Romanian language. It is a modification of the classical Latin alphabet and consists of 31 letters, five of which (Ă, Â, Î, Ș, and Ț) have been modified from t ...
.
The transition process began in 1828 thanks to the grammars of
Ion Heliade Rădulescu
Ion Heliade Rădulescu or Ion Heliade (also known as ''Eliade'' or ''Eliade Rădulescu''; ; January 6, 1802 – April 27, 1872) was a Wallachian, later Romanian academic, Romanticism, Romantic and Classicism, Classicist poet, essayist, mem ...
, although the
Romanian Orthodox Church continued to use the
Romanian Cyrillic
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
*** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...
for religious purposes until 1881, after the declaration of
independence of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania ( ro, Regatul României) was a constitutional monarchy that existed in Romania from 13 March ( O.S.) / 25 March 1881 with the crowning of prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as King Carol I (thus beginning the Romanian ...
. The decided to replace the Cyrillic alphabet in that year under secular pressure.
The Romanian transitional alphabet began to gain more popularity after 1840, when Latin letters were first introduced between Cyrillic ones and then replacing some of the Cyrillic letters with Latin letters so that the readers of Romanian from
Moldavia,
Transylvania and
Wallachia could become accustomed to them.
The final turning point was completed under French influence, which arose due to the
Wallachian and
Moldavian revolutions of 1848 and the
Crimean War which ended with the
Treaty of Paris of 1856
The Treaty of Paris of 1856 brought an end to the Crimean War between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the United Kingdom, the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia.
The treaty, signed on 30 March 1856 at ...
.
The complete replacement of the Cyrillic alphabet by the Latin alphabet in the
United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia was formalized in 1862 by
Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza. The Romanian transitional alphabet became one of the symbols of Romanian unity and the national-bourgeois revolution, a direct consequence of the
Revolutions of 1848 that also affected Wallachia and Moldavia.
See also
*
Romanian Cyrillic alphabet
*
Romanian alphabet
*
Re-latinization of Romanian
The re-latinization of Romanian (also known as re-romanization) was the reinforcement of the Romance features of the Romanian language during the 18th and 19th centuries. In this period, Romanian adopted a Latin-based alphabet to replace the Cyril ...
*
Old Church Slavonic in Romania
Church Slavonic was the main language used for administrative (until the 16th century) and liturgical purposes (until the 17th century) by the Romanian principalities, being still occasionally used in the Orthodox Church until the early 18th centur ...
References
History of the Romanian language
Romanization
Cyrillic alphabets
Latin alphabets
Writing systems introduced in the 1820s
1820s establishments in Romania
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