Topic summary

Romanian Cyrillic alphabet

Romanian Cyrillic alphabet

The Romanian Cyrillic alphabet is the Cyrillic alphabet that was used to write the Romanian language and Church Slavonic as early as the 14th century, and used until the early 1860s, when it began to be gradually replaced by a Latin-based Romanian alphabet. Cyrillic remained in occasional use until the 1920s, mostly in Russian-ruled Bessarabia.

From the 1860s until the full adoption of the Latin alphabet, the Romanian transitional alphabet was in place, combining Cyrillic and Latin letters, and including some of the Latin letters with diacritics that remain in the modern Romanian alphabet. The Romanian Orthodox Church continued using the alphabet in its publications until 1881.

The Romanian Cyrillic alphabet is not the same as the Moldovan Cyrillic alphabet (which is based on the modern Russian alphabet) that was used in the Moldavian SSR for most of the Soviet era and that is still used in Transnistria.