Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme

Switch Atlas

The Inner World

The Civil World

The Natural World

Alphabet Letters

Cherv Ч

Cyrillic Letters

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

Origin Developed in the late ninth or early tenth century, after the death of Constantine-Cyril, in the First Bulgarian Empire

Cherv is the twenty-sixth letter of Cyrillic and writes the affricate ch. Its name is a Slavonic word for worm, one of the few names in the tail of the alphabet that still has a plain sense. It carries the numeral 90, a slot left vacant in the Greek series by an obsolete letter; the earliest Cyrillic manuscripts write that number with the borrowed Greek sign koppa instead, and cherv takes it over later, so the value is one of the details by which an early numeral usage can be told from a later one. The sound is native to Slavonic and the sign comes from Glagolitic. The same root lies behind the Slavic word for the colour red, which is generally derived from a dye made from an insect of that kind.

Facts
Origins
Origin Period
Developed in the late ninth or early tenth century, after the death of Constantine-Cyril, in the First Bulgarian Empire 2
Place of Origin
The First Bulgarian Empire, in the school of the disciples of Cyril and Methodius, with Preslav and Ohrid the two centres most often named 2
Origin of the Name
A Slavonic word used as the letter name, shared by both Slavic alphabets 1Tradition: Early Cyrillic, the alphabet of Church Slavonic
Sense of the Name
cherv is a Slavonic word for worm 1Tradition: Early Cyrillic, the alphabet of Church Slavonic
Identity
Script Type
An alphabet: one letter to a sound, built on Greek uncial letterforms with additional signs, several of them taken from Glagolitic, for the Slavonic sounds Greek could not write 1
Position
The twenty-sixth letter of the Early Cyrillic alphabet in the traditional order 1Tradition: Early Cyrillic, the alphabet of Church Slavonic
Attributions
Associated Sound
The affricate ch 1Tradition: Early Cyrillic, the alphabet of Church Slavonic
Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting Source
Cherv's numeral 90 was written by the earliest manuscripts with the borrowed Greek sign koppa before cherv itself took over the value, so which sign carries 90 in a given manuscript is one of the details that separates an early numeral usage from a later one. 1
Transmission
Manuscript Tradition
The earliest Cyrillic manuscripts write 90 with the borrowed Greek koppa, a numeral sign rather than a letter of the alphabet, and cherv takes over the value later 1Tradition: Early Cyrillic, the alphabet of Church Slavonic
Learn More
Cherv: The Letter Named Worm

Cherv stands twenty sixth, writes the affricate ch, and carries the numeral 90. Its name is the Slavonic word for worm, a word that in the older language also carried the sense of the crimson dye obtained from an insect, which is why the same root gives the modern Slavic words for red.

The sound, like ts, is a product of the palatalisations that reshaped inherited Slavic consonants before front vowels, and it is common in ordinary vocabulary. There was no Greek letter for it and no Greek number attached to any such letter.

The numeral 90 is therefore borrowed rather than inherited. Greek filled that slot with an obsolete sign rather than a letter, and Cyrillic put cherv there, which leaves this letter carrying a lower number than the letter standing before it in the alphabet. That inversion is not a mistake and is explained on the entry for tsy.

The letterform has no Greek model. Its derivation is argued along the same lines as the other signs supplied for Slavonic sounds, and the argument is recorded on the relation to its Glagolitic counterpart.

The letter survives in every modern Cyrillic alphabet, in the same shape and with the same sound, and it is one of the signs that make a page of Cyrillic immediately distinguishable from a page of Greek.

How the Added Letters Were Named

The letters Cyrillic took from Greek and the letters it supplied for Slavonic are named on different principles, and comparing the two lists tells you something about how the alphabet was put together.

The Greek derived letters carry ordinary Slavonic words: I, I know, word, good, it is, earth, who, how, people, think, ours, he, rest, say, word, firm, learning. They are common, short, and drawn from the vocabulary of worship, which is what a teacher would choose for a class learning to read out of a service book.

The added letters divide. Some also got real words: zhivete, an imperative meaning live; dzelo, an adverb meaning very; cherv, the noun for worm. Others got no word at all, only the sound with a vowel hung on it: sha, shta, yery, yu. And the yus letters carry descriptive labels, big and little, which are classificatory terms rather than names in the same sense.

The pattern suggests the naming was done in more than one pass and possibly by more than one hand. A single author working through the alphabet with one method would not produce a list that is a coherent devotional vocabulary at the start and a set of phonetic labels at the end.

It also fits what is otherwise known about the alphabet, which is that it was assembled institutionally rather than invented at a stroke. A committee leaves this kind of trace, and a single inventor generally does not.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Derived From

Chrivi Ⱍ, Alphabet Letters

Why this is disputed. Cherv writes ch, a sound Greek had no letter for, and Cyrillic paleography treats it as one of the letters borrowed wholesale from Glagolitic rather than invented fresh. Where scholars disagree is on the Glagolitic letter's own origin behind that borrowing: some trace its shape to a Hebrew or Samaritan letter by way of the Glagolitic inventor's own learning, others see no secure model outside the Glagolitic alphabet itself, so Cyrillic's own debt is more settled than what lies behind it.

Source Byzantine Missions Among the Slavs: SS. Constantine-Cyril and MethodiusFrancis Dvornik

Originates in Language

Old Church Slavonic, Languages

Cherv is a letter of the Early Cyrillic alphabet, which was assembled to write Old Church Slavonic and which takes its letter names from that language.

Source Old Church Slavonic GrammarHorace G. Lunt

Related To

Chrivi Ⱍ, Alphabet Letters

Cyrillic Cherv writes the same sound and stands in the same place in the Slavonic alphabet. Glagolitic leaves it unnumbered, its counted series having ended earlier in the order; Cyrillic numbers it 90 from the Greek series. Which of the two Slavonic scripts came first, and how much either owes the other, is argued rather than settled.

Source The World's Writing SystemsPeter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.)
Chrivi Ⱍ, Alphabet Letters

Cherv answers to Glagolitic Chrivi: the same sound and the same place in the Slavonic alphabet. Glagolitic leaves it unnumbered; Cyrillic numbers it 90 from a vacant Greek slot.

Source The World's Writing SystemsPeter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.)
Sources
1. The World's Writing Systems
Peter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.), Oxford University Press, 1996on the Slavic alphabets, their letters and their numeral systemsView the Source
2. Byzantine Missions Among the Slavs: SS. Constantine-Cyril and Methodius
Francis Dvornik, Rutgers University Press, 1970on the Moravian mission and the making of the Slavic lettersView the Source
The Unicode Standard
The Unicode Consortium, The Unicode Consortiumon the encoded characters, their names and their block assignmentView the Source
Old Church Slavonic Grammar
Horace G. Lunt, Mouton de Gruyter, 2001View the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.