The Romanian transitional alphabet (), also known as the civil alphabet (), was a series of

alphabet An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...

s containing a mix of

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

and

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

characters used for the

Romanian language Romanian (obsolete spelling: Roumanian; , or , ) is the official and main language of Romania and Moldova. Romanian is part of the Eastern Romance languages, Eastern Romance sub-branch of Romance languages, a linguistic group that evolved fr ...

in the 19th century. It replaced the

Romanian Cyrillic alphabet The Romanian Cyrillic alphabet is the Cyrillic alphabet that was used to write the Romanian language and Church Slavonic until the 1830s, when it began to be gradually replaced by a Latin-based Romanian alphabet.Cyrillic remained in occasion ...

and was in turn replaced by the Romanian Latin alphabet. 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''; ; 6 January 1802 – 27 April 1872) was a Wallachian, later Romanian academic, Romanticism, Romantic and Classicism, Classicist poet, essayist, memoi ...

, although the

Romanian Orthodox Church The Romanian Orthodox Church (ROC; , ), or Romanian Patriarchate, is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox Christian denomination, Christian churches, and one of the nine patriarchates in the East ...

continued to use the Romanian Cyrillic for religious purposes until 1881, after the declaration of independence of Romania. 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 Moldavia (, or ; in Romanian Cyrillic alphabet, Romanian Cyrillic: or ) is a historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester River. An initially in ...

Transylvania Transylvania ( or ; ; or ; Transylvanian Saxon dialect, Transylvanian Saxon: ''Siweberjen'') is a List of historical regions of Central Europe, historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and ...

and

Wallachia Wallachia or Walachia (; ; : , : ) is a historical and geographical region of modern-day Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians. Wallachia was traditionally divided into two sections, Munteni ...

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 The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont fro ...

which ended with the Treaty of Paris of 1856. The complete replacement of the Cyrillic alphabet by the Latin alphabet in the

United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia The United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (), commonly called United Principalities or Wallachia and Moldavia, was the personal union of the Principality of Moldavia and the Principality of Wallachia. The union was formed on when Alexa ...

was formalized in 1862 by

Prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The ...

Alexandru Ioan Cuza Alexandru Ioan Cuza (, or Alexandru Ioan I, also Anglicised as Alexander John Cuza; 20 March 1820 – 15 May 1873) was the first ''domnitor'' (prince) of the Romanian Principalities through his double election as List of monarchs of Moldavia ...

. 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 The revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the springtime of the peoples or the springtime of nations, were a series of revolutions throughout Europe over the course of more than one year, from 1848 to 1849. It remains the most widespre ...

that also affected Wallachia and Moldavia. A lot of texts written in the transitional alphabet exist in libraries across Romania and Republic of Moldova. Some are digitized but inaccessible to modern readers unfamiliar with the Cyrillic letters with efforts to transliterate it to the modern Latin alphabet underway.

References

History of the Romanian language Romanization Cyrillic alphabets Latin alphabets Writing systems introduced in the 1820s 1820s establishments in Wallachia {{Romania-stub

See also

References