Old Permic is a medieval alphabet created in the fourteenth century by Stephen of Perm, an Orthodox missionary, to write Komi. Its introduction is commonly dated to 1372. It is also called Abur or Anbur, after its first two letters, An and Bur—much as the word “alphabet” comes from alpha and beta.
The script belongs to the cultural history of the Komi peoples of northeastern European Russia. It was used for Komi and Komi-Permyak, which belong to the Uralic language family. Stephen used it to translate Christian religious texts, helping establish a written literary tradition in the local language.
Old Permic is an alphabet, with letters representing consonants and vowels. It runs from left to right, in horizontal lines arranged from top to bottom. It has no distinction between uppercase and lowercase. Its structure and alphabetical order show Greek and Cyrillic influence, while some letterforms have been linked to traditional Komi tamga signs.
A common description identifies 24 primary letters and 10 supplementary letters. Historical variants and additional forms make the full repertoire more complicated, so charts do not always show the same number of signs. Learners should distinguish a letter’s traditional name, its sound, and its Latin transliteration: these serve different purposes.
Small marks above letters could indicate pronunciation features or abbreviations, although their use was not always consistent. Old Permic has no known separate set of numeral symbols; letters could represent numbers when marked with a titlo, a sign also used in Cyrillic writing.
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