"A" is for Alphabet

I bought a picture book for Baby Deetz a while back called "Russia ABC's: A book about the people and places of Russia" Each letter illustrates a unique aspect of Russia that starts with each of the 26 letters of the English alphabet. When I first bought it and we were knee deep in paperwork, I thought an idea like this would be a fun thing to do when I had a little more time on my hands, each night's blog representing a different letter of the alphabet. 1- Because I want Baby Deetz, when he/she reads this blog someday to know about his/her birthplace. 2- Russia is a fascinating place and maybe someday when you're on Jeopardy a category will be "Russia" and you'll be better for it. 3-According to our online guide right now, we are suppose to be preparing for travel by learning about Russia. So here we go, I hope you enjoy this as much I will- I have already been thinking of some fun stuff.....I will try to come up with some specific to St. Pete, but I think the majority will be general "Russian" info.

"A" is for Alphabet

(I thought this was an appropriate catagory considering our theme for the month!)

The Russian Alphabet is called "Cyrillic" (suh-RIH-lick). Cyrillic has 33 letters. Even though a few of the letters look like english letters they don't sound anything like the english language which makes learning Russian really hard.

Cyrillic was believed to be invented by two monks, Cyril and Methodius in the 800's. I don't know why Methodius drew the short end of the stick and Cyril got the naming rights. Some people say it was just named after St. Cyril that he didn't actually invent the language. Tomato, Tomato.

The Cyrillic alphabet was adopted by the Slavs in about the 9th century. It is based on the system of Greek capital letters. Since Chad had to take 3 years of Greek in college, we shouldn't need a translator in Russia, right Chad?

The Cyrillic alphabet, with some modifications, is used by many nations in Europe and Asia, including Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, Serbia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, Kazakstan, and Mongolia, to name only a few.