Countries that use the Cyrillic alphabet

[<k>]

1 tiyn, 1994.



5 tiyn, 1994.

Here are two of Uzbekistan's first coins after independence. They also use the Cyrillic alphabet.

[<k>]

Uzbekistan, 1, 5 and 10 so'm, 2001.

Since 2001, Uzbekistan has used the Latin alphabet on its circulation coins.

[<k>]

Mongolia, 50 mongo, 1981.

Mongolia became a satellite state of the USSR in the 1920s and used the Cyrillic script on its coins.

[<k>]

Since independence and the fall of communism, Mongolia has retained its version of Cyrillic script.

[<k>]

In a globalised world, we see movement towards certain standards: the euro, the English language, metrication. Countries that use Cyrillic script often also give the Latin version of the text on their coins. Some countries, as we have seen, such as Uzbekistan, have made the switch from Cyrillic to Latin script in recent years. If this trend continues, perhaps Cyrillic script will one day become defunct.

On the other hand, futurists say that globalisation will turn to localisation, as high energy prices increasingly hit the world economy. If that is the case, then the local traditions, including Cyrillic script, will become stronger and last longer.

[FosseWay]

The Cyrillic alphabet does of course cover a wide variety of languages and variants. The archetypal 33 (or 32, depending on your view of the status of ë) letter Cyrillic alphabet is actually AFAIK only used by Russian. Belarusian and Ukrainian retain the pre-1918 letter I, which Russian dropped (there are other differences as well). The Cyrillic used by Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia include digraph letters such as Љ, which in Russian would be written Л or ЛЬ depending on what is next to it.

The languages mentioned so far plus Bulgarian are the only Slavic, and AFAIK the only Indo-European, languages* to use the Cyrillic alphabet. The others <k> has mentioned adopted the alphabet under Soviet influence but are not even remotely related to Russian, and hence use all sorts of, for someone who knows Russian at least, peculiar characters. Some of them are evident on the Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Mongolian coins illustrated above.

As to the demise of Cyrillic - I think this is unlikely. The early years of mass communications technology did indeed struggle with font/interface issues that made it very difficult to use non-Latin scripts (or even non-English variants of Latin) in certain environments, but this situation is improving rather than worsening. It is also a lot easier to write Russian in Cyrillic than in Latin, because to do the latter unambiguously you have to resort either to unwieldy combinations of consonants or a lot of diacritic marks.

* Health warning: what is defined as a 'language' varies from place to place, time to time and person to person. This sweeping statement takes a 'language' to mean one accepted as official by a recognised state and that is not extinct. Your mileage may vary.  [/size]

[Gagarin_Andrey]

It seems to me here are forgoten the coinf of Belarus

[FosseWay]

Belarus has AFAIK never issued any coins for circulation. But yes, Belarus uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet, which appears on its bullion and NCLT issues. It also appears on the one coin-like object that definitely circulates that I have from Belarus - the Minsk metro token.

[Gagarin_Andrey]

Also can be the city telephone different tokens. But this is already the separate topic.
Very interesting moment about the memory coins of Belarus. Accordind to the regulations of the National Bank or the Republic Belarus (NBRB) the banknotes that are less than 50 roubles are removed from the circulation and the nominals lower 50 roubles are out of law, but the most memory coins issued even after the new NBRB regulations have the nominal 1 rouble, that makes all of the made with the braking of the own state law...

[FosseWay]

Haha, yes, I can see the problem. In fact the same problem will afflict the UK if it abolishes the penny and twopence - the Maundy coins of the same denomination are legal tender and presumably would continue to be. But it's not a practical issue, either in the UK or Belarus, since the special 1 ruble coins and the Maundy money are not intended to circulate and never do so.

As to Belarusian banknotes, when I was there (2007) the 10 ruble note was still in use, and was worth about 0,4 of a eurocent.

[Gagarin_Andrey]

Yes, the currency rate now is higher, I was last year the rate was 11000 for 1 USD, so the lowest banknote 50 ruobles is less than 0.5 cent.

But it is great when you can feel yourself a millionaire )))))

[Figleaf]

Taking into account the title of the thread and the presence of pseudo coins in it, Belarus should have a place in this thread and now it has. The reports of the death of the Cyrillic script are greatly exaggerated. With some knowledge of Greek or mathematics and some practice, it is not difficult to fathom and if the tiny country of Israel can maintain its script in the computer age, there certainly is a future for Cyrillic.

Peter

[FosseWay]

Indeed, and as I alluded to earlier in the thread, if you can read Cyrillic it is often easier to read the Slavic languages that use it than those that use Latin. Written Polish looks completely impenetrable to me but if I respell it in Cyrillic I can immediately see the relatively close relationship it has with Russian.

[bgriff99]

Indeed, and as I alluded to earlier in the thread, if you can read Cyrillic it is often easier to read the Slavic languages that use it than those that use Latin. Written Polish looks completely impenetrable to me but if I respell it in Cyrillic I can immediately see the relatively close relationship it has with Russian.

Agreed.   Same for Czech.

[<k>]

It seems to me here are forgoten the coins of Belarus

Why, how could you?    The all-powerful President Lukashenko, billionaire inventor of the Lucozade drink, could have me machine-gunned in the street if he learned of your accusation. And it isn't even true:

http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,22162.msg149033.html#msg149033

I demand a 99 million ruble note as an apology. I notice your profile mixes elements of two different nations. And your avatar shows an Englishman who masquerades as an American (many Americans do in fact believe he is American, yet he went to the same top private English school as Prime Minister Cameron). All smoke and mirrors, then.