Roman alphabet

The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the most used writing system today, belonging to the category of alphabets, initially designed for transcribing the Latin language, then extended to many other languages across the World.

Origins

The original version of this alphabet was used by the Romans for the Latin language. It is derived from, and very similar to, the Greek alphabet. The Romans adopted the alphabet via the Etruscans, who had adopted it from the Greeks who had colonized Sicily and the southern Italian peninsula. The "West Greek" alphabet was slightly different from the East Greek alphabet which evolved into the modern Greek alphabet, which caused some of the letterform changes. The Etruscans had no sound for 'g' (voiced velar stop) in their language, but three different 'k' (voiceless velar stop) sounds, and so adopted the Greek gamma (Γ) to represent a 'k' sound; but the shape of the West Greek gamma was actually similar to Latin C (instead of being similar to Γ), and eventually the letter morphed into the modern 'C'.

Spread

With some modifications, and more often called the Roman alphabet, this alphabet is the writing system currently used for a great number of languages around the world. It is used by some international languages such as English, Spanish, German, and French, as well as all the other Romance languages, all the other Germanic languages, some Slavic languages, Turkish, Albanian, Hungarian, Finnish, Indonesian, Malay, and Vietnamese. Since the 19th century, it has been used by many languages of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas that have been codified under western European influence.

Letters and order

Typical, current version

The most typical variant of the Latin alphabet is now the English alphabet, which is similar to that of many other languages such as German, Portuguese, French or Dutch, with the following twenty-six letters in the following order:

Uppercase:

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

Lowercase:

a

b

c

d

e

f

g

h

i

j

k

l

m

n

o

p

q

r

s

t

u

v

w

x

y

z

Former versions

But initially, the archaic Latin language used only the following, uppercase letters:

A B C D E F H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X

Then, classical Latin added G (derived from C) and also Y and Z (in Greek borrowings):

A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X Y Z

An innovation emerged in Late Antiquitity and at the beginning of the Middle Ages. Each letter was dubbed progressively in two shapes: the uppercase (as in the classical use, but restricted to the beginning of sentences and proper names) and the lowercase (innovative and for general use).

During the Middle Ages, new signs appeared in the Latin writing system. Scribes adopted J as a variant of I and U as a variant of V; later, in the Modern Era, J and U were recognized as independent letters. The sign W appeared also in the Middle Ages, firstly as a ligature of VV or UU in some Germanic borrowings integrated in Latin, and was later recognized as an independent letter. The ligatures Æ and Œ were an innovation of Medieval Latin, since Classical Latin used to write AE and OE instead. Thus, the basic collection of signs had become the following in the Middle Ages:

Uppercase:

A

(Æ)

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

(J)

K

L

M

N

O

(Œ)

P

Q

R

S

T

V

(U)

(W)

X

Y

Z

Lowercase:

a

(æ)

b

c

d

e

f

g

h

i

(j)

k

l

m

n

o

(œ)

p

q

r

s

t

v

(u)

(w)

x

y

z

Other versions in other languages

Since the Middle Ages, many languages—other than Latin—have added letters like Þ, Ȝ or Ƿ for additional sounds. Some languages have adopted certain digraphs, sometimes considered as letters (such as Spanish CH and LL), and added a wide variety of diacritical marks to many of the letters (such as Ð, È, Ť, Å, Ç and so on). Some languages have also abandoned various letters. Thus, the Latin alphabet has now many variants adapted to the needs of different languages.

Use as numerals

Some characters of the Latin alphabet (C, D, I, L, M, V, X) are used in the Roman numeral system; unlike the Greek numeral system, not all the letters are used as numbers.