Latin alphabet
Type	Alphabet
Spoken languages	Latin and Romance languages; most languages of Europe; Romanizations exist for practically all known languages.
Time period	~700 B.C. to the present.
Parent systems	Proto-Canaanite alphabet  → Phoenician alphabet   → Greek alphabet    → Old Italic alphabet     → Latin alphabet
Child systems	Numerous: see Alphabets derived from the Latin
Sister systems	Cyrillic Coptic Armenian Runic/Futhark
Unicode range	See Latin characters in Unicode
ISO 15924	Latn
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, and was initially developed by the ancient Romans in Classical Antiquity to write the Latin language. The Ugaritic alphabet is a cuneiform abjad, used from around 1300 BC for the Ugaritic language, an extinct Canaanite language discovered in Ugarit, Syria. ... The Phoenician alphabet is a continuation of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, by convention taken to begin with a cut-off date of 1050 BCE. It was used by the Phoenicians to write Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language. ... The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet is an offshoot of the Phoenician alphabet used to write the Hebrew language from about the 10th century BCE until it began to fall out of use in the 5th century BCE with the adoption of the Aramaic alphabet as a writing system for Hebrew and... The Samaritan alphabet is a direct descendant of the paleo-Hebrew variety of the Phoenician alphabet, the more commonly known Hebrew alphabet having been adapted from the Aramaic alphabet under the Persian Empire. ... Bilingual inscription (Greek and Aramaic) by the Indian emperor Ashoka the Great, 3rd century BC. The Aramaic alphabet is an abjad alphabet designed for writing the Aramaic language. ... Variation of BrāhmÄ« with dates. ... The Brahmic family is a family of abugidas (writing systems) used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, descended from the BrāhmÄ« script of Mauryan India. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... This article or section uses Khmer characters which may be rendered as boxes or other nonsensical symbols. ... Javanese script is the script that Javanese is originally written in (not to be confused with Javascript, which is a programming language). ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... 11th century book in Syriac Serto. ... The Nabatean alphabet is a consonantal alphabet (abjad) that was used by the Nabateans in the 2nd century BC. Important inscriptions are found in Petra. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing languages such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and others. ... The Pahlavi script was used broadly in the Sasanid Persian Empire to write down Middle Persian for secular, as well as religious purposes. ... The Avestan alphabet was created in the 3rd century AD for writing the hymns of Zarathustra (a. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Rune redirects here. ...   The Gothic alphabet is an alphabetic writing system attributed by Philostorgius to Wulfila, used exclusively for writing the ancient Gothic language. ... The Glagolitic alphabet or Glagolitsa is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. ... The Cyrillic alphabet (pronounced also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is actually a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by certain Slavic languages — Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, and Ukrainian—as well as many other languages of the former Soviet Union... Paleohispanic scripts Light green (along the Mediterranean coast) is the Iberian language, dark grey (mainly southern Portugal) is the Tartessian language, dark blue (central Spain) is the Celtiberian language, light blue (mainly northern Portugal) is the Lusitanian language, and dark green (Eastern Pyrenees) is the Aquitanian language. ... The ancient South Arabian alphabet (also known as musnad) branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in ca. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... The Meroitic script is an alphabet of Egyptian (Hieroglyphic) origin used in Kingdom of Meroë. Some scholars, e. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Jamo redirects here. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Zhuyin fuhao (Traditional Chinese: ; Simplified Chinese: ; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Tongyong Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Chu-yin fu-hao), or Symbols for Annotating Sounds, often abbreviated as Zhuyin, or known as Bopomofo (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) after the first four letters of this Chinese phonemic alphabet (bo po mo fo), is the national phonetic system of the... Nearly all the segmental scripts (alphabets, but see below for more precise terminology) used around the globe were apparently derived from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet. ... ABCs redirects here. ... Writing systems of the world today. ... This page contains special characters. ... The inscription of Nestors Cup, found in Ischia; Cumae alphabet, 8th century BC A Western (also Chalcidean) variant of the early Greek alphabet was in use in ca. ... Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew from a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula circa the 9th century BC to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea. ... Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, which begins roughly with the earliest-recorded Greek poetry of Homer (7th century BC), and continues through the rise of Christianity and the fall of the Western Roman Empire (5th century AD... For other uses, see Latins and Latin (disambiguation). ...

During the Middle Ages, it was adapted to the Romance languages, the direct descendants of Latin, as well as to the Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, and some Slavic languages, and finally to most of the languages of Europe. The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family that comprises all the languages that descend from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. ... The Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, a branch of the greater Indo-European language family. ... The Baltic languages are a group of related languages belonging to the Indo-European language family and spoken mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. ...  Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language  Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language  Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup... Most of the many languages of Europe belong to the Indo-European language family. ...

With the age of colonialism and Christian proselytism, the Latin alphabet was spread overseas, and applied to Amerindian, Indigenous Australian, Austronesian, East Asian, and African languages. More recently, western linguists have also tended to prefer the Latin alphabet or the International Phonetic Alphabet (itself largely based on the Latin alphabet) when transcribing or devising written standards for non-European languages, such as the African reference alphabet. The first European colonization wave took place from the start of the 15th century until the New Imperialism period in the second part of the 19th century. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Indigenous languages of the Americas (or Amerindian Languages) are spoken by indigenous peoples from the southern tip of South America to Alaska and Greenland, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas. ... The Australian Aboriginal languages comprise several language families and isolates native to Australia and a few nearby islands, but by convention excluding Tasmania. ... The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. ... This article is about the geographical region. ... Map showing the distribution of African language families and some major African languages. ... For the journal, see Linguistics (journal). ... 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. ... The proposal of an African reference alphabet was the result of a conference at Niamey in 1978 organized by the UNESCO. The alphabet was revised in 1982. ...

In modern usage, the term "Latin alphabet" is used for any straightforward derivation of the alphabet first used to write Latin. These variants may discard some letters (like the Rotokas alphabet) or add extra letters (like the Danish and Norwegian alphabet) to or from the classical Roman script. Letter shapes have changed over the centuries, including the creation of entirely new lower case forms. The Rotokas alphabet used in writing the Rotokas language is a subset of the Latin alphabet consisting of only the twelve letters: A E G I K O P R S T U V, and is the smallest alphabet in use today. ... The Danish and Norwegian alphabet is based upon the Latin alphabet and consists of 29 letters: (Listen to a Danish speaker recite the alphabet in Danish. ... Minuscule, or lower case, is the smaller form (case) of letters (in the Roman alphabet: a, b, c, ...). Originally alphabets were written entirely in majuscule (capital) letters which were spaced between well-defined upper and lower bounds. ...

History

Main article: History of the Latin alphabet

This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Origins

It is generally held that the Latins adopted the Cumae alphabet‎, a variant of the Greek alphabet, in the 7th century B.C. from Cumae, a Greek colony in Southern Italy.^{[attribution needed]} Roman legend credited the introduction to one Evander, son of the Sibyl, supposedly 60 years before the Trojan War, but there is no historically sound basis to this tale. From the Cumae alphabet, the Etruscan alphabet was derived and the Latins eventually adopted 21 of the original 26 Etruscan letters. The Latins were an ancient Italic people who migrated to central Italy, (Latium Vetus - Old Latium), in the 2nd millennium B.C., maybe from the Adriatic East Coast and Balkanic Area, perhaps from pressures by Illyrian peoples. ... The inscription of Nestors Cup, found in Ischia; Cumae alphabet, 8th century BC A Western (also Chalcidean) variant of the early Greek alphabet was in use in ca. ... This page contains special characters. ... Cumae (Cuma, in Italian) is an ancient Greek settlement lying to the northwest of Naples in the Italian region of Campania. ... Magna Graecia around 280 b. ... Southern Italy, often referred to in Italian as the Mezzogiorno (a term first used in 19th century in comparison with French Midi ) encompasses six of the countrys 20 regions: Basilicata Campania Calabria Puglia Sicilia Sardinia Sicilia although it is geographically and administratively included in Insular Italy, it has a... In Roman mythology, Evander (or Euandros) was a deific culture hero who brought the Greek pantheon, laws and alphabet to Rome sixty years before the Trojan War. ... The word sibyl comes (via Latin) from the Greek word sibylla, meaning prophetess. ... The fall of Troy, by Johann Georg Trautmann (1713–1769). ... Note: This article contains special characters. ...

The letter C was the western form of the Greek gamma, but it was used for the sounds /g/ and /k/ alike, possibly under the influence of Etruscan, which lacked any voiced plosives. Later, probably during the 3rd century BC, the letter Z — unneeded to write Latin proper — was replaced with the new letter G, a C modified with a small vertical stroke, which took its place in the alphabet. From then on, G represented the voiced plosive /g/, while C was generally reserved for the voiceless plosive /k/. The letter K was used only rarely, in a small number of loanwords such as Kalendae, often interchangeably with C. Gamma (uppercase Γ, lowercase γ) is the third letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Languages in Iron Age Italy, 6th century BC Etruscan was a language spoken and written in the ancient region of Etruria (current Tuscany plus western Umbria and northern Latium) and in parts of what are now Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna (where the Etruscans were displaced by Gauls), in Italy. ... A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... The 3rd century BC started the first day of 300 BC and ended the last day of 201 BC. It is considered part of the Classical era, epoch, or historical period. ... Phoneticians define phonation as use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ... A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. ... The Kalends (Latin k/calendæ, -arum), (or calends) correspond to the first days of each month of the Roman calendar. ...

After the Roman conquest of Greece in the first century BC, Latin adopted the Greek letters Y and Z (or rather readopted, in the latter case) to write Greek loanwords, placing them at the end of the alphabet. An attempt by the emperor Claudius to introduce three additional letters did not last. Thus it was that during the classical Latin period the Latin alphabet contained 23 letters: (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) The 1st century BC started on January 1, 100 BC and ended on December 31, 1 BC. An alternative name for this century is the last century BC. The AD/BC notation does not use a year zero. ... For other persons named Claudius, see Claudius (disambiguation). ... Claudian letters Claudian letters were developed by, and named after, the Roman Emperor Claudius (reigned 41–54). ... Classical Latin is the language used by the principal exponents of that language in what is usually regarded as classical Latin literature. ...

The Duenos inscription, dated to the 6th century BC, shows the earliest known forms of the Old Latin alphabet.

The Latin names of some of these letters are disputed. In general, however, the Romans did not use the traditional (Semitic-derived) names as in Greek: the names of the plosives were formed by adding /eː/ to their sound (except for K and Q, which needed different vowels to be distinguished from C) and the names of the continuants consisted either of the bare sound, or the sound preceded by /e/. The letter Y when introduced was probably called hy /hyː/ as in Greek, the name upsilon not being in use yet, but this was changed to i Graeca (Greek i) as Latin speakers had difficulty distinguishing its foreign sound /y/ from /i/. Z was given its Greek name, zeta. For the Latin sounds represented by the various letters see Latin spelling and pronunciation; for the names of the letters in English see English alphabet. For other uses of A, see A (disambiguation). ... For other uses of B, see B (disambiguation). ... Look up C, c in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see D (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see E (disambiguation). ... For other uses of F, see F (disambiguation). ... For other uses of G, see G (disambiguation). ... Look up H, h in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up I, i in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see K (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see L (disambiguation). ... For other uses of M, see M (disambiguation). ... For other uses of N, see N (disambiguation). ... Look up O, o in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article is about the Latin alphabet letter. ... This article is about the Latin alphabet letter. ... Look up R, r in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up S, s in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see T (disambiguation). ... Look up V, v in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see X (disambiguation). ... For other uses of Y, see Y (disambiguation). ... Look up Z, z in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... The Duenos inscription, as recorded by Heinrich Dressel. ... (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) The 6th century BC started on January 1, 600 BC and ended on December 31, 501 BC. // Monument 1, an Olmec colossal head at La Venta The 5th and 6th centuries BC were a time of empires, but more importantly, a time... For the Old Latin Bible used before the Vulgate, see Vetus Latina. ... The Proto-Canaanite alphabet is an abjad of twenty-plus acrophonic glyphs, which is found in Levantine texts of the Late Bronze Age (from ca. ... A stop or plosive or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... A continuant is a sound produced with an incomplete closure of the vocal tract. ... Upsilon (upper case , lower case ) is the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet. ... Zeta (upper case Ζ, lower case ζ) is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. ... The Roman alphabet or Latin alphabet was adapted from an Etruscan alphabet, to represent the phonemes of the Latin language. ... The modern English alphabet consists of 26 letters[1] derived from the Latin alphabet: The exact shape of printed letters varies depending on the typeface. ...

Old Roman cursive script, also called majuscule cursive and capitalis cursive, was the everyday form of handwriting used for writing letters, by merchants writing business accounts, by schoolchildren learning the Latin alphabet, and even emperors issuing commands. A more formal style of writing was based on Roman square capitals, but cursive was used for quicker, informal writing. It was most commonly used from about the 1st century BC to the 3rd century, but it probably existed earlier than that. It led to Uncial, a majuscule script commonly used from the 3rd to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Majuscules or capital letters (in the Roman alphabet: A, B, C, ...) are one type of case in a writing system. ... Ordinary Magistrates Extraordinary Magistrates Titles and Honors Emperor Politics and Law This article discusses the nature of the imperial dignity, and its dynastic development throughout the history of the Empire. ... The Arch of Titus, with an inscription in Roman square capitals Roman square capitals, also called elegant capitals and quadrata, are an ancient Roman form of writing, and the basis for modern capital letters. ... (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) The 1st century BC started on January 1, 100 BC and ended on December 31, 1 BC. An alternative name for this century is the last century BC. The AD/BC notation does not use a year zero. ... // Overview Events 212: Constitutio Antoniniana grants citizenship to all free Roman men 212-216: Baths of Caracalla 230-232: Sassanid dynasty of Persia launches a war to reconquer lost lands in the Roman east 235-284: Crisis of the Third Century shakes Roman Empire 250-538: Kofun era, the first...

New Roman cursive script, also known as minuscule cursive, was in use from the 3rd century to the 7th century, and uses letter forms that are more recognizable to modern eyes; a, b, d, and e had taken a more familiar shape, and the other letters were proportionate to each other. This script evolved into the medieval scripts known as Merovingian and Carolingian minuscule. Minuscule, or lower case, is the smaller form (case) of letters (in the Roman alphabet: a, b, c, ...). Originally alphabets were written entirely in majuscule (capital) letters which were spaced between well-defined upper and lower bounds. ... Merovingian script was a medieval script so called because it was developed in France during the Merovingian dynasty. ... Example from 10th century manuscript Carolingian or Caroline minuscule is a script developed as a writing standard in Europe so that the Roman alphabet could be easily recognized by the small literate class from one region to another. ...

Medieval and later developments

It was not until the Middle Ages that the letters J and W (originally a ligature of V and V) were added to the Latin alphabet to represent sounds from the Germanic languages which did not exist in medieval Latin. It was not until after the Renaissance did the convention of treating I and U as vowels, and J and V as consonants, become established. Prior to that, the former had been merely glyph variants of the latter. The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... For other uses of J, see J (disambiguation). ... Look up W, w in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more letterforms are written or printed as a unit. ... Proto-Indo-European Indo-European studies The Germanic languages form one of the branches of the Indo-European (IE) language family, spoken by the Germanic peoples who settled in northern Europe along the borders of the Roman Empire. ... This article is about the European Renaissance of the 14th-17th centuries. ... For other uses of U, see U (disambiguation). ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... For other uses of J, see J (disambiguation). ... In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... variant glyphs representing the character a (allographs of a) in the Zapfino typeface. ...

With the fragmentation of political power, the style of writing changed and varied greatly throughout the Middle Ages, and even after the invention of the printing press. Early deviations from the classical forms were the uncial script, a development of the Old Roman cursive, and various so-called minuscule scripts that developed from New Roman cursive, of which the Carolingian minuscule was the most influential, introducing the lower case forms of the letters, as well as other writing conventions that have since become standard. Palaeography (British) or paleography (American) (from the Greek palaiós, old and graphein, to write) is the study of ancient handwriting, independent of the language (Koine Greek, Classical Latin, Medieval Latin, Old English, etc. ... The printing press is a mechanical device for printing many copies of a text on rectangular sheets of paper. ... Example from 10th century manuscript Carolingian or Caroline minuscule is a script developed as a writing standard in Europe so that the Roman alphabet could be easily recognized by the small literate class from one region to another. ... Minuscule, or lower case, is the smaller form (case) of letters (in the Roman alphabet: a, b, c, ...). Originally alphabets were written entirely in majuscule (capital) letters which were spaced between well-defined upper and lower bounds. ...

The languages that use the Latin alphabet today generally use capital letters to begin paragraphs and sentences and proper nouns. The rules for capitalization have changed over time, and different languages have varied in their rules for capitalization. Old English, for example, was rarely written with even proper nouns capitalised; whereas Modern English of the 18th century had frequently all nouns capitalised, in the same way that Modern German is today, e.g. "All the Sisters of the old Town had seen the Birds". Capital letters or majuscules (in the Roman alphabet: A, B, C, ...) are one type of case in a writing system. ... In linguistics, a noun or noun substantive is a lexical category which is defined in terms of how its members combine with other grammatical kinds of expressions. ... Capitalization (or capitalisation) is writing a word with its first letter as a majuscule (upper case letter) and the remaining letters in minuscules (lower case letters), in those writing systems which have a case distinction. ... Old English redirects here. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

Spread of the Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet spread, along with the Latin language, from the Italian Peninsula to the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The eastern half of the Empire, including Greece, Asia Minor, the Levant, and Egypt, continued to use Greek as a lingua franca, but Latin was widely spoken in the western half, and as the western Romance languages evolved out of Latin, they continued to use and adapt the Latin alphabet. For other uses, see Latins and Latin (disambiguation). ... Satellite view of the Peninsula in spring The Italian Peninsula or Apennine Peninsula (Italian: Penisola italiana or Penisola appenninica) is one of the greatest peninsulas of Europe, spanning 1,000 km from the Alps in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south. ... Mediterranean redirects here. ... For other uses, see Roman Empire (disambiguation). ... Anatolia (Greek: ανατολη anatole, rising of the sun or East; compare Orient and Levant, by popular etymology Turkish Anadolu to ana mother and dolu filled), also called by the Latin name of Asia Minor, is a region of Southwest Asia which corresponds today to the Asian portion of Turkey. ... The Levant The Levant (IPA: ) is an imprecise geographical term historically referring to a large area in the Middle East south of the Taurus Mountains, bounded by the Mediterranean Sea on the west, and by the northern Arabian Desert and Upper Mesopotamia to the east. ... Lingua franca, literally Frankish language in Italian, was originally a mixed language consisting largely of Italian plus a vocabulary drawn from Turkish, Persian, French, Greek and Arabic and used for communication throughout the Middle East. ... The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family that comprises all the languages that descend from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. ...

With the spread of Western Christianity during the Middle Ages, the alphabet was gradually adopted by the peoples of northern Europe who spoke Celtic languages (displacing the Ogham alphabet) or Germanic languages (displacing their earlier Runic alphabets), Baltic languages, as well as by the speakers of several Finno-Ugric languages, most notably Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian. The alphabet also came into use for writing the West Slavic languages and several South Slavic languages, as the people who spoke them adopted Roman Catholicism. The speakers of East Slavic languages generally adopted the Cyrillic alphabet along with Orthodox Christianity. The Serbian language uses both alphabets. Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations · Other religions Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Luther Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Archbishop of Canterbury · Catholic Pope Coptic Pope · Ecumenical Patriarch Christianity Portal This box:      Western Christianity... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... Northern Europe Northern Europe is the northern part of the European continent. ... The Insular Celtic hypothesis concerns the origin of the Celtic languages. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... The Germanic languages are a group of related languages constituting a branch of the Indo-European (IE) language family. ... Rune redirects here. ... The Baltic languages are a group of related languages belonging to the Indo-European language family and spoken mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. ... Finno-Ugric group with dark green on map of language families Finno-Ugric (IPA:[ËŒfɪnoʊˈjuːgɹɪk]) is a grouping of languages in the Uralic language family, comprising Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian, and related languages. ... This article or section should be merged with List of West Slavic languages The West Slavic languages is a subdivision of the Slavic language group (q. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Catholic Church redirects here. ... This article or section should be merged with List of East Slavic languages The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of Slavic languages, currently spoken in Eastern Europe. ... The Cyrillic alphabet (pronounced also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is actually a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by certain Slavic languages — Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, and Ukrainian—as well as many other languages of the former Soviet Union... Orthodox icon of Pentecost. ... Serbian (; ) is one of the standard versions of the Shtokavian dialect, used primarily in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and by Serbs in the Serbian diaspora. ...

As late as 1492, the Latin alphabet was limited primarily to the languages spoken in Western, Northern, and Central Europe. The Orthodox Christian Slavs of Eastern and Southeastern Europe mostly used the Cyrillic alphabet, and the Greek alphabet was still in use by Greek-speakers around the eastern Mediterranean. The Arabic alphabet was widespread within Islam, both among Arabs and non-Arab nations like the Iranians, Indonesians, Malays, and Turkic peoples. Most of the rest of Asia used a variety of Brahmic alphabets or the Chinese script. Also film, 1492: Conquest of Paradise. ... A current understanding of Western Europe. ... Northern Europe Northern Europe is the northern part of the European continent. ... Central Europe is the region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. ... The term Orthodox Christian refers to two Christian traditions: Oriental Orthodoxy, which separated from the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church in the 5th century; Eastern Orthodoxy, which the Roman Catholic church separated from in 1054 was the church that was started by the apostles. ... Statistical regions of Europe as delineated by the United Nations (UN definition of Eastern Europe marked red):  Northern Europe  Western Europe  Eastern Europe  Southern Europe Pre-1989 division between the West (grey) and Eastern Bloc (orange) superimposed on current borders: Russia (dark orange), other countries formerly part of the USSR... The Balkans is the historic and geographic name used to describe southeastern Europe (see the Definitions and boundaries section below). ... The Cyrillic alphabet (pronounced also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is actually a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by certain Slavic languages — Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, and Ukrainian—as well as many other languages of the former Soviet Union... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing languages such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and others. ... For other uses, see Arab (disambiguation). ... Indonesias 225 million people make it the worlds fourth-most populous nation. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... This article is about the various peoples speaking one of the Turkic languages. ... The Brahmic family is a family of abugidas (writing systems) used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, descended from the BrāhmÄ« script of Mauryan India. ... Technical note: Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ...

Latin alphabet world distribution. The dark green areas shows the countries where this alphabet is the sole main script. The light green shows the countries where the alphabet co-exists with other scripts.

Over the past 500 years, the alphabet has spread around the world, to the Americas, Oceania, and parts of Asia, Africa, and the Pacific with European colonization, along with the Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, and Dutch languages. The Latin alphabet is also used for many Austronesian languages, including Tagalog and the other languages of the Philippines, and the official Malaysian and Indonesian languages, replacing earlier Arabic and indigenous Brahmic alphabets. Some glyph forms from the Latin alphabet served as the basis for the forms of the symbols in the Cherokee syllabary developed by Sequoyah; however, the sounds of the final syllabary were completely different. L. L. Zamenhof used the Latin alphabet as the basis for the alphabet of Esperanto. World map showing the Americas The Americas are the lands of the Western hemisphere historically considered to consist of the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions. ... For other uses, see Oceania (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Asia (disambiguation). ... A world map showing the continent of Africa Africa is the worlds second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. ... Tagalog (pronunciation: ) is one of the major languages of the Republic of the Philippines. ... There are over 170 languages in the Philippines; almost all of them belong to the Austronesian language family. ... The Malay language, also known locally as Bahasa Melayu, is an Austronesian language spoken by the Malay people who are native to the Malay peninsula, southern Thailand, Singapore and parts of Sumatra. ... Indonesian or Bahasa Indonesia, based on the Riau version of Malay language, was declared the official language with the declaration of Indonesias independence in 1945, following the 1928 unifying language declaration in the Indonesian Youth Pledge. ... Sequoyah The Cherokee language is written in a syllabary invented by Sequoyah (also known as George Gist or George Guess). ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate) syllables, which make up words. ... Ludvic Lazarus (Ludwik Lejzer, Ludwik Łazarz) Zamenhof (December 15, 1859 – April 14, 1917) was a Polish eye doctor, philologist, and the virtual inventor of Esperanto, the most widely spoken and successful constructed languages designed for international communication among speakers of all languages. ... This article is about the language. ...

In the late eighteenth century, the Romanians adopted the Latin alphabet, primarily because Romanian is a Romance language. The Romanians were predominantly Orthodox Christians, and their Church had promoted the Cyrillic alphabet prior to that. Under French rule and Portuguese missionary influence, the Latin alphabet was adapted for writing the Vietnamese language, which had previously used Chinese-like characters. In 1928, as part of Kemal Atatürk's reforms, Turkey adopted the Latin alphabet for the Turkish language, replacing the Arabic alphabet. Most of Turkic-speaking peoples of the former USSR, including Tatars, Bashkirs, Azeri, Kazakh, Kyrgyz and others, used the Latin-based Uniform Turkic alphabet in the 1930s, but in the 1940s all those alphabets were replaced by Cyrillic. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, several of the newly-independent Turkic-speaking republics, namely Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, as well as Romanian-speaking Moldova, have officially adopted the Latin alphabet for Azeri, Uzbek, Turkmen, respectively. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and the breakaway region of Transnistria kept the Cyrillic alphabet, chiefly due to their close ties with Russia. Vietnamese (tiếng Việt, or less commonly Việt ngữ[2]), formerly known under the French colonization as Annamese (see Annam), is the national and official language of Vietnam. ... The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ... Year 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–10 November 1938), until 1934 Gazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha, Turkish army officer and revolutionist statesman, was the founder and the first President of the Republic of Turkey. ... Turkish ( IPA ) is a language spoken by 65–73 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. ... The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are traditionally considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family. ... State motto (Russian): Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! (Transliterated: Proletarii vsekh stran, soedinyaytes!) (Translated: Workers of the world, unite!) Capital Moscow Official language None; Russian (de facto) Government Federation of Soviet republics Area  - Total  - % water 1st before collapse 22,402,200 km² Approx. ... This article is about the people. ... The Bashkirs, a Turkic people, live in Russia, mostly in the republic of Bashkortostan. ... The Azeri, also referred to as Azerbaijanian Turks, are a Turkic-Muslim people. ... Language(s) Kazakh, Russian (and/or languages in country of residence) Religion(s) Sunni Islam The Kazakhs (also spelled Kazaks, Qazaqs; Kazakh: Қазақтар IPA: ; Russian: Казахи; the English name is transliterated from Russian) are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia (largely Kazakhstan, but also found in parts of... For the language spoken by this ethnic group, see Kyrgyz language. ... Uniform Turkic Alphabet was a Latin based alphabet used by the most of non-Slavic peoples of USSR in 1930s, common for all peoples. ... The 1930s were described as an abrupt shift to more radical and conservative lifestyles, as countries were struggling to find a solution to the Great Depression, also known as the [[. In East Asia, the rise of militarism occurred. ... The 1940s decade ran from 1940 to 1949. ... Year 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the 1991 Gregorian calendar). ... The Azerbaijani language, also called Azeri, Azari, Azeri Turkish, or Azerbaijani Turkish, is the official language of the Republic of Azerbaijan. ... For the region during the Second World War, see Transnistria (World War II). ...

Extensions

Main article: Alphabets derived from the Latin

In the course of its use, the Latin alphabet was adapted for use in new languages, sometimes representing phonemes not found in languages that were already written with the Roman characters. To represent these new sounds, extensions were therefore created, be it by adding diacritics to existing letters, by joining multiple letters together to make ligatures, by creating completely new forms, or by assigning a special function to pairs or triplets of letters. These new forms are given a place in the alphabet by defining a alphabetical order or collation sequence, which can vary with the particular language. Variants of the Latin alphabet are used by the writing systems of many languages throughout the world. ... In human language, a phoneme is the theoretical representation of a sound. ... Example of a letter with a diacritic A diacritic or diacritical mark, also called an accent, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. ... In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more letterforms are written or printed as a unit. ... Alphabetical redirects here. ...

Ligatures

Main article: Ligature (typography)

A ligature is a fusion of two or more ordinary letters into a new glyph or character. Examples are ash, Æ/æ (from AE), Œ/œ (from OE), the abbreviation & (from Latin et "and"), and the German Eszett, ß (from ſz, the archaic medial form of s, followed by a z). In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more letterforms are written or printed as a unit. ... In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more letterforms are written or printed as a unit. ... variant glyphs representing the character a (allographs of a) in the Zapfino typeface. ... For Æ, the Irish writer, see George William Russell. ... Å’ Å“ Å’thel (pronounced ) is a Roman script letter (Å’, Å“) used in medieval and early modern Latin, and in modern French, and also the vowel sound it represents. ... An abbreviation (from Latin brevis short) is a shortened form of a word or phrase. ... The roman ampersand on the left is stylised, but the italic one on the right is clearly similar to et. An ampersand (&) is a logogram representing the word and. ... Latin was the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... ß as the combination of Å¿s on a Pirna street sign (Waldstraße) This article is about the letter ß in the German alphabet. ... An italicized long s used in the word Congress in the United States Bill of Rights. ...

Wholly new letters

Main article: List of Latin letters

Examples are the Runic letters wynn (Ƿ/ƿ) and thorn (Þ/þ), and the Irish letter eth (Ð/ð), which were added to the alphabet of Old English. Another Irish letter, the insular g, developed into yogh (Ȝ/ȝ), used in Middle English. Wynn was later replaced with the new letter w, eth and thorn with th, and yogh with gh. Although the four are no longer part of the English alphabet, eth and thorn are still used in the modern Icelandic alphabet. List of Latin letters. ... Rune redirects here. ... Capital wynn (left), lowercase wynn (right) Wynn () (also spelled Wen or en) is a letter of the Old English alphabet. ... Þþ Thorn, or þorn (Þ, þ), is a letter in the Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic alphabets. ... Ð (capital Ð, lower-case ð) (or eth, eð or edh, Faroese: edd) is a letter used in Old English (Anglo-Saxon) and present-day Icelandic and Faroese. ... Old English redirects here. ... Insular G is an s-shaped form of the letter g used in the British Isles. ... The letter yogh (Èœ ȝ; Middle English: ogh) was used in Middle English and Middle Scots, representing y (IPA: ) and various velar phonemes. ... Middle English is the name given by historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman invasion of 1066 and the mid-to-late 15th century, when the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the... In English, the digraph 〈th〉 represents in most cases one of two different phonemes: the voiced dental fricative (as in this) and the voiceless dental fricative (thing). ... Gh is a digraph found in many languages. ... The Icelandic alphabet consists of the following letters: A Á B (C) D Ð E É F G H I Í J K L M N O Ó P (Q) R S T U Ú V (W) X Y Ý (Z) Þ Æ Ö The modern Icelandic alphabet has developed from a standard established in the 19th century, by the...

The Azerbaijani alphabet has adopted the letter schwa Ə/ə from the International Phonetic Alphabet, using it to represent the sound [æ]. Some West, Central and Southern African languages use a few additional letters which have a similar sound value to their equivalents in the IPA. For example, Adangme uses the letters Ɛ/ɛ and Ɔ/ɔ, and Ga uses Ɛ/ɛ, Ŋ/ŋ and Ɔ/ɔ. Hausa uses Ɓ/ɓ and Ɗ/ɗ for implosives, and Ƙ/ƙ for an ejective. Africanists have standardized these into the African reference alphabet. In Azerbaijan, two alphabets are employed for writing the Azerbaijani language: variations on the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. ... , or , is a letter derived from the Latin alphabet. ... Categories: Africa geography stubs | Southern Africa ... Adangme (also Dangme, native name ) is a language that is spoken in Ghana by 825,000 people. ... The Ga language is a Kwa language spoken in Ghana, in and around the capital Accra. ... Hausa is the Chadic language with the largest number of speakers, spoken as a first language by about 24 million people, and as a second language by about 15 million more. ... Look up implosive in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Ejective consonants are a class of consonants which may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants in a language. ... An Africanist is a specialist in African affairs, cultures, or languages. ... The proposal of an African reference alphabet was the result of a conference at Niamey in 1978 organized by the UNESCO. The alphabet was revised in 1982. ...

Digraphs and trigraphs

Main articles: Digraph and Trigraph

A digraph is a pair of letters used to write one sound or a combination of sounds that does not correspond to the written letters in sequence. Examples are CH, RH, SH in English, or the Dutch IJ (note that ij is capitalised as IJ, never Ij, and that it often takes the appearance of a ligature in handwriting). A trigraph is made up of three letters, like the German SCH. In the orthographies of some languages, digraphs and trigraphs are regarded as independent letters of the alphabet in their own right. Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... A trigraph (from the Greek words tria = three and grapho = write) is a group of three letters used to represent a single sound. ... Ch is a digraph in the Roman alphabet. ... Rh is a digraph found in some languages. ... Sh is a digraph in the Roman alphabet. ... The words “ijsvrij” and “yoghurt” in various forms of handwriting. ... Penmanship is the art of writing clearly and quickly. ... Sch is the glyphs used in German to represent ʃ a sound like the sh in the English word fish. When a t is added in front of it, it turns into tʃ a sound akin to the ch in the English word chips. This typography-related article is a stub. ... The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. ...

Diacritics

Main article: Diacritic

A diacritic, in some cases also called an accent, is a small symbol which can appear above or below a letter, or in some other position, such as the umlaut sign used in the German characters Ä, Ö, Ü. Its main function is to change the phonetic value of the letter to which it is added, but it may also modify the pronunciation of a whole syllable or word, or distinguish between homographs. As with letters, the value of diacritics is language-dependent. Example of a letter with a diacritic A diacritic or diacritical mark, also called an accent, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. ... The umlaut mark (or simply umlaut) and the trema or diaeresis mark (or simply diaeresis) are two diacritics consisting of a pair of dots placed over a letter. ... Ä, or ä, is a character which represents either a letter from several extended Latin alphabets, or the letter A with umlaut or diaeresis. ... Ö, or ö, is a character used in several extended Latin alphabets, or the letter O with umlaut or diaeresis. ... Ãœ, or ü, is a character which represents either a letter from several extended Latin alphabets, or the letter U with umlaut or diaeresis. ... For the specialised use of homonym in scientific nomenclature, see Homonym (botany) and Homonym (zoology). ...

Collation

Main article: Collating sequence

Modified letters such as the symbols Å, Ä, and Ö may be regarded as new individual letters in themselves, and assigned a specific place in the alphabet for collation purposes, separate from that of the letter on which they are based, as is done in Swedish. In other cases, such as with Ä, Ö, Ü in German, this is not done, letter-diacritic combinations being identified with their base letter. The same applies to digraphs and trigraphs. Different diacritics may be treated differently in collation within a single language. For example, in Spanish the character Ñ is considered a letter in its own, and sorted between N and O in dictionaries, but the accented vowels Á, É, Í, Ó, Ú are not separated from the unaccented vowels A, E, I, O, U. The term collating sequence refers to the order in which character strings should be placed when sorting them. ... Alphabetical redirects here. ... Ñ and ñ in Arial and Times New Roman, with an example word from Panare Ñ is a letter of the modern Roman alphabet formed by an N with a diacritical tilde. ...

Romanization

Main article: Romanization

Words from languages natively written with other scripts, such as Arabic or Chinese, are usually transliterated or transcribed when embedded in Latin text or in multilingual international communication, a process termed romanization. In the 1970s, the People's Republic of China developed an official transliteration of Mandarin Chinese into the Latin alphabet called Pinyin, although its use has been very rare outside educational and international purposes. Languages can be romanized in a variety of ways, as shown here with Mandarin Chinese In linguistics, romanization (or Latinization, also spelled romanisation or Latinisation) is the representation of a word or language with the Roman (Latin) alphabet, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language... Writing systems of the world today. ... Due to the fact that the Arabic language has a number of phonemes that have no equivalent in English or other European languages, a number of different transliteration methods have been invented to represent certain Arabic characters, due to various conflicting goals. ... Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system. ... Transcription is the conversion into written, typewritten or printed form, of a spoken language source, such as the proceedings of a court hearing. ... Bilingual redirects here. ... Languages can be romanized in a variety of ways, as shown here with Mandarin Chinese In linguistics, romanization (or Latinization, also spelled romanisation or Latinisation) is the representation of a word or language with the Roman (Latin) alphabet, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language... Map of eastern China and Taiwan, showing the historic distribution of Mandarin Chinese in light brown. ... Pinyin, more formally called Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; Pinyin: ), is the most common variant of Standard Mandarin romanization system in use. ...

Whilst the romanization of such languages is used mostly at unofficial levels, it has been especially prominent in computer messaging where only the limited 7-bit ASCII code is available on older systems. However, with the introduction of Unicode, romanization is now becoming less necessary. Image:ASCII fullsvg There are 95 printable ASCII characters, numbered 32 to 126. ... The Unicode Standard, Version 5. ...

The English alphabet

Main article: English alphabet

As used in modern English, the Latin alphabet consists of the following characters The modern English alphabet consists of 26 letters[1] derived from the Latin alphabet: The exact shape of printed letters varies depending on the typeface. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

In addition, the ligatures Æ of A with E (e.g. "encyclopædia"), and Œ of O with E (e.g. "cœlom") may be used, optionally, in words derived from Latin or Greek, and the diaeresis mark is sometimes placed for example on the letter o (e.g. "coöperate") to indicate the pronunciation of oo as two distinct vowels, rather than a long one. Outside of professional papers on specific subjects that traditionally use ligatures in loanwords, however, ligatures and diaereses are seldom used in modern English. Capital letters or majuscules (in the Roman alphabet: A, B, C, ...) are one type of case in a writing system. ... For other uses of A, see A (disambiguation). ... For other uses of B, see B (disambiguation). ... Look up C, c in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see D (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see E (disambiguation). ... For other uses of F, see F (disambiguation). ... For other uses of G, see G (disambiguation). ... Look up H, h in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up I, i in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses of J, see J (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see K (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see L (disambiguation). ... For other uses of M, see M (disambiguation). ... For other uses of N, see N (disambiguation). ... Look up O, o in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article is about the Latin alphabet letter. ... This article is about the Latin alphabet letter. ... Look up R, r in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up S, s in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see T (disambiguation). ... For other uses of U, see U (disambiguation). ... Look up V, v in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up W, w in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see X (disambiguation). ... For other uses of Y, see Y (disambiguation). ... Look up Z, z in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Minuscule, or lower case, is the smaller form (case) of letters (in the Roman alphabet: a, b, c, ...). Originally alphabets were written entirely in majuscule (capital) letters which were spaced between well-defined upper and lower bounds. ... In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more letterforms are written or printed as a unit. ... For Æ, the Irish writer, see George William Russell. ... Cyclopedia redirects here. ... Å’ Å“ Å’thel (pronounced ) is a Roman script letter (Å’, Å“) used in medieval and early modern Latin, and in modern French, and also the vowel sound it represents. ... Picture of Human body cavities - dorsal body cavity to the left and ventral body cavity to the right. ... The umlaut mark (or simply umlaut) and the trema or diaeresis mark (or simply diaeresis) are two diacritics consisting of a pair of dots placed over a letter. ... A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. ...

Latin alphabet and international standards

By the 1960s it became apparent to the computer and telecommunications industries in the First World that a non-proprietary method of encoding characters was needed. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) encapsulated the Latin alphabet in their (ISO/IEC 646) standard. To achieve widespread acceptance, this encapsulation was based on popular usage. As the United States held a preeminent position in both industries during the 1960s the standard was based on the already published American Standard Code for Information Interchange, better known as ASCII, which included in the character set the 26 x 2 letters of the English alphabet. Later standards issued by the ISO, for example ISO/IEC 10646 (Unicode Latin), have continued to define the 26 x 2 letters of the English alphabet as the basic Latin alphabet with extensions to handle other letters in other languages. Copy of the original phone of Alexander Graham Bell at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris Telecommunication is the assisted transmission of signals over a distance for the purpose of communication. ... The terms First World, Second World, and Third World were used to divide the nations of Earth into three broad categories. ... “ISO” redirects here. ... ISO 646 is an ISO standard that specifies a 7-bit character code from which several national standards are derived, the best known of which is ASCII. Since the portion of ISO 646 shared by all countries specified only the letters used in the English alphabet, other countries using the... Image:ASCII fullsvg There are 95 printable ASCII characters, numbered 32 to 126. ... A character encoding consists of a code that pairs a sequence of characters from a given character set (sometimes referred to as code page) with something else, such as a sequence of natural numbers, octets or electrical pulses, in order to facilitate the storage of text in computers and the... The modern English alphabet consists of 26 letters[1] derived from the Latin alphabet: The exact shape of printed letters varies depending on the typeface. ... The Universal Character Set is a character encoding that is defined by the international standard ISO/IEC 10646. ... Unicode as of version 5. ...

See also

• Alphabets derived from the Latin
• Beghilos (Calculator spelling)
• Calligraphy
• Collating sequence
• Keyboard layout
• List of Latin letters
• Palaeography
• Penmanship
• Phoenician alphabet
• Roman letters used in mathematics
• Typography
• Category:Latin-derived alphabets

Variants of the Latin alphabet are used by the writing systems of many languages throughout the world. ... Calculator spelling (also known as beghilos) is a technique of spelling words by reading characters upside-down from calculators equipped with certain kinds of seven-segment displays. ... Contemporary Western Calligraphy. ... The term collating sequence refers to the order in which character strings should be placed when sorting them. ... A standard Hebrew keyboard showing both Hebrew and English (QWERTY) letters. ... List of Latin letters. ... Palaeography (British) or paleography (American) (from the Greek palaiós, old and graphein, to write) is the study of ancient handwriting, independent of the language (Koine Greek, Classical Latin, Medieval Latin, Old English, etc. ... Penmanship is the art of writing clearly and quickly. ... The Phoenician alphabet is a continuation of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, by convention taken to begin with a cut-off date of 1050 BCE. It was used by the Phoenicians to write Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language. ... Many Roman letters, both capital and small, are used in mathematics, science and engineering to denote by convention specific or abstracted constants, variables of a certain type, units, multipliers, physical entities. ... A specimen of roman typefaces by William Caslon Typography is the art and techniques of type design, modifying type glyphs, and arranging type. ...

Further reading

• Jensen, Hans (1970). Sign Symbol and Script. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd. ISBN 0-04-400021-9. . Transl. of Jensen, Hans (1958). Die Schrift in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften. , as revised by the author
• Rix, Helmut (1993). "La scrittura e la lingua", in Cristofani, Mauro (hrsg.): Gli etruschi - Una nuova immagine. Firenze: Giunti, S.199-227. 
• Sampson, Geoffrey (1985). Writing systems. London (etc.): Hutchinson. 
• Wachter, Rudolf (1987). Altlateinische Inschriften: sprachliche und epigraphische Untersuchungen zu den Dokumenten bis etwa 150 v.Chr. Bern (etc.). : Peter Lang.
• W. Sidney Allen (1978). "The names of the letters of the Latin alphabet (Appendix C)", Vox Latina — a guide to the pronunciation of classical Latin. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-22049-1 (Second edition). 
• Biktaş, Şamil (2003). Tuğan Tel. 
• Diacritics Project — All you need to design a font with correct accents
• Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary on the letter G
• Latin-Alphabet
• Latin alphabet at omniglot.com

v • d • e Writing systems
Overview	History of writing · Graphemes
Lists	List of writing systems · List of languages by writing system · List of writing systems by number of native users · List of languages by first written accounts · List of undeciphered writing systems · List of inventors of writing systems
Types	Abjads (Numerals) Aramaic · Arabic · Hebrew · Jawi · Nabatean · Pahlavi · Phoenician · Proto-Canaanite · Psalter · Sabaean · Samaritan · South Arabian · Sogdian · Syriac · Tifinagh · Ugaritic Abugidas Brahmic family: Ahom · Balinese · Batak · Baybayin · Brāhmī · Buhid · Burmese · Chakma · Cham · Devanāgarī · Dhives Akuru · Eastern Nagari · Grantha · Gujarati · Gupta · Gurmukhī · Hanunó'o · Javanese · Kadamba  · Kaithi · Kalinga · Kannada · Khmer · Lanna · Lao · Lepcha · Limbu · Lontara · Malayalam · Meitei Mayek · Mithilakshar · Modi · Mon · Nāgarī · Nepal  · Old Kawi · Old Sundanese · Oriya · Pallava · Phagspa · Ranjana · Rejang · Śāradā · Saurashtra · Sinhala · Siddhaṃ · Soyombo · Sundanese · Sylheti Nagari · Tagbanwa · Tai Dam · Tai Le · Takri · Tamil · Telugu · Thai · Tibetan · Tocharian · Varang Kshiti Other: Boyd's Syllabic Shorthand · Canadian Aboriginal · Ge'ez · Hebrew cursive · Japanese braille · Kharosthi · Meroitic · Pitman Shorthand · Pollard script · Sorang Sompeng · Thaana · Thomas Natural Shorthand Alphabets Linear: Arabic · Armenian · Avestan · Beitha Kukju · Coptic · Cyrillic · Eclectic Shorthand · Elbasan · Fraser · Gabelsberger shorthand · Georgian · Glagolitic · Gothic · Gregg Shorthand · Greek · Greco-Iberian alphabet · Hangul · International Phonetic · Latin · Manchu · Mandaic · Mongolian · Neo-Tifinagh · N'Ko · Ogham · Ol Chiki · Old Hungarian · Old Italic · Old Permic · Orkhon · Osmanya · Runic · Shavian alphabet · New Tai Lue · Bassa Vah · Visible Speech · Zhùyīn fúhào · Pahawh Hmong Non-linear: Braille · Hebrew braille · Korean braille · Maritime flags · Morse code · New York Point · Semaphore line · Flag semaphore Ideo- & Pictograms Blissymbol · DanceWriting · Dongba · Mi'kmaq · New Epoch Notation Painting · SignWriting Logograms Egyptian consonant-based: Demotic · Hieratic · Hieroglyphs Syllable-based: Anatolian · Cuneiform  · Dongba script · Maya · Tangut script · Yi Chinese-based: Chinese characters (Traditional · Simplified) · Chữ Nôm · Hanja · Geba · Jurchen · Kanji · Khitan · Zhuang Helmut Rix (1926 – December 3, 2004) was a German linguist and professor of the Sprachwissenschaftliches Seminar of Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg, Germany. ... Mauro Cristofani is a linguist and researcher in Etruscan studies Categories: People stubs ... Writing systems of the world today. ... Writing systems evolved in the Early Bronze Age (late 4th millennium BC) out of neolithic proto-writing. ... In typography, a grapheme is the atomic unit in written language. ... Image File history File links Kielitynkäkuva. ... A list of writing systems (or scripts), classified according to some common distinguishing features. ... . ... This is a list of languages by first written accounts which consists of the approximate dates for the first written accounts that are known for various languages. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... This is a chronological list of any individuals, legendary or real, who are purported by traditions to have invented alphabets or other writing systems, whether this is proven or not. ... A list of writing systems (or scripts), classified according to some common distinguishing features. ... The first five letters of the Phoenician abjad, from right to left An abjad, sometimes also called a consonantary or consonantal alphabet, is a type of writing system in which there is one symbol per consonantal phoneme. ... The Abjad numerals are a decimal numeral system which was used in the Arabic-speaking world prior to the use of the Hindu-Arabic numerals from the 8th century, and in parallel with the latter until Modern times. ... Bilingual inscription (Greek and Aramaic) by the Indian emperor Ashoka the Great, 3rd century BC. The Aramaic alphabet is an abjad alphabet designed for writing the Aramaic language. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing languages such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and others. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Yawi. ... The Nabatean alphabet is a consonantal alphabet (abjad) that was used by the Nabateans in the 2nd century BC. Important inscriptions are found in Petra. ... The Pahlavi script was used broadly in the Sasanid Persian Empire to write down Middle Persian for secular, as well as religious purposes. ... The Phoenician alphabet is a continuation of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, by convention taken to begin with a cut-off date of 1050 BCE. It was used by the Phoenicians to write Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language. ... The Proto-Canaanite alphabet is an abjad of twenty-plus acrophonic glyphs, which is found in Levantine texts of the Late Bronze Age (from ca. ... The Samaritan alphabet is a direct descendant of the paleo-Hebrew variety of the Phoenician alphabet, the more commonly known Hebrew alphabet having been adapted from the Aramaic alphabet under the Persian Empire. ... The ancient South Arabian alphabet (also known as musnad) branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in ca. ... The Sogdian alphabet is derived from Syriac, the descendant script of Aramaic alphabet. ... 11th century book in Syriac Serto. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... The Ugaritic alphabet is a cuneiform version of the Levantine consonant alphabet (abjad), used from around 1300 BC for the Ugaritic language, an extinct Canaanite language discovered in Ugarit, Syria. ... An inscription of Swampy Cree using Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics, an abugida developed by Christian missionaries for Aboriginal Canadian languages An abugida (from Ge‘ez አቡጊዳ ’äbugida) is a segmental writing system in which each letter (basic character) represents a consonant accompanied by a specific vowel; other vowels are indicated by modification... The Brahmic family is a family of abugidas (writing systems) used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, descended from the BrāhmÄ« script of Mauryan India. ... Basic signs of the Balinese script The Balinese alphabet is a type of alphabet called an abugida that was used to write the Balinese language, an Austronesian language spoken by about three million people on the Indonesian island of Bali. ... Baybayin (sometimes called Alibata) is a pre-Hispanic Tagalog writing system that originated from the Javanese script Kavi. ... Variation of BrāhmÄ« with dates. ... An indigenous Brahmic script of the Philippines. ...   The Eastern (Vietnamese) Cham Writing Script The Cham alphabet is used to write Cham, an Austronesian language spoken by the Cham people in Vietnam and Cambodia. ... () is an abugida script used to write several Indo-Aryan languages, including Sanskrit, Hindi, Gujarati,Marathi, Sindhi, Bihari, Bhili, Marwari, Konkani, Bhojpuri, Pahari (Garhwali and Kumaoni), Santhali, Nepali, Newari, Tharu and sometimes Kashmiri and Romani. ... This page meets Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ... The Kanai Baraxiboa rock inscription near Guwahati. ... Grantha (Punjabi , Tamil , from Sanskrit ग्रन्थ grantha meaning book or manuscript) is an ancient script that was prevalent in South India. ... The Gujarati script (ગુજરાતી લિપિ GujarātÄ« Lipi), which like all NāgarÄ« writing systems is strictly speaking an abugida rather than an alphabet, is used to write the Gujarati and Kutchi languages. ... The Gupta script was used for writing Sanskrit and is associated with the Gupta Empire of India which was a period of material prosperity and great religious and scientific developments. ... The GurmukhÄ« (ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ) script is derived from the Later Sharada script and was standardized by the second Sikh guru, Guru Angad Dev, in the 16th century for writing the Punjabi language. ... Javanese script is the script that Javanese is originally written in (not to be confused with Javascript, which is a programming language). ... The Kadamba script marks the birth of a dedicated Kannada script that was used for Kannada language. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... This article or section uses Khmer characters which may be rendered as boxes or other nonsensical symbols. ... Kham Mueang in its own alphabet The Northern Thai language or Kham Mueang (คำเมือง) is the language of the Thai Yuan people of Lannathai, Thailand. ...   Lepcha script is used by the Lepcha people. ... The Limbu alphabet, or Kirat-Sirijonga script, is a Brahmic script used to write the Limbu language of northern India and Nepal. ... The Lontara script was a native scripts used for writing the Buginese language and also other Malayo-Polynesian languages of southeast Asia. ... The Malayalam script is an abugida of the Brahmic family, used to write the Malayalam language. ...   Sample of Meitei Mayek script, showing the main consonants in the alphabet Meitei Mayek script (also Meithei Mayek, Meetei Mayek, Manipuri script) (Manipuri: Meetei Mayek) is a syllabic script used for the Meitei language (Manipuri), one of the official languages of the Indian state of Manipur. ... Mithilakshar (also known as Tirhuta) is the traditional script of the Maithili language, which is is spoken in the Indian state of Bihar and eastern Nepal. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Old Kawi is the oldest Kawi script used on Bali in 775 AD. It is written on palm leaves. ... The Oriya script is used to write the Oriya language. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Tamil script. ... The word Wiki in Phagspa characters The Phagspa script (also square script) was an Abugida designed by the Lama Phagspa for the emperor Kublai Khan during the Yuan Dynasty in China, as a unified script for all languages within the Mongolian Empire. ... The Newari script also known as the Ranjana script is used for writing the Newari language of Nepal. ... The Rejang script, sometimes spelt Redjang and locally known as Aksara Kaganga (Ka Ga Nga alphabet) after its first three letters, is an abugida of the Brahmic family, and is related to other scripts of the region, like Batak, Buginese, and Kerinci. ...   Saurashtra was a script used to write the Saurashtra language. ... The Sinhala script is used to write the Sinhala language. ... Soyombo script - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Sundanese is a script that once was used to write the Sundanese language. ... Sylheti Nagari is the original script used for writing the Sylheti language. ... Tagbanwa is one of the indigenous writing systems of the Philippines. ... Tai Dam is a Tai language spoken in Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and China (mostly in Jinping 金平). It is called paːsaː tai dam ภาษาไทดำ (Black Tai) in Thai and DÇŽidānyÇ” 傣担语 in Chinese. ...   Tai Le is a script used for the Tai Nüa language. ... The Takri script (sometimes called Tankri) is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic family of scripts. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Telugu script, an abugida from the Brahmic family of scripts, is used to write Telugu, a Dravidian Language found in the Southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh as well as several other neighboring states. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Boyds Syllabic Shorthand is a system of shorthand invented by Robert Boyd, published originally in 1903, and updated in 1912. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Hebrew cursive script is a style of Hebrew calligraphy that is very popular for writing Modern Hebrew by hand, since it is arguably easier to learn and faster to write than the traditional Hebrew script. ... Japanese braille is a braille code for writing the Japanese language. ... The Kharoṣṭhī script, also known as the Gāndhārī script, is an ancient alphabetic script used by the Gandhara culture of historic northwest India to write the Gandhari and Sanskrit languages (the Gandhara kingdom was located along the present-day border between Afghanistan and Pakistan between the Indus River and the... The Meroitic script is an alphabet of Egyptian (Hieroglyphic) origin used in Kingdom of Meroë. Some scholars, e. ... Pitman Shorthand is a system of shorthand for the English language developed by Sir Isaac Pitman (1813–1897), who first presented it in 1837. ... The Pollard script, also known as Pollard Miao, is an abugida or writing system invented by Methodist missionary Sam Pollard. ... Sora (also Saora, Saonras, Shabari, Sabar, Saura, Savara, Sawaria, Swara, Sabara) is a Munda language of India, spoken by some 288,000 native speakers (1997) in South Orissa, mainly in the Ganjam District, but also in the Koraput and Phulbani districts; other communities exist in Andhra Pradesh (Srikakulam District), Madhya... Thomas Natural Shorthand is an English shorthand system created by Charles A. Thomas which was first published in 1935. ... ABCs redirects here. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing languages such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and others. ... The Avestan alphabet was created in the 3rd century AD for writing the hymns of Zarathustra (a. ... Beitha Kukju was an Albanian who invented a script used for the Albanian language in about 1840, called the Beitha Kukju script after its inventor. ... The Coptic alphabet is an alphabet used for writing the Coptic language. ... The Cyrillic alphabet (pronounced also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is actually a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by certain Slavic languages — Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, and Ukrainian—as well as many other languages of the former Soviet Union... Eclectic shorthand (sometimes called Cross shorthand or Eclectic-Cross shorthand after its founder, J.G. Cross) is an English shorthand system of the 19th century. ... Elbasan script is an eighteenth-century script used for the Albanian language. ... The Fraser alphabet is an artificial script invented around 1915 by the missionary James O. Fraser to write the Lisu language. ... Gabelsberger shorthand, named for its creator Franz Xaver Gabelsberger, is a form of shorthand previously common in Germany. ... The Glagolitic alphabet or Glagolitsa is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. ...   The Gothic alphabet is an alphabetic writing system attributed by Philostorgius to Wulfila, used exclusively for writing the ancient Gothic language. ... Gregg Shorthand is a form of shorthand that was invented by John Robert Gregg in 1888. ... Paleohispanic scripts A Greco-Iberian alphabet Lead plaque from la Serreta (Alcoi). ... Jamo redirects here. ... 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. ... Manchu and Chinese writing in the Forbidden City The word “Manju” (Manchu) written in Manchu script. ... The Mandaic alphabet is based on the Aramaic alphabet, and is used for writing the Mandaic language. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... The word NKo written in the NKo alphabet NKo is both a script devised by Solomana Kante in 1949 as a writing system for the Mande languages of West Africa, and the name of the literary language itself written in the script. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... The Ol Chiki script, also known as Ol Cemet (language of writing), Ol Ciki, Ol (and sometimes as the Santali alphabet, was created in 1925 by Pandit Raghunath Murmu for the Santali language. ... Hungarian Runes (Hungarian: , ( ) or simply ) is a type of runic writing system used by the Magyars (mainly by Székely Magyars) prior to AD 1000. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... The Old Permic script, sometimes called Abur, is an original ancient Permic writing system introduced by a Russian missionary Stepan Khrap, also known as Saint (Stephen of Perm) (Степан Храп, св. Стефан Пермский) in 1372. ... Orkhon tablet Inscription in Kyzyl using Orkhon script Orkhon script The Orkhon script (also spelled Orhon script, also Orkhon-Yenisey script, Old Turkic script, Göktürk script, Turkish: Orhon Yazıtları) is the alphabet used by the Göktürk from the 8th century to record the Old Turkic... An Arabic-based script for the Somali language, now replaced both officially and in practise by the Latin alphabet. ... Rune redirects here. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...   New Tai Lue is an alphabet used for the Tai Lü language. ... Visible speech is the name of the system used by Alexander Melville Bell, who was known internationally as a teacher of speech and proper elocution and an author of books on the subject. ... Zhuyin fuhao (Chinese: ; written in Zhuyin fuhao: ㄓㄨˋ 一ㄋ ㄈㄨˊ ㄏㄠˋ), often abbreviated as Zhuyin, is a phonetic system for transcribing Chinese, especially Mandarin, for people learning to read, write or speak Mandarin. ... The Pahawh Hmong script is an alphabet writing system for the Hmong language invented by Shong Lue Yang in 1959. ... Listen to this article ( info/dl) This audio file was created from a revision dated 2006-09-06, and may not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ... Hebrew Braille is the system of braille used by Hebrew speakers and specifically, in the State of Israel. ... Korean Braille is related to other braille systems found around the world. ... The system of international maritime signal flags is a way of representing individual letters of the alphabet in signals to or from ships. ... 1922 Chart of the Morse Code Letters and Numerals Morse code is a method for transmitting telegraphic information, using standardized sequences of short and long elements to represent the letters, numerals, punctuation and special characters of a message. ... New York Point is a system of writing for the blind invented by William Bell Wait (1839-1916), a teacher in the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind. ... A Chinese character. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Blissymbols or Blissymbolics were conceived of as an ideographic writing system consisting of several hundred basic symbols, each representing a concept, which can be composed together to generate new symbols that represent new concepts. ... DanceWriting is a form of Dance notation. ... The Dongba are the shamans or priests of the Naxi people of southwestern China. ... Mikmaq hieroglyphic writing was a pictographic writing scheme and memory aid used by Mikmaq people both before and after European contact. ... New Epoch Art Notation is a conceptual writing system for pure visual images. ... A sign for photo model using SignWriting in the dictionary of the Flemish Sign Language Sign Writing is a system of writing the movements and handshapes of sign languages. ... Egyptian hieroglyphs, which have their origins as logograms. ... Demotic (from δημοτικά dimotika popular) refers to both the ancient Egyptian script derived from northern forms of hieratic used in the Delta, as well as the stage of the Egyptian language following Late Egyptian and preceding Coptic. ... Development of hieratic script from hieroglyphs; after Champollion. ... A section of the Papyrus of Ani showing cursive hieroglyphs. ... Drawing of the hieroglyphic seal found in the Troy VIIb layer. ... Cuneiform redirects here. ... The Dongba are the shamans or priests of the Naxi people of southwestern China. ... Maya glyphs in stucco at the Museo de sitio in Palenque, Mexico The Maya script, commonly known as Maya hieroglyphs, was the writing system of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently the only deciphered script of the Mesoamerican writing systems. ... The Tangut script is logographic, used for writing the Tangut language. ... The Yi scripts, also known as Cuan or Wei, are used to write the Yi languages. ... Japanese name Kanji: Hiragana: Korean name Hangul: Hanja: Vietnamese name Quốc ngữ: Hán tá»±: A Chinese character or Han character (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: ) is a logogram used in writing Chinese, Japanese, rarely Korean, and formerly Vietnamese. ... Traditional Chinese characters refers to one of two standard sets of printed Chinese characters. ... Simplified Chinese character (Simplified Chinese: or ; traditional Chinese: or ; pinyin: or ) is one of two standard sets of Chinese characters of the contemporary Chinese written language. ... Chữ nôm (𡦂喃 lit. ... Korean writing systems Hangul Hanja Hyangchal Gugyeol Idu Mixed script Korean romanization Revised Romanization of Korean McCune-Reischauer Yale Romanization Hanja is the Korean name for Chinese characters. ... The Jurchens (Chinese: 女真, pinyin: nǚzhēn) were a Tungus people who inhabited parts of Manchuria and northern Korea until the seventeenth century, when they became the Manchus. ... Japanese writing Kanji Kana Hiragana Katakana Hentaigana Manyōgana Uses Furigana Okurigana Rōmaji   ) are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana (平仮名), katakana (片仮名), and the Arabic numerals. ... The Khitan language is a now-extinct language once spoken by the Khitan people. ... Zhuang logograms or sawndip is a logogram created as a derivative characters of Han characters and used by Zhuang in Guangxi, China. ... Aztec Semi-syllabaries Full semi-syllabaries: Celtiberian script  · Northeastern Iberian script  · Southeastern Iberian script Redundant semi-syllabaries: Southwestern script Syllabaries Afaka · Cherokee · Cypriot · Hiragana · Katakana · Kikakui · Kpelle · Linear B · Man'yōgana · Nü Shu · Old Persian Cuneiform · Vai · Woleaian · Yi · Yugtun