Old Permic script

Infobox Writing system
name=Old Permic, Abur, Anbur
languages=Komi language
time=1372-1600s
type=alphabet
iso15924=PermThe Old Permic script, sometimes called Abur or Anbur, is an original ancient Permic writing system.

History

The alphabet was introduced by a Russian missionary Stepan Khrap, also known as Saint Stephen of Perm (Степан Храп, св. Стефан Пермский) in 1372. The name "Abur" is derived from the names of the first two characters "An" and "Bur". The alphabet derived from Cyrillic and Greek, and Komi tribal signs, the latter being similar in the appearance to runes or siglas poveiras, because they were created by incisions, rather than by usual writing.The alphabet was in use until the 17th century, when it was superseded by the Cyrillic alphabet. Abur was also used as cryptographic writing for the Russian language.

April 26, which is the saint's day of Stephen of Perm, is celebrated as Old Permic Alphabet Day.

ignificance

The abur inscriptions are among the oldest relics of the Finno-Ugric languages. Only one of these languages has earlier documents: Hungarian, which had been written using the Old Hungarian script first, then with the Latin script after 1000.

ee also

*Komi language.

External links

* (Russian) [http://peoples.org.ru/abur.html Abur at Minority languages of Russia on the Net]
* Michael Everson's [http://std.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/n1947.pdf Unicode proposal for encoding Old Permic script] (PDF)
* [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/oldpermic.htm Abur on Omniglot.com]