| Romanian transitional alphabet | |
|---|---|
 Fragment ofDimitrie Bolintineanu'sCălătorii pe Dunăre și în Bulgaria, 1858 | |
| Script type | |
Period | 19th century |
| Languages | Romanian |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Phoenician alphabet
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| This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. | |
TheRomanian transitional alphabet (Romanian:Alfabetul român de tranziție), also known as thecivil alphabet (Romanian:alfabetul civil), was a series ofalphabets containing a mix ofCyrillic andLatin characters used for theRomanian language in the 19th century.[1] It replaced theRomanian Cyrillic alphabet and was in turn replaced by theRomanian Latin alphabet.
The transition process began in 1828 thanks to the grammars ofIon Heliade Rădulescu,[2] although theRomanian Orthodox Church continued to use theRomanian Cyrillic for religious purposes until 1881, after the declaration ofindependence of Romania. TheHoly Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church [ro] decided to replace the Cyrillic alphabet in that year under secular pressure.[3]
The Romanian transitional alphabet began to gain more popularity after 1840, when Latin letters were first introduced between Cyrillic ones and then replacing some of the Cyrillic letters with Latin letters so that the readers of Romanian fromMoldavia,Transylvania andWallachia could become accustomed to them.[4] The final turning point was completed under French influence, which arose due to theWallachian andMoldavian revolutions of 1848 and theCrimean War which ended with theTreaty of Paris of 1856.
The complete replacement of the Cyrillic alphabet by the Latin alphabet in theUnited Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia was formalized in 1862 byPrinceAlexandru Ioan Cuza. The Romanian transitional alphabet became one of the symbols of Romanian unity and the national-bourgeois revolution, a direct consequence of theRevolutions of 1848 that also affected Wallachia and Moldavia. A lot of texts written in the transitional alphabet exist in libraries across Romania and Republic of Moldova. Some are digitized but inaccessible to modern readers unfamiliar with the Cyrillic letters with efforts to transliterate it to the modern Latin alphabet underway.[5]
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