PANGRAM is a sentence that contains each letter of the alphabet.
PANGRAM in Greek means ALL-LETTERED
(pan = all + gramma = letter)
After the birth of Printing, in the 16th Century, there was a need for some catalogues in which the letters that a certain printers house possess would be presented. Together with an alphabet shown, a “false” sentence was printed to demonstrate the look of the letters on a book page. It should present all the letters, and the sentence should be as short as possible, but contents was not so important.
The first “false” texts were Latin sentences, for example the beginning of the first Cicero 's speech against Catalina: 'Quousque tandem abutere' which could to a certain degree present the characteristics of an alphabet, or a longer one which went like this:

‘Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipscing elit, diam nonnumy eiusmod tempor incidunt ut labore et dolo...'*.

The second one was commonly used as a standard text of typographic catalogues, in many versions and changes, as it was the adding of ‘ing' or ‘y'. This sentence was, according to the lengths of words and their ‘balance' was similar to a common English sentences, and did not loaded a reader with its meaning, so he could concentrate on the shapes of the letters.

A PERFECT SENTENCE

I could make a ‘blind' bet that any novel contains all the letters of an alphabet. Here is, for example, one all-letters sentence taken from typographic catalogues:

In the vocation of typesetting, dexterity can be gained by means of quiet, judicious and zealous work.

Its meaning is connected with printing, but it is not economic at all – it is made out of even 83 letters!
But, pangram is a word game, and the goal is to assemble as shorter sentence as possible, having in mind, naturally, to have a meaning.
In English language it is relatively easy to compose an understandable pangram using 30 or more letters, as one can see in the following classic examples:

The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog. (33)

Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs. (32)

The five boxing wizards jump quickly. (31)

How quickly daft jumping zebras vex. (30)

However, when the number of letters used falls under the number of 30, it is extremely difficult to complete an understandable sentence. There are only about ten 26-letters pangrams in English language, therefore, a sentence in which each letter of Latin alphabet appear only once, but they are considered quite imperfect, as an obvious meaning is missing, so it is hard to remember. Those sentences usually reminds of a witches mumbling or still undecoded messages from an outer space, and the reason for that lies because of using the letter-rebuses collected by the crossword puzzle makers or the scrabble players, and also of using unusual Hebrew or Welsh words like qoph (a Hebrew letter) or ‘crwth' (a Welsh musical instrument). Here is a typical 26-letter pangram:

Vext cwm fly zing jabs Kurd qoph.

This means: “An annoyed fly in a valley, humming shrilly, pokes at the nineteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet drawn by a Kurd”.

As I mentioned before, it is extremely difficult to costruct a sensible pangram of all 26 letters.

Here are a few more such a sentences taken out from the Oxford Guide to Word Games:

Nth black fjords vex Qum gyp wiz.
(An esteemed Iranian shyster was provoked when he himself was cheated: an alleged seaside ski resort he purchased proved instead to be a glacier of countless oil-abundant fjords).

Quartz glyph job vex'd cwm finks.
(Despicable vandals from the valley are thwarted by finding a block of quartz with carvings already on it).

J. Q. Schwartz flung V. D. Pike my box.

V quiz drag-nymphs blew cox, J. F. K.
(Very naughty pangram: The transvestite-nymphs from the 5th quiz, did an oral job, President Kennedy).

Blowzy night-frumps vex'd Jack Q.

In the last examples we can see small “cheating” the authors did – out of the remaining letters they composed the initials to complete the pangram. In the next to the last one, the composer used even the Roman numbers (V).

The newest minimal pangram is wandering through the web under the title “Perfect Pangram”. At that address one can find a following sentence> Mr. Jock, T.V. Quiz Ph. D., bags few lynx. It is about certain Mr. Jock, who doctorate the TV quiz subject, and who puts several wildcat's furs into the bags.

Here is the choice of some shorter English pangrams, for your amusement and lecture:

Brick quiz whangs jumpy veldt fox. (27)

Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex bud. (28)

Blowzy frights vex, and jump quick. (28)

Quick zephyrs blow, vexing daft Jim. (29)

Boys of quartz duck phlegm, vow jinx. (29)

Foxy nymphs grab quick-jived waltz. (29)

Judges vomit: few quiz pharynx block. (30)

Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz. (31)

Quick waxy bugs jump the frozen veldt. (31)

Quivering hawk expectorates boozy mad jellyfish. (42)

Sixty zippers were quickly picked from the woven jute bag. (48)

Crazy Fredericka bought many very exquisite opal jewels. (48)

How razorback–jumping frogs can level six piqued gymnasts! (49)

Mix Zapf with Veljovic and get quirky Beziers. (38)

This pangram will equally excite both Serbian patriots and the typography experts. For those who don‘t know, the “Zapf” is the letter type named after its author, the famous German type designer Herman Zapf, and “ITC Veljovic” after not less known Serbian designer Jovica Veljović. The “Bezier‘s lines” are the optimal curves used to define the shape of a letter in computer. Therefore, if one mixes Zapf with Veljovic, the result will be strange Bezier's lines.

IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES

Let me show you several French pangrams, among which the first one is probably their shortest one. (By the way, the presence of Whisky is notable in French pangrams):

Whisky vert: jugez cinq fox d'aplomb. (29)
(Translated word by word it can be only: “Green Whisky: judge five foxterriers vertically.”, but the meaning persistently escapes.)

Portez ce vieux whisky au juge blond qui fume. (37)
(Bring this old Whiskey to the blond judge who is smoking.)

Moi, je veux quinze clubs a golf et du whisky pur. (38, Col. G. L. Sicherman)
(Me, I want fifteen golf clubs and some pure whisky.)

Voyez le brick géant que j'examine près du wharf. (39)
(Look at the giant brick which I examine near the dock.)

Zoë, grande fille, veut que je boive ce whisky, mais je ne veux pas. (51)
(Zoe, the big daughter, wants me to drink this whisky, but I refuse.)

Monsieur Jack, vous dactylographiez bien, mieux que votre ami Wholf. (56)
(Mister Jack, you are typing well, better than your friend Wolf.)

Several German pangrams:

Zwei Boxkämpfer jagen Eva quer durch Sylt. (35)
(Two boxers are chasing Eva throughout all the roads of Silt.)

Zwölf Boxkämpfer jagen Victor quer über den großen Sylter Deich. (53, extended version, using the letters ß and ü.)
(Twelve boxers are chasing Victor across the large Sylt enbankment.)

Franz jagt im komplett verwahrlosten Taxi quer durch Bayern.
(Franz is running around Bavaria in a totally neglected taxi.)

The selection of three Holland pangrams:

Och, zwak vormpje blijft exquis ding! (30)
(Oh, a weak form is still a perfect thing.)

Sexy qua lijf, doch bang voor het zwempak. (33)
It means something like this: “A sexy body, but frightened for bathing suits”.

Zweedse ex-VIP, behoorlijk gek op quantumfysica. (40)
(Ex Swedish VIP/very important personality/, is quite mad after the quant physics.) All three examples include the Holland ligature 'ij'.

It is said that it is much easier to construct a pangram in Japanese language, as each Japanese character contains vocals. Japanese pangram poems were made before more than thousand years. On the web you can find some hundred Japanese pangram poems by Akira Okitsu (“Perfect Pangram's Desk”).

Here is one modern pangram in Latin language: Gaza frequens Libycos duxit Karthagos triumphos. (“The abundant treasure leaded the Lybians to the triumph over Carthagians”, author Jim Reads).

THE QUICK FOX

The most famous and most frequently used English all-letters sentence is surely

The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.

I tried to translate this famous sentence into Serbian language, in a way to contain all 30 cyrillic letters, which was not an easy task, so it sounds like this:

BRZA VIŽLJASTA LIJA HOCE DA ÐIPI PREKO NJUŠKE FLEGMATICNOG DŽUKCA.
(The quick slimy fox wants to jump over the snout of a phlegmatic dog”)

In Serbian cyrillic alphabet, the Latin two-lettered LJ (pronounced like in Italian “paglieri”), NJ (like in ”new”) and DŽ (like in John) are written by one character only, as it is purely phonetic alphabet.

Of course, as this sentence was translated within the “strict special circumstances”, it is much less economic comparing to the original one, which has 33 out of 26 latinic letters, and in the latter is spent even 53 out of 30 different cyrillic letters, but having only one more word added.

As to the Serbian language, the process is more complicated than in English. More different letters are needed (30) to make a perfect pangram, and, as I know, there is still no example of a “perfect cyrillic sentence” consisted only of 30 different letters.

THE ”ZABAVNIK” COMPETITION

The pangrams, although I did not know the name then, I first met in 1984 when the Politikin Zabavnik magazine (V. B. Vib was the Editor-In-Chief at the time) announced a competition for a “Sentence with the smallest number of letters”. The initial rules were that consonants in such a (sensible) sentence may appear only once, and vocals in a number that the total number of letters in a sentence may not be over 35. When the competition was concluded, it was clear that the rules were too optimistic: the sentence that won the first prize had even 52 letters (the poetical aspect was more appreciated than the formal length), and the shortest sentence contained only 44 letters!

Here is the choice of sentences from the Zabavnik magazine competition:

(1st prize): Fijuče vetar u šiblju, ledi pasaže i kuće iza njih i gunda u odžacima. (52 / by Vera Gavrilović, Lešnica)
The wind is whistling in scrubs, freezing the passages and houses behind them and mumbles in the chimneys.

(2nd prize): Vuk Njegošu: “Ne lomi džabe pero, dođi tiću, čije se face zaželjeh” (48 / by Gordana Lekić, Stara Pazova)
Vuk (Karadžić) to Njegoš: “Do not brake your pen in vain, come here my lad, I miss your face”

(3rd prize): Nidžo, cežnjivo gledaš fotelju, a Ðura i Mika hoće poziciju sebi. (49 / by Budimir Puljarević, Zemun)
Nidža, you look longing for that easy chair, but Đura and Mika want the position for themselves.

Ljudi, jazavac Džef trči po šumi glodući neko suho žbunje. (44 slova — by Stefan Simić, Beograd)
People, Jeff the badger is running through the forest eating some dry bushes.

Ljubavi, Olga, hajde podi u Fudži i čut ceš nježnu muziku srca. (46 / by S. Vasić)
Olga, my love, come to Fuji and you'll hear a gentle music of the heart.

Boja vaše haljine, gospođice Džafić, traži da za nju kulučim. (46 / by N. Kuzmanović)
The colour of your dress, Miss Džafić, asks to work hard for it.

Hadži Ðera je zaćutao i bacio čežnjiv pogled na šolju s kafom. (47 / by M. Jovanović)
Hadži Djera stopped talking and threw a longing look to the coffee cup.

Džabe se zec po Homolju šunja, čuvar Jožef lako će i tu da ga nađe. (48 / by I. Mišulić)
The rabbit is sneking in vain through Homolje, the keeper Jožef will find it easily there.

Odžačar Filip šalje osmehe tuđoj ženi, a njegova kuća bez dece. (48 / by P. Novaković)
Chimney-sweeper Filip sends smiles to another persons woman, and his house without children.

Butić Ðuro iz Foče ima pun džak ideja o slaganju vaših željica. (48 / by A. Paraminski)

Džajić odskoči u aut i izbeže don halfa Pecelja i njegov šamar. (48 / by N. Zdravkovic)

Plamte odžaci fabrika a čađave guje se iz njih dižu i šalju noć. (48 / by S. Nanić)

Ajšo, lepoto i cežnjo, za ljubav srca moga, dođi u Hadžice na kafu. (48 / by S. R. Petrović)

Huči šuma, a iza žutog džbuna i panja dak u cveću delje seji frulu. (49 / by Ž. Daković)

Fića i Džo pišu, a Boža uđe i uz njih cita: “Um caruje a snaga klade valja.” (52 / by M. Calasan)

Goči i Jaćimu iz Banje Koviljače, flaša džina i žeđ padahu u istu uru. (52 / by M. Arsenijević)

Džaba što Feda čupa za kosu Milju, ona juri Živu, ali njega hoće i Daca. (52 / by Ž. Pintarić)

Dok je Fehim u džipu žurno ljubio Zagu Čadević, Cile se ušunjao u auto. (53 / by D. Živković)

Fijuče košava nad odžacima a Ilja u gunju žureci uđe u suhu i toplu izbu. (55 / by B. Delić)

A nice sentence came from Slovenia (part of Yugoslavia at the time):

Ob hišici se vije fižol, ki ga pa tudi unici mraz. (A bean is all around the house, also destroyed by the freeze. / by Vida Bertoncelj). This sentence has 38 letters only, but the Slovenian alphabet has 25 letters. Proportionally, it can be compared with a cyrillic one with 45 letters.

The number of letters in the sentences sent to the competition did not reach even near the fantastic number of 35 letters, given in the rules, not to mention the perfect number of 30. I have also sent, at the time, several sentences to the competition, under names of several children from my neighborhood, but they were not published:

Ljubičasti jež iz fioke hoće da pecne rđavog miša Džonjala. (46)

Džokej Gaca diže pali fenjer i mahavši zađe u ljubičastu noć. (47)

Ljubazni fenjerdžija čađavog lica hoće da mi pokaže štos. (45)

G. Ðoka Žutić iz Donje Šljive džabe spaja rečenicu — fali mu »h«. (45)

Recite želju i biće — mađija džinovskog duha iz flaše počinje. (47)

The second pangram competition organized by “Zabavnik” was announced the next year, in 1985, and only one Slovenian sentence was awarded.

Pri Jakcu bom uzel šest cudežnih fig. (30)
(At Jakac's I will take six marvelous figs / by Petar Tomec from Nova Gorica). This sentence is similar to the cyrillic one of 36 letters.

THE QUEST FOR THE PERFECT CYRILLIC PANGRAM

Three nice surrealistic sentences were given to me by the famous actor and children playwritrter Branko Miličević. He has constructed them, not knowing for pangrams, nor the “Zabavnik” competition, not loaded with any rules and with no literary ambitions – he made them only to practice the “blind” machine typing. Warning: the cyrillic letters LJ , NJ and DŽ are missing, as are not existing in a latinic typewriter:

Važi, ne bogoradi: plaćaj ceh za smeđu češku ćuftu.
(All right, don't call God: pay the bill for a brown Czech meatball.)

Grubi, a fini, dolazahu đacima snežnim nečujnim šuškavim putićem.
(Rough, but nice, they approached to the pupils, on a small snowy, silent rustling road.)

E.R.C. za sad uopšte nije omogućio količinu friškog devreka i hleba.
(E.R.C /Electronic Computer Center/, for now did not enable an amount of fresh pretzels and bread.)

More than ten years after the Competitions, I have found several real pangram sentences made by our famous language expert Ivan Klajn (from 1992) in which the last two sentences are shorter than the shortest one from the “Zabavnik” competition:

Bože, džentlmeni osećaju fizičko gađenje od prljavih šoljica! (48)
(God, gentlemen feel a physical disgustion for filthy coffee cups!)

Dočepaće njega jaka šefica, vođena ljutom srdžbom zlih žena. (48)
(The strong she-boss will grab him, leaded by the evil women angry hatred.)

Pazi, gedžo, brže odnesi šefu taj đavolji ček: njim plaća ceh. (45)
(Look, peasant, quickier get that damn check to the boss: he will pay the bill wit it.)

Fine džukce ozleđuje bič: odgoj ih pažnjom, strpljivošću. (44)
(Fine dogs are hurt by a whip: rise them carefully, patiently.)

Zamišljao bi kafedžiju vlažnih prstića, crnjeg od čađi. (43)
(He would imagine a café owner with wet fingers, more black than tar.)

Ðače, uštedu plaćaj žaljenjem zbog džinovskih cifara. (42)
(Pupil, pay the savings with regret for the enormous ciphers.)

Educated by fairy-tales and romantic novels, I convinced myself that a perfect cyrillic pangram still exists, and that will someday appear on a paper, to me as to a persistent alchemist.

I cut thirty little squares out of a cardboard and wrote thirty cyrillic letters on them, and some ten empty squares replaced the vocals added. Stubbornly continuing to combine words and letters I have reached, bit by bit, a very good score of 34 letters:

Džikljaće žalfija između tog bušenja i peščanih dvoraca. (45)

Zašto gđa Hadžić leči živce: njena ljubav pred fijaskom? (43)

Jež hoće peckanjem da vređa ljubičastog džina iz flaše. (43)

Džej, ljubičast zec, laže: gađaće odmah pokvašen fenjer. (42)

Plašljiv zec hoće jeftinu dinju: grožđe iskamči džabe. (42)

Džak je pun žica: čućeš tad svađu zbog lomljenja harfe. (41)

Čuj, džukac Flop bez daha s gađenjem žvaće stršljena. (41)

Oh, zadnji šraf na džipu slab: muž gde Cvijić ljut koči. (40)

Šef džabe zvižduće: mladi hrt jače kljuca njenog psa. (40)

Odbaciće kavgadžija plaštom cađ u željezni fenjer. (40)

Deblji krojač: zgužvah smeđ filc u tanjušni džepić. (39)

Džo, zgužvaćeš tiho smeđ filc najdeblje krpenjače. (39)

Štef, bacih slomljen dečji zvrk u džep gde Žunjić. (37)

Debljoj zgužvah smeđ filc — njen škrt džepčić. (34)
(To the fatter one I crumpled a brown felt – her stingy little pocket.)

The last sentence is for now the shortest cyrillic sentence, with the exception of the comical sentence by the adult pangram-maker Zoran Stamenković:

WHO ARE THE JUVENILS: NJ. P, B. V, Ž. Ð, Z. J, LJ. Š, R. C, F. G, H. C, D. DŽ? (33)

As a sentence become shorter, it tends to look like that about a Fly that Stings a Hebrew Letter. When you enter into the sentences below 40 letters, the main role lead the words consisted almost only of consonants. It is helpful when one makes a small list of these words – when taking out or replacing vocals during combining letters, one should be ready to change whole words and thus often the meaning of the sentence. If you first use the rare consonants as dž, h, f, d, ž, nj, lj, š… the rest are more easily settled. In the end usually is the most difficult – there are always a couple of stupid letters hard to put anywhere.

WHAT IS PANGRAM FOR?

In the time of the “Zabavnik” competition it seemed to me that pangram are only an amusing enigmatic game. However, later I realized that the “all-lettered” sentences are very useful and applicable in all the occasions where is necessary to present shapes of all the letters of alphabet or to test the keyboard of a typewriter, computer or teleprinter, before it is turned on, to see if all letters are available. Such a sentence would be, probably, the supreme sentence in every elementary reading book. I am convinced that we really need a nice sentence like the famous English one, about the Quick Fox and Lazy Dog, which will be commonly accepted and used.

Also, it would be interesting and useful to construct an sentence for typographic catalogues, and there is no such a sentence even in English language, that contains also all the punctuation marks, or all the accent letters, and in Latinic alphabet all the standard ligatures (connected letters).

Therefore, there is still no PERFECT CYRILLIC PANGRAM. Maybe it is possible to construct it with the help of computer. There are some programs in the Web that should be adjusted to our type standards. If such a task appears to be impossible, or that there is no perfect cyrillic pangram, one should make as nice and as short sentence containing all the cyrillic letters.

Let me remind you: the cyrillic alphabet has thirty letters:
A B V G D Đ E Ž Z I J K L LJ M N NJ O P R S T Ć U F H C Č DŽ Š.

Post Scriptum
When I have finished this text, in the end of 1997, above mentioned Branko Miličević called me and told that he made a perfect cyrillic pangram. It goes:

Azbučni resto: vgd dmnj klpcžlj j fhč džš.

(The alphabet rest: vgd dmnj klpcžlj j fhč džš.)

I hope that this funny sentence will be the forerunner of all perfect pangrams in Serbian language!

THE SOURCES

Augustus de Morgan: Budget of Paradoxes, 1872
Tony Augarde: The Oxford Guide to Word Games, Guild Publishing, London, 1984
Merriam: Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, 1986
Paul Hellweg: BOOK OF INTRIGUING WORDS, Wordsworth Reference, London, 1993, pg.152
POLITIKIN ZABAVNIK (two competitions, 1984 and 1985):
“Ova igra je nova i zove se upotrebi sva slova” (1709, 28. 9. 1984, str. 7);
“Nagradna igra 'sva slova'” (1717, 23. 11. 1984, pg. 3);
“Pun džak recenica” (1718, 30. 11. 1984,pg. 3);
“Ceo roman — jedna recenica” (1719, 7. 12. 1984, pg. 44);
“Najbolje placeni pisci sveta” (1720, 14. 12. 1984, pg. 3);
“Recenica od najmanje slova” (1725, 18. 1. 1985, pg. 3);
“Recenica od najmanje slova” (1735, 29. 3. 1985, pg. 44);
Rastko Ćirić: Pangrami lutaju Internetom, Politikin Zabavnik 2411, 24. 4. 1998, pg. 38-40

Web addresses:
http://www.cs.indiana.edu
http://fun-with-words.com
http://fun-with-words.com
http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk
http://byrneweb.com