GLAGOLITIC, SCRIPT. - A rather complicated uncial alphabet, comprising 38 letters, devised by s. Cirillo in the second half of the 9th century and used by him for the translation of Holy Scripture and of the liturgy into the Old Slavonic language during his mission in Great Moravia. His disciples brought the G. script to the Balkans, where two types developed: rounded in Bulgaria (Macedonia) and square in Croatia.
In Macedonia the G. script attained its highest graphic perfection in the 10th-12th centuries, but was progressively replaced by Cyrillic writing. In Croatia, semi-uncial G. script developed from the square uncial type, and from the 16th century onward also cursive writing. Semi-uncial was also used in books printed from 1483 onward, both in Old Slavonic and in Croatian. The G. script disappeared from civil use in the first half of the 19th century; in liturgical books it is now increasingly replaced by Latin characters. Numerous manuscripts in G. script have been preserved, beginning with the 10th century.