On the Origin of the Glagolitic Alphabet

This paper investigates the origin of Glagolitic, allegedly the first Slavic script. It is argued that there is no direct evidence for the existence of a systemic alphabet before Constantine created Glagolitic, although the possibility of primitive transliteration schemes utilizing Latin and Greek letters remains. The paper also shows that formulating the structure and forms of the Glagolitic alphabet constituted two separate levels of work. Constantine adopted the basic organizing principle of his new alphabet system from Greek. For Slavic sounds that were not represented in Greek, he mostly depended on Armenian. While Glagolitic was structurally based on Greek and Armenian, it had formal affinities with various scripts of that time. The extent of the resemblance varies from one script to another, which may be ascribed to Constantine’s intention to make the Slavic letters assume both independence from the influence of the Roman church and authenticity rooted in Greek.