From one to ten in Old Church Slavonic. Slavic numerals: a step into history. Converting Cyrillic numbers

Happy Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary!

In this lesson, we will analyze the CSL tsifir, master cursive writing and consider the most common words under the titles.

Numbers in the CSL language are written not in Arabic numerals, but in the same CSL letters with a mandatory single simple title on top. This tradition is borrowed from the ancient Greek language, where all letters of the alphabet had numerical values. However, since the CSL alphabet differs from the Greek one (some letters are not used, many are added), then in the CSL the numerical values ​​of the letters in some places are not quite in alphabetical order. It is necessary to memorize them gradually, because otherwise it will be difficult to navigate in church books, where the numbers of pages, chapters, "conceived", verses of Holy Scripture, dates, years of publication, and other numerical elements are given precisely in the CSL form (see illustration 1) .

Since numbers consisting of an integer number of tens or hundreds have their own separate letter designations in the CSL language, often the Arabic multi-valued notation of a number corresponds to only one character in the CSL. Also pay attention to this feature: in the CSL language, numbers from 11 to 19 are written in numbers in the same order as they are read (ONE-TEN = AI, TWELVE = BI..., i.e., first the number of units is said and written, then 10; in Russian, a similar pronunciation has been preserved - “one-on-twenty, two-on-twenty ..., although due to the use of Arabic numbers with their strictly positional system, we actually write the opposite - first 10, and then the number of units over ten: 11 \u003d 10 + 1, 12 \u003d 10 + 2 ... For numbers over 20 in the CSL, the order of both reading and writing is similar to Russian and Arabic: on the left is the number of tens, on the right the number of units is added to it. according to the positional principle, i.e. additional numbers are assigned on the right to the designation of thousands, hundreds, tens, but with the preservation of the indicated tradition of writing numbers from 11 to 19 “inside”.

In single-digit numbers, the title is placed over a single letter, in two-digit and multi-digit numbers - over the second letter from the end (penultimate); the thousands sign (double-crossed slash) is not taken into account: if there is only one letter digit besides it, the title is placed above it, i.e. it is never placed above the thousands sign (see illustration 2). Above the letter OT (number 800), which already has a superscript, the title may not be placed at all.

I recommend using these tables to practice more often in reading and writing multi-digit numbers and translating them from the chronology system from the Creation of the world and from the Nativity of Christ. The textbooks, references to which were given in previous lessons, also contain some exotic Old Slavonic designations for very large numbers (TMA, LEGION, LEODR, VRAN, KOLODA, TMA TEM), but they do not actually occur in church books. We will learn how to read and write quantitative and ordinal numbers in words and their declension a little later.
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Let's move on to the CSL cursive. We need it mainly so that you can later on in the simplest way, using a regular pen and paper, independently perform various practical tasks of our course, if you do not have CSL fonts on your computer and special software tools for typing and editing them with all necessary characters, including superscripts. We will combine the practical development of cursive writing with real exercises, so you will not need much additional effort for it. See illustration 3: this is a scan of the CSL alphabet table, which I wrote out manually (with pen and ink); the arrows indicate the recommended directions and the sequence of manual strokes for each letter. Let's not waste time drawing capital letters, one lowercase is quite enough. You can use this table and write in the same way, or change the way you write individual letters in a way that suits you personally. My goal is just to show that there is nothing complicated in this.

In the above table, stroke directions take into account the specifics of using a simple metal pen: it is more convenient for them to stroke from top to bottom and from left to right (for right-handers); but you will most likely use a regular ballpoint (preferably gel) pen, so the stroke directions can be more free. If you can easily draw the outline of a letter so that you start from the end point and go equally from bottom to top and from right to left, then you can reduce the number of individual strokes in some letters (for example, THOUGHT, OH, OMEGA, Izhitsa) by drawing them in one stroke, without taking your hand off - then you can write faster. Ultimately, our task now is not calligraphy, but the development of a purely technical technique. It is quite enough that you yourself easily recognize the letters you have written. Just try to keep them about the same height (about 1.5 to 2 times your normal handwriting in Russian), and immediately get used to leaving enough spacing between lines to accommodate superscripts. Of course, it is more convenient to use lined paper (for example, a regular checkered notebook, which I once again recommend having specifically for CSL exercises).
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Let us now return to the topic of words under titles that we identified in the last lesson. By the way, pay attention: in CSL the very word TITLO - cf. kind, and in plural. in number, it is written like this: (many) TITLA (moreover, “chamber” is used as an accent mark over I to distinguish it from the genitive case of a singular number), and not “titles” at all, as in Russian (sometimes they mistakenly think that TITLA - this is a female r. unit h.). In illustration 4 you will see the main set of titles found in church books of the 19th and subsequent centuries, and some typical examples. It is very important to master the correct recognition of titles in writing and their reading (and the words under the titles are always pronounced aloud in full, without abbreviations). they are quite common in church texts. Hesitation on unusual titles or their incorrect disclosure are the most common mistakes of novice readers. It must be remembered that in each particular word one or more letters are abbreviated, and in the case of an inscription over it not a simple, but an alphabetic title, it indicates only one (the most important) of the missing ones.

Figure 5 shows a fairly representative table of most of the words under the titles. All derived words, as well as compound ones, also use similar abbreviations. In some cases, there may be two or even three spellings of the same word under the title. Pay attention to similar but different abbreviations of related words, for example: PRV(D)N = PRAVEDEN and PRP(D)BEN = PRESENT; CHT(C)b = HONOR and CHT(C)b = CLEAN (it is especially easy to confuse in the variants CHT(C)NY = CLEAN and CHT(C)NY = HONEST), etc.

As an important independent exercise, rewrite this entire table of words under the titles in cursive, with a transcript (also in CSL, and not in Russian, as in the table). I would also recommend printing this table on a piece of paper and keep it at hand during the first time during the exercises. If some words cause difficulties, especially in setting stresses, look in the CSL dictionaries, links to which were given in our community. The exercise on words under titles will simultaneously form your skill in quickly free writing CSL words in cursive (you will see that there is nothing difficult in this) and will help you master the most frequent abbreviations. Meeting them later in the text, you can easily remember how they are revealed, and you can read them correctly. (I can confess: when I started to learn the CSL language, in order to quickly memorize the words under the titles, I forced myself to manually write each word from such a table not even once, but 10 times in a row in a row. It took only about an hour, and the result was fantastic: I've never had trouble recognizing those words again!)

In conclusion, a few more exercises to consolidate the understanding of CSL tsifiri, they are shown in Figure 6. Since now you can already write both CSL words and letter designations of numbers, then peeping, if necessary, in the tables shown in Figures 1 and 2, you will not work hard to cope with these tasks. Of particular practical use is the last exercise, which you can supplement yourself by finding the corresponding numbers of chapters and verses in the CSL and the Russian Bible and writing down their CSL designations in numbers. This will significantly help in the future to quickly navigate in church books, find the right place in them by the table of contents or liturgical indications of chapters, verses, "conceptions" and pages.
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In the next lesson, we will consider complex (but remarkably beautiful!) Initial letters, learn how to parse headings with “ligature”, and also begin mastering the CSL of the lexical minimum - we will write out various service words that often cause bewilderment and misunderstanding in real texts.
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Selection, abbreviated presentation, editing, processing of graphic fragments from various publications, correction of detected inaccuracies: Natalia Nezhentseva, 2016.

What symbols did the ancient Slavs use to represent numbers? In the counting system, our ancestors used the letters of the Cyrillic or Glagolitic alphabet, as was customary among the ancient Greeks and other peoples. Western culture used Roman numerals, but they were used by Catholics.

Russia was ideologically connected with Byzantium, therefore, it used alphabetic numbers to record dates and numbering. My brother began to study numerology and gematria, so he became interested in Old Slavonic numbers and their spelling. In the article I will tell you which letters of the alphabet were used to write numbers and how our ancestors wrote down compound numbers - from a thousand and above.

Alphanumeric

To distinguish a number from its corresponding letter, a special icon was used - a title. This icon was drawn above the letters, it looked like a wavy line. If a letter was written without a title, it denoted a sound, and if a wavy line appeared on top, it was read as a number.

The method of using the title to designate numbers was passed on to the Slavs and Methodius, who created the Slavic alphabet based on the Greek one. Did the sharp and rounded edges of the titlo matter? This is just a question of calligraphy, which does not carry a semantic load. Both options are correct.

Table of correspondence of Slavic letters to numbers and numbers:

However, not all letters of the alphabet were used for numbering. For example, the letters "g" and "b" were not used for calculus. Ignoring individual sounds is associated with their absence in the Greek alphabet: for Cyril and Methodius, these sounds were unusual.

On a note! In the old days, numbering started from one, not from zero.

Single-digit numbers were written with one letter, two-digit numbers with two.

The following symbols were used to denote tens:

Hundreds were designated as follows:

If it was necessary to write down a complex number of three or more digits, several letters were used under a common title. If it was necessary to designate numbers exceeding the number 10000, other signs and designations were used:

• the letter Az in a circle meant 10,000 (darkness);
• the letter Az in a circle with dots denoted a legion - 100,000;
• the letter Az in a circle with commas denoted leodr (million).

Sometimes images of composite numbers had to be memorized, which caused a lot of problems for students of parochial schools.

The picture shows the writing of large numbers in the Slavic version:

There was another designation - a fence. It meant trillions.

Numbers were separated from letters by dots. Sometimes there were dots between the numbers themselves to separate one from the other (ts.i.f.r.a.).

Where used

Writing numbers in letters can be found in ancient documents, on coins. For example, the numbers are clearly visible on the coins of the era of Peter the Great, they were minted until 1723. Now these coins are rare and are in private collections and museums.

Church Slavonic figures:

The scribes of the tsarist era had to know not only the knowledge of the alphabet, but also to know by heart all the complex numbers from the letters and the rules for writing them. Writing the dates in letters was especially difficult. For ordinary people, knowledge of this level was inaccessible.

It is noteworthy that this numbering is still used within the framework of the Church Slavonic language in seven Orthodox churches. There is no zero and negative numbers in this system. Our ancestors believed that zero symbolizes the primitive chaos, when the earth had not yet been created. Therefore, it was not considered reasonable and rational to use this number.

On a note! For the arithmetic operations of addition and subtraction, special abacus counting boards were used. They resembled the wooden abacus used by cashiers and accountants in the 20th century.

The digital use of letters opens up wide horizons for gematria and numerology, which is what the Jewish scholars of Kabbalists did. The digital equivalent of the word was considered from the mystical side and already had a sacred meaning and significance.

However, after the reforms of Peter the Great, the alphabetic numerals were replaced by Arabic numerals, which we still use to this day. This more convenient spelling is used all over the world.

Images of Old Slavonic letters

Each letter of the Old Slavonic language carried the meaning of some image. This is reminiscent of the Far Eastern way of thinking, only in the Slavic and Greek versions the recording of images was much simpler and expressed with a single icon or wand instead of a complex system of hieroglyphs.

Images of letters and numbers:

• 1 - az - one, one;
• 2 - lead;
• 3 - verbs;
• 4 - good;
• 5 - yes;
• 6 - zelo;
• 7 - earth;
• 8 - the axis of the world;
• 9 - fit.

One is the number of the god Svarog. It is the starting point from which the world originated. Until now, we use the word "bung" in everyday life in the sense of doing something. For information, the Scandinavian peoples call the supreme creator god the name Odin (emphasis on "o").

The number 2 denoted the other world of Navi: 1 + 1 = 2. This number expressed contact with the world of ancestors, from where people drew knowledge.

The number 3 expressed the idea of ​​development, as well as the mediation of man between the worlds of Reveal and Rule. The three atoms that make up the water molecule express the idea of ​​life on earth.

The number 4 expresses the idea of ​​the earth, the foundations of the foundations, balance. These are the 4 sides of the world.

The number 5 expresses the idea of ​​a person, his dimensions: 5 fingers and toes, 5 limbs, 5 sense organs.

The number 6 is the idea of ​​health, a symbol of the crystal lattice of water. Water cleanses and heals.

The number 7 is a planetary idea. There are 7 planets in the solar system, 7 musical sounds, 7 colors of the rainbow, 7 days of the week. This is a sacred number associated with the cosmic idea.

The number 8 symbolizes infinity, the universe, the axis of the world. It is a symbol of prosperity, abundance and prosperity.

The number 9 is associated with death, as it symbolizes a transitional state: 9 = 1 + 8 (Svarog and infinity). It is believed that on the ninth day after death, the soul leaves the body.

This numbering was created together with the Slavic alphabetic system for the translation of sacred biblical books for the Slavs by the Greek monks brothers Cyril and Methodius in the 9th century. This form of writing numbers was widely used due to the fact that it had a complete resemblance to the Greek notation of numbers. Until the 17th century, this form of writing numbers was official in the territory of modern Russia, the Republic of Belarus, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Hungary, Serbia and Croatia. Until now, Orthodox church books use this numbering.

Numbers were written down from numbers in the same way from left to right, from largest to smallest. Numbers from 11 to 19 were written as two digits, with one coming before ten:

We read literally "fourteen" - "four and ten." As we hear, we write: not 10 + 4, but 4 + 10, - four and ten (or, for example, 17 - seven-twenty). Numbers from 21 and above were written vice versa, first they wrote the sign of full tens.

The number notation used by the Slavs is additive, that is, it uses only addition:

= 800 + 60 + 3

In order not to confuse letters and numbers, titles were used - horizontal dashes above the numbers, which we see in our figure.

To designate numbers greater than 900, special icons were used, which were drawn around the letter. So the following large numbers were formed:

Slavic numbering existed until the end of the 17th century, until the positional decimal number system, Arabic numbers, came to Russia from Europe with the reforms of Peter I.

An interesting fact is that almost the same system was used by the Greeks. This explains the fact that for the letter b there was no numeric value. Although, there is nothing particularly surprising here: the Cyrillic numbering is completely copied from the Greek. Ready had similar numbers:

Year according to the old Russian calendar

Here, too, there is a special calculation algorithm: if the month is from January to August inclusive (according to the old style), then you need to add 5508 to the year (the new year comes on the first of September, according to the old style). After the first of September, one more must be added, that is, 5509. It is enough to remember three numbers here: 5508, 5509 and September 1.

At the beginning of the 18th century, a mixed number recording system was sometimes used, consisting of both Cyrillic and Arabic numerals. For example, the date 17K1 (1721) is minted on some copper kopecks, etc.

Convert Cyrillic numbers online

Press successively all the symbols in the order they are located on your exhibit:

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Converting Cyrillic numbers

In ancient times in Russia, numbers were denoted by letters. Very often, beginners are interested in these designations for dating coins. This article will help you deal with this problem.

Church Slavonic numbers.

Single numbers in ancient Slavic times were written using letters, over which the symbol "titlo" was placed.

• The number one was denoted by the letter "az" - a;
• number two - "lead" - in;
• number three - "verb" - g;
• number four - "good" - d;
• number five - "is" - the letter e in the other direction;
• number six - "green" - s;
• number seven - "earth" - z;
• figure eight - "like" - and;
• number nine - "fita" - similar to the letter d (having an oval shape, crossed out from below).

Decimal digits.

• The number ten - the letter "and" - i;
• number twenty - "kako" - k;
• figure thirty - "people" - l;
• figure forty - "think" - m;
• fifty - "our" - n;
• sixty - the letter "xi" - the letter z with horns at the top - Ѯ;
• seventy - "he" - about;
• eighty - "peace" - n;
• ninety - "worm" - h.

Hundredths.

• The number one hundred - "rtsy" - p;
• two hundred - "word" - with;
• three hundred - "firmly" - t;
• four hundred - "uk" - at;
• five hundred - "fert" - f;
• six hundred - "dick" - x;
• seven hundred - "psi" - trident - Ѱ. By the way, a fairly common symbol. For example, in the area of ​​the Tsimlyansk reservoir, people found a limestone with the symbol of a "trident". Volgodonsk local historian - lover of Chalykh believes that this is a symbol of the Khazars, denoting the runic letter - "x". But it can be assumed that the Khazars used Slavic alphabetic numbers, and this sign indicates the seven hundredth year of our era;
• eight hundred - "o" - ὼ;
• nine hundred - "tsy" - c. There was a recent history with this figure too. A man found an old church book, where the year was indicated by numbers, where the second character corresponded to the letter - c. When I said that it was only for only 1900, the person did not want to believe it, believing that the book was much older, since it had a letter designation of the date of issue.

Thousands.

Thousands had a corresponding sign in front of them - an oblique line crossed out twice. That is, the figure in front had an oblique crossed out line, and then the number was called letters. For example, 1000 corresponded to - the letter - "az" - a, and so on by the name of the unit numbers.

Before special symbols were invented to denote numbers, most peoples used the letters of their alphabets for this purpose. The ancient Slavs are no exception.
They had a separate letter for each number (from 1 to 9), each ten (from 10 to 90) and each hundred (from 100 to 900). Numerals were written and pronounced from left to right, with the exception of numbers from 11 to 19 (for example, 17 - seventeen).
In order for the reader to understand that there are numbers in front of him, a special sign was used - a title. It was depicted as a wavy line and placed above the letter. Example:

Such a sign is called "az under the title" and means one.
It is worth noting that not all letters of the alphabet could be used as numbers. For example, "B" and "F" did not turn into numbers, because they were not in the ancient Greek alphabet, which was the basis of the digital system. In addition, letters that are not in our modern alphabet - “xi” and “psi” acted as numbers. For a modern person, it may also seem unusual that there was no zero familiar to everyone in the counting series.

If it was required to write a number greater than 1000, a special sign of a thousand was written in front of it in the form of a slash, crossed out in two places. An example of writing the numbers 2000 and 200,000:

To get even larger values, other methods were used:

Az in the circle is darkness, or 10,000.
Az in a dotted circle is a legion, or 100,000.
Az in a circle of commas is leodor, or 1,000,000.

Dates on Peter's coins

On the gold Peter's coins, the dates in the Slavic count appeared in 1701 and were affixed until 1707 inclusive.
On silver - from 1699 to 1722.
On copper - from 1700 to 1721.
Even after the introduction of Arabic numerals by Peter I, the dates under the title were still minted on the coins for a long time. Sometimes engravers mixed Arabic and Slavic numerals in the date. For example, on the coins of 1721 you can find the following date options: 17KA and 17K1.

Designation of dates by letters on old Russian coins.