The Cyrillic script /sᵻˈrɪlɪk/ is a writing system used for various alphabets across Eastern Europe and north and central Asia. It is based on the Early Cyrillic, which was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 9th century AD at the Preslav Literary School. It is the basis of alphabets used in various languages, past and present, in parts of Southeastern Europe and Northern Eurasia, especially those of Slavic origin, and non-Slavic languages influenced by Russian. As of 2011, around 252 million people in Eurasia use it as the official alphabet for their national languages, with Russia accounting for about half of them. With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of the European Union, following the Latin script and Greek script. Most Cyrillic letters are derived from the Greek alphabet. They are augmented by ligatures and letters/sounds not present in Greek, including Ж, Ч, Ц, Ш, Ъ, Ю, which are derived from the earlier Glagolitic alphabet, a script similar to Hebrew, other Semitic scripts, Linear B and Sarmatian runes. The letter Д is likely most similar to the phonetic alternative found in Amharic (Ge'ez). The letters Я and Б are derived from Archaic Greek alphabets. Letters that have more recently been introduced from the Latin alphabet include Ј and Һ. The script is named in honor of the two Byzantine brothers, Saints Cyril and Methodius, who may have created the Glagolitic alphabet earlier on. Modern scholars believe that Cyrillic was developed and formalized by early disciples of Cyril and Methodius. In the early 18th century the Cyrillic script used in Russia was heavily reformed by Peter the Great, who had recently returned from his Grand Embassy in Western Europe. The new form of letters became closer to the Latin alphabet, several archaic letters were removed and several letters were personally designed by Peter the Great (such as Я which was inspired by Latin R). West European typography culture was also adopted.

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