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From: Ross Clark <benlizro@ihug.co.nz>
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: How did I miss this one?
Date: Sat, 4 May 2024 22:13:40 +1200
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On 4/05/2024 1:46 a.m., ulf_kutzner wrote:
> Ross Clark wrote:
> 
>> April 26, which is the feast day of Stephen of Perm, is celebrated as 
>> Old Permic Alphabet Day.
> 
>> Not mentioned by Crystal. A passing reference by Geoffrey Sampson, in 
>> a LinguistList review of a book on Uralic languages, led me to it.
> 
>> It was invented in 1372 by the said Saint, in order to write (Old) 
>> Komi (aka Old Zyrian), a Permic (Uralic) language (making it one of 
>> the earliest scripts used in that family). It is a rather radical 
>> re-shaping
> 
>> of Cyrillic, with some elements from other sources. Its use continued 
>> for about three centuries, after which it was replaced by more normal 
>> Cyrillic.
> 
>> All this and more at:
> 
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Permic_script
> 
>> We've already mentioned Hangul Day, celebrated in Korea. Any other 
>> holidays dedicated to particular scripts?
> 
> What about this one?
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_Slavonic_Alphabet,_Bulgarian_Enlightenment_and_Culture 
> 
> 
> Regards, ULF

Yes, thank you! And it's May 24, the feast day of Sts. Cyril and 
Methodius, 9th-century Byzantine brothers from Thessalonica, who 
invented this alphabet and took the Gospel to the Slavs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_and_Methodius

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sv_Kiril_Metodij_Zahari_Zograf_Trojanski_mon_1848.jpg

"In 1980, the first Slav pope, Pope John Paul II declared them co-patron 
saints of Europe, together with Benedict of Nursia."

There was a Serbian restaurant at one time in Auckland (though Croatians 
are much more numerous here), and the one time we ate there, I remember 
seeing, pinned to the wall, a little poem about "Наша Кириллица" (Our 
(dear?) Cyrillic alphabet). Googling that phrase brings up a lot of 
Russian sites with similar sentiments.

Looking further into it will show that while the above is basically 
true, it is a lot more complicated.

(i) They have several different feast days depending on which church you 
ask.

(ii) They invented two quite different alphabets -- Glagolitic, which 
looks a bit like Elvish; and Cyrillic, which is simpler and more 
obviously based on Greek, and has lasted longer.

(iii) And maybe they didn't invent them just like that...but such is the 
way of writing systems.