The Italian alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used by the Italian language. The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people,[1] primarily in Italy and Switzerland. ...

Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... For other uses of A, see A (disambiguation). ... Look up N, n in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up B, b in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up O, o in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up C, c in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Template:WiktionarSDypar2 P is the sixteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. ... Look up D, d in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up Q, q in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up E, e in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up R, r in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up F, f in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up S, s in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Its name in English is tee . ... Look up H, h in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up U, u in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up I, i in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up V, v in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up L, l in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up Z, z in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up M, m in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Vowels

The Italian alphabet has five vowels, <A>, <E>, <I>, <O>, and <U>. Of those, only <A> has one sound value while each of the others has two. In addition, the front vowels <E> and <I> soften a preceding <C> or <G> (see below). Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ...

In stressed syllables, the mid vowels <E> and <O> represent both open-mid and close-mid vowels. There is typically no orthographic distinction between the two (although an acute accent may be used to represent /e/ and /o/ and a grave accent to represent /ɛ/ and /ɔ/, see below). In unstressed syllables, only /e/ and /o/ occur. The open-mid vowels make a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages. ... A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... The acute accent (   ) is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin and Greek scripts. ... The grave accent ( ` ) is a diacritic mark used in written Greek until 1982 (polytonic orthography), French, Catalan, Welsh, Italian, Vietnamese, Scottish Gaelic, Norwegian, Portuguese and other languages. ...

The letters <I> and <U>, in addition to representing high vowels, also typically represent the semivowels /j/ and /w/ respectively when unstressed and occurring before another vowel. Also, unstressed <I> may represent that a preceding or following consonant is palatal (see below). A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. ... Semivowels (also glides, more rarely: semiconsonants) are non-syllabic vowels that form diphthongs with syllabic vowels. ...

Palatals

The letters <C> and <G> represent velar consonants unless followed by a front vowel (<I> or <E>) in which it represents palatal (technically postalveolar) /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ respectively. <I> may also function as just an indicator that the preceding <C> or <G> is palatal as in <CIA> (/tʃa/), <CIU> (/tʃu/), etc. In this context, <H> functions as the absense of such palatalization so that <CHE> represents /ke/ or /kɛ/ and <CHI> represents /ki/. While this orthographic practice came out of allophonic palatalization of velar consonants in Latin, the velars and palatals are full phonemes, as seen with the minimal pairs of the following table. Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... Postalveolar (or palato-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge (the place of articulation for alveolar consonants) and the palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants). ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ...

<G> is also used to mark that a following <L> or <N> is palatal (excepting foreign loanwords). With <L>, a following <I> is also necessary although this may be stressed or unstressed: famiglia / faˈmiʎʎa/ ('family').

The digraph <SC> is used to represent /ʃ/. Except in some Northern Italian dialects, intervocalic /ʎ/, /ɲ/, and /ʃ/ are geminated. It has been suggested that Germination rate be merged into this article or section. ...

Other letters

The letter <H> at the beginning of a word is used to distinguish ho, hai, ha, hanno (present indicative of avere, 'to have') from o ('or'), ai ('to the'), a ('to'), anno ('year') but there is difference in the pronunciation of such words. H is also used in combinations with other letters (see above). In foreign loanwords, the <H> is still silent: "hovercraft" /ˈɔverkraft/.

The letter <Z> represents an alveolar affricate consonant; either voiced /dz/ (Zanzara /dzanˈdzaɾa/ 'mosquito') or voiceless /ts/ (Nazione /naˈttsjone/ ('nation'), depending on context, though there are few minimal pairs. In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, which differ in only one phone, phoneme, toneme or chroneme and have a distinct meaning. ...

The letter <S> also is ambiguous to voicing; it can represent /s/ or /z/. However, these two phonemes are in complementary distribution everywhere except between two vowels in the same word, and even in such environment there are extremely few minimal pairs. Complementary distribution in linguistics refers to the relationship between two elements where one element can be found only in a particular environment and the other element can be found only in the opposite environment. ...

<R> may represent one of two rhotics, an alveolar flap / ɾ/ or an alveolar trill /r/. Rhotic consonants, or R-like sounds, are non-lateral liquid consonants. ...

The letters <J> (i lunga), <K> (cappa), <W> (vi/vu doppia), <X> (ics), <Y> (i greca), are not considered part of the standard Italian alphabet, but appear in loanwords (such as jeans, whisky, and taxi). <X> has become a commonly used letter in genuine Italian words with the prefix extra-. <J> in Italian is an old-fashioned orthographic variant of <I>, appearing in the first name "Jacopo" as well as in some Italian place names, e.g., the towns of Bajardo, Bojano, Joppolo, Jesolo, Jesi, among numerous others, and in the alternate spelling Mar Jonio (also spelled Mar Ionio) for the Ionian Sea. <J> may also appear in many words from different dialects, but its use is discouraged in contemporary Italian, and it is not part of the standard 21-letter contemporary Italian alphabet. Jacopo may refer to: Jacopo Corsi, Italian composer; Jacopo Peri, Italian composer; Jacopo Riccati, Italian mathematician; Categories: | ... Country Italy Region Liguria Province Province of Imperia (IM) Mayor Elevation m Area 24. ... Bojano or Boiano (pop. ... Country Italy Region Calabria Province Province of Vibo Valentia (VV) Mayor Elevation m Area 15. ... Jesolo is a city of 23. ... Country Italy Region Marche Province Ancona (AN) Mayor Fabiano Belcecchi (since May 28, 2002) Elevation 97 m Area 107 km² Population  - Total (as of March 31, 2006) 39,839  - Density 372/km² Time zone CET, UTC+1 Coordinates Gentilic Jesini Dialing code 0731 Postal code 60035 Frazioni Mazzangrugno, Castelrosino, Tabano... The Ionian Sea. ...

Diacritics

The acute accent may be used on <E> and <O> to represent close-mid vowels when they are stressed in a position other than the default second-to-last syllable; this use of acute is generally only mandatory in the final syllable. Since final O is never close-mid, <Ó> is very rarely encountered in written Italian. The grave accent may be used on <E> and <O> when they represent open-mid vowels. All vowels aside from <E> employ only the grave accent in most texts. Both acute and grave accent may sometimes be used to distinguish homographs. Look up homograph in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

The circumflex accent can be used to mark the contraction of two vowels, especially two I's. For example, it can be used to differentiate words like geni ('genes') and genî ('geniuses'). However, its use quite rare, and seen as archaic.

See also

• Alphabets derived from the Latin
• IPA chart for Italian
• Italian phonology