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Latin Alphabet
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{{alphabet}}
The '''Latin alphabet''', also called the '''Roman alphabet''', is the most widely used
alphabetic
writing system in the world today. It comprises 26 letters and is used, with some modification, for most of the languages of the
European Union, the Americas, Subsaharan Africa, and the islands of the Pacific :
English language English,
Spanish language Spanish,
Portuguese language Portuguese,
Malay language Indonesian,
French language French,
Turkish language Turkish,
German language German,
Javanese language Javanese,
Vietnamese language Vietnamese,
Italian language Italian,
Polish language Polish,
Hausa language Hausa,
Swahili language Swahili,
Tagalog language Filipino, etc. In modern usage, the term ''Latin alphabet'' is used for any straightforward derivation of the alphabet used by the Romans. These variants may drop letters (e.g.
Hawaiian language Hawaiian) or add letters (e.g.
Czech alphabet Czech) to or from the classical Roman script, and of course many letter shapes have changed over the centuries — such as the lower-case letters which the Romans would not have recognized.
Overview
The default Latin alphabet is the Roman, supplemented with J, W, Z, U, and lower-case variants:
::
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
Additional letters may be formed
* as
ligature (typography) ligatures, as W was from VV, for example
Æ (''ash'') from AE, ''
oethel''
Å’ from OE, ''
eszett''
ß from ſ (long s) and ʒ (variant of z), ''
engma''
eng Å‹ from NG, ''
ou''
Ou (letter) Ȣ from OU,
Ñ from NN,
ä from ae (see
Sütterlin), or
Ç from CZ;
* by
diacritics, such as
Ã…,
Č,
Ogonek Ų;
* as
digraph (orthography) digraphs, such as
IJ (letter) IJ and
Ll LL;
* by modification, as J was from I, such as
Ø, ''
eth''
Ã?, ''
yogh''
Yogh Ȝ from G, and
Schwa ''schwa'' Æ? from either A or E; or
* may even be borrowed from another alphabet entirely, as ''
thorn''
Þ and ''
wynn''
Wynn Ç· were from
Futhark.
However, these glyphs are not always considered independent letters of the alphabet. For instance, in modern English ''æ'' is considered a graphic variant of ''ae'' rather than a separate letter, while in
Danish and Norwegian alphabet Danish and Norwegian it is a true letter, and is placed at the end of the alphabet along with ''ø'' and ''aa''/''å''.
Letters of the alphabet
As used in modern
English language English, the Latin alphabet consists of the following
grapheme characters (cf.
English alphabet):
{|border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=4 style="margin-bottom:1em; font-size:large; text-align:center; border:0 none transparent;" summary="26 capital letters, each linked to its article"
|+ style="font-weight:normal; font-size:small; margin-top:1em;" |
Capital letters Majuscule Forms also called uppercase or capital letters
|- style="border-top:1px solid #999;"
| width=7.7% |
A
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B
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C
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D
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E
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F
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G
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H
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I
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J
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L
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|-
|
N.html">O
|P||
Q.html">R
|S||
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|V||
W.html">X
|Y||
Z
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{|border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=4 style="margin-bottom:1em; font-size:large; text-align:center; border:0 none transparent" summary="26 small letters"
|+ style="font-weight:normal; font-size:small; margin-top:1em;" |
Minuscule Minuscule Forms also called lowercase or small letters
|- style="border-top:1px solid #999;"
| width=7.7% | a
| width=7.7% | b
| width=7.7% | c
| width=7.7% | d
| width=7.7% | e
| width=7.7% | f
| width=7.7% | g
| width=7.7% | h
| width=7.7% | i
| width=7.7% | j
| width=7.7% | k
| width=7.7% | l
| width=7.7% | m
|-
| n||o||p||q||r||s||t||u||v||w||x||y||z
|}
Extensions
In the course of its history, the Latin alphabet was adapted for use for new languages, some of which had
phonemes which were not used in languages previously written with this alphabet, and therefore extensions were created as needed. These take the form of modified symbols by changing the shape or adding
diacritics, by joining several letters together as
ligature (typography) ligatures, or by completely new forms.
These new forms are given a place in the alphabet by defining a
collating collating sequence. This is language dependent as shown in the pertinent section below.
Other letters
Eth (letter) Eth �ð and the
Runic letters
thorn (letter) thorn Þþ, and
wynn {{Unicode.html">Old English language
Old English alphabet. Eth and thorn were later replaced with 'th', and wynn with the new letter 'w'. Although these 3 letters are no longer part of the Latin alphabet as used for English, eth and thorn are still used in modern
Icelandic alphabet Icelandic.
For a short time in Roman history, three new letters, called the
Claudian letters, were added to the alphabet, but they were not widely received and were eventually removed.
Some West African languages use a few additional letters which have a similar sound value to their equivalents in the
IPA. For example,
Ga language Ga uses the letters Æ?É›, ÅŠÅ‹ and Ɔɔ and
Adangme language Adangme uses Æ?É› and Ɔɔ.
Hausa language Hausa uses {{unicode|Æ?É“}} and {{unicode|ÆŠÉ—}} for
implosive consonant implosives and {{unicode|Ƙƙ}} for an
ejective consonant ejective.
Ligatures
A
ligature (typography) ligature is a fusion of two or more ordinary letters into a new glyph. Examples are
Æ from AE,
Å’ from OE,
ß from ſʒ,
Dutch language Dutch ij from i and j. The "ſs" pair is simply an archaic double ''s''. The first glyph is the archaic medial form, and the second the final form. Note that ij is capitalised as IJ (never Ij).
Diacritics
Diacritics are marks that are added to specific letters to modify their pronunciation. The effect is language dependent.
* the
cedilla in '''ç''', originally a small ''z'' written below the ''c'' (once symbolized {{IPA.html">French language
French ''façade'',
Portuguese language Portuguese ''Caçar'' and in
Catalan ''Barça'').While in
Albanian language Albanian and
Turkish language Turkish the "ç" changes the quality of the sound " c " and is pronounced as the "ch" in the word "check" in English.
* the
caron in '''Ä? Å¡ ž''' (used in
Baltic languages Baltic and
Slavic languages Slavic languages to mark post-alveolar versions of the base phoneme).
* the
tilde in
Portuguese language Portuguese '''ã''' and '''õ''',
Estonian language Estonian '''õ'''. In Portuguese, it was originally a small ''n'' written above the letter (once used to mark the
elision of a former ''n'', now marks nasalization of the base letter). In Estonian, ''õ'' is considered a separate letter of the alphabet. In
Spanish language Spanish '''ñ''' is considered a different letter from '''n''' and has the sound value of /n-ya/.
* the
acute accent in '''á é à ó ú''' in
French language French,
Irish language Irish,
Italian language Italian,
Portuguese language Portuguese,
Spanish language Spanish and other languages. In addition, '''ý''' is also used in
Faroese language Faroese (though not é),
Icelandic language Icelandic,
Czech language Czech and
Slovak language Slovak. In
Hungarian language Hungarian and
Czech language Czech ''á é à ó ú'' are not used for accent but they represent long vowels as opposed to short ''a e i o u''.
* the
grave accent in '''à è ì ò ù''' in
French language French,
Italian language Italian,
Portuguese language Portuguese and other languages.
* the
circumflex in the vowels '''â ê î ô û''' in
French language French,
Portuguese language Portuguese,
Romanian language Romanian (in Romanian, however it functions as completely distinct letters and appear in the alphabet), and other languages, the semi-vowels '''ŵ ŷ''' in
Welsh language Welsh and in the consonants '''ĉ Ä? Ä¥ ĵ Å?''' in
Esperanto language Esperanto.
* the
umlaut in '''ä ö ü''' in
German language German and other languages, and '''ë''' in
Albanian language Albanian and
Ladin language Ladin, which changes the quality (sound) of the vowel. In German, this mark was formerly written as a small '''e''' over the affected vowel. Modern German spelling accepts '''ae oe''' and '''ue''' as variants when the umlaut is unavailable. Also, '''ö ü''' are used in
Turkish language Turkish to make '''o u''' softer.
* the
diaeresis (same visual appearance as the umlaut above) in '''ä ë ï ö ü''' in several languages, indicates that the vowel is pronounced separately from the preceding one when it would otherwise be interpreted as a diphthong.
* the
dot above in '''ċ ġ ż''' in
Maltese language Maltese, '''ż''' in
Polish language Polish, '''Ä—''' in
Lithuanian language Lithuanian, and '''{{Unicode|ḃ ċ ḋ ḟ ġ � ṗ ṫ}}''' in
Irish orthography#The alphabet traditional Irish typography to denote
lenition.
* the
dot below in '''ạ ặ Ạẹ ệ ị � ộ ợ ụ ự ỵ''' in
Vietnamese language Vietnamese.
* the
ogonek in '''ą ę į ų''' in
Polish language Polish and
Lithuanian language Lithuanian.
* the
macron in '''Ä? Ä“ Ä« Å? Å«''' in
Latvian language Latvian,
Maori language MÄ?ori,
Hawaiian language Hawaiian Samogitian dialect Lithuanian,
Romaji romanized Japanese and
Latin language Latin (when indicating vowel length).
* the
double acute accent in '''ő ű''' in
Hungarian language Hungarian, representing long versions of the umlauted vowels '''ö''' and '''ü'''.
* the
breve in '''ă''' in
Romanian language Romanian, '''ÄŸ''' in
Turkish language Turkish and in '''Å''' in
Esperanto and
Belarusian language Belarusian Å?acinka alphabet Å?acinka.
* the comma underneath, as used in '''ÅŸ''' and '''Å£''' in
Romanian language Romanian (often rendered less than optimally in fonts as a cedilla). Also used for '''ķ ļ ņ ŗ''' in
Latvian language Latvian.
* the
dotless i (a "negative diacritic") in '''ı''' as used in
Turkish language Turkish.
* the
hook (diacritic) hook as used in '''ả ẳ ẩ ẻ ể ỉ � ổ ở ủ Ỡỷ''' in Vietnamese.
There are other diacritics and other uses for the ones described here. Please see
Alphabets derived from the Latin for a more complete list.
Evolution
{| align="right" style="text-align:center; border:1px solid #999; font-size:larger;" summary="Original Latin alphabet, in the modern equivalent letters"
|+ style="font-size:smaller;" | Original alphabet
|
A .html">B
|_C .html" title="Meaning of C.html" title="Meaning of C">C ">E
D .html" title="Meaning of |
D ">_
|_F ||
Z
|-
|
H .html">I
|_K .html" title="Meaning of K.html" title="Meaning of K">K ">M
L .html" title="Meaning of |
L ">_
|_N ||
O
|-
|
P .html">Q
|_R .html" title="Meaning of R.html" title="Meaning of R">R ">T
S .html" title="Meaning of |
S ">_
|_V ||
X
|}
:''See
History of the alphabet for the history of alphabets leading up to the Roman alphabet.''
It is generally held that the
Latium Latins adopted the western variant of the
Greek alphabet in the
7th century BC from
Cumae, a
Greeks Greek colony in southern
Italy. From the
Cumae alphabet, the
Old Italic alphabet Etruscan alphabet was derived and the Latins finally adopted 21 of the original 26 Etruscan letters.
The original Latin alphabet was:
Image:Older Latin glyphs.png
* C stood for both ''g'' and ''k''.
* I stood for both ''i'' and ''j''.
* V stood for both ''u'' and ''v''.
Later the Z was dropped and a new letter G was placed in its position. An attempt by the emperor
Claudius to introduce three
Claudian letters additional letters was short-lived, but after the conquest of
Greece in the
1st century BC first century BC the letters Y and Z were, respectively, adopted and readopted from the Greek alphabet and placed at the end. Now the new Latin alphabet contained 23 letters:
{| cellpadding=3 style="text-align:center; margin:1em 0; border-collapse:collapse; white-space:nowrap;" summary="Latin letters, their Latin names and pronunciations (indicated using the International Phonetic Alphabet)"
|- style="border-bottom:1px solid #999;"
! style="text-align:right;" | Letter
| A || B || C || D || E || F || G || H || I || K || L || M || N || O || P || Q || R || S || T || V || X || Y || Z
|-
! style="text-align:right;" | Latin name
| Ä? || bÄ“ || cÄ“ || dÄ“ || Ä“ || ef || gÄ“ || hÄ? || Ä« || kÄ? || el || em || en || Å? || pÄ“ || qÅ« || er || es || tÄ“ || Å« || ex || Ä« Graeca || zÄ“ta
|- class="IPA"
! style="text-align:right;" | Latin pronunciation (
International Phonetic Alphabet IPA)
| [aË?] || [beË?] || [keË?] || [deË?] || [eË?] || [É›f] || [geË?] || [haË?] || [iË?] || [kaË?] || [É›l] || [É›m] || [É›n] || [oË?] || [peË?] || [kuË?] || [É›r] || [É›s] || [teË?] || [uË?] || [É›ks] || [iË? 'graɪka] || ['zeË?ta]
|}
Image:Duenos inscription.jpg Duenos inscription.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|right|The [[Duenos inscription, dated to the
6th century BC, shows the earliest known forms of the
Old Latin alphabet..html" title="Meaning of right|The [[Duenos inscription">thumb|right|The [[Duenos inscription, dated to the
6th century BC, shows the earliest known forms of the
Old Latin alphabet.">right|The [[Duenos inscription">thumb|right|The [[Duenos inscription, dated to the
6th century BC, shows the earliest known forms of the
Old Latin alphabet.
W is a letter made up from two V's or U's. It was added in late Roman times to represent a
Germanic languages Germanic sound. The letters U and J, similarly, were originally not distinguished from V and I, respectively.
The Latin names of some of the letters are disputed. In general, however, the Romans did not use the traditional (Semitic-derived) names as in Greek: the names of the
stop consonant letters were formed by adding {{IPA.html">continuants consisted either of the bare sound, or the sound preceded by {{IPA
[ɛ]}}._The letter Y when introduced was probably called ''hy'' {{IPA|[hyË?]}} as in Greek (the name upsilon being not yet in use) but was changed to ''i Graeca'' ("Greek i") as the {{IPA|[i]}} and {{IPA|[y]}} sounds merged in Latin. 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.
Medieval and later developments
It was not until the
Middle Ages that the letter J (representing non-syllabic I) and the letters U and W (to distinguish them from V) were added.
The alphabet used by the Romans consisted only of capital (upper case or
majuscule) letters. The lower case (
minuscule) letters developed in the Middle Ages from cursive writing, first as the
uncial script, and later as minuscule script. The old Roman letters were retained for formal inscriptions and for emphasis in written documents. The languages that use the Latin alphabet generally use capital letters to begin paragraphs and sentences and for proper nouns. The rules for capitalization have changed over time, and different languages have varied in their rules for capitalization.
Old English language 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 language German is today, e.g. "All the Sisters of the old Town had seen the Birds".
Spread of the Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet spread from
Italy, along with the
Latin Latin language, to the lands surrounding the
Mediterranean Sea with the expansion of the
Roman Empire. The eastern half of the Roman Empire, including
Greece,
Asia Minor, the
Levant, and
Egypt, continued to use
Greek language Greek as a
lingua franca, but Latin was widely spoken in the western half of the Empire, and as the western
Romance languages, including
Spanish language Spanish,
French language French,
Catalan language Catalan,
Portuguese language Portuguese and
Italian language Italian, evolved out of Latin they continued to use and adapt the Latin alphabet. With the spread of
Western Christianity the Latin alphabet spread to the peoples of
northern Europe who spoke
Germanic languages, displacing their earlier
Runic alphabets, as well as to the speakers of
Baltic languages, such as
Lithuanian language Lithuanian and
Latvian language Latvian, and several (non-
Indo-European languages Indo-European)
Finno-Ugric languages, most notably
Hungarian language Hungarian,
Finnish language Finnish and
Estonian language Estonian. During the
Middle Ages the Latin alphabet also came into use among the peoples speaking
West Slavic languages, including the ancestors of modern
Poles,
Czechs,
Croats,
Slovenes, and
Slovaks, as these peoples adopted Roman Catholicism; the speakers of
East Slavic languages generally adopted both
Orthodox Christianity and the
Cyrillic alphabet.
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 southern 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
Iranian peoples Iranians,
Indonesians,
Malay people Malays, and
Turkic peoples. Most of the rest of Asia used a variety of
Brahmic family Brahmic alphabets or the
Chinese script.
Image:Latin alphabet world distribution.png thumb|right|350px|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 Latin alphabet has spread around the world. It spread to
the Americas,
Australia, and parts of
Asia,
Africa, and the Pacific with European colonization, along with the
Spanish language Spanish,
Portuguese language Portuguese,
English language English,
French language French, and
Dutch language Dutch languages. In the late eighteenth century, the
Romania Romanians adopted the Latin alphabet; although
Romanian language Romanian is a Romance language, the Romanians were predominantly Orthodox Christians, and until the nineteenth century the Church used the Cyrillic alphabet.
Vietnam, under French rule, adapted the Latin alphabet for use with the
Vietnamese language, which had previously used Chinese characters. The Latin alphabet is also used for many
Austronesian languages, including
Tagalog language Tagalog and the other
languages of the Philippines, and the official
Bahasa Malaysia Malaysian and
Indonesian languages, replacing earlier Arabic and indigenous Brahmic alphabets. 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 languages Turkic-speaking peoples of the former
USSR, including
Tatars,
Bashkirs,
Azeri,
Kazakhs Kazakh,
Kyrgyz etc. used the
Uniform Turkic alphabet in the
1930s. 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 adopted the Latin alphabet, replacing Cyrillic.
Azerbaijan,
Uzbekistan, and
Turkmenistan have officially adopted the Latin alphabet for
Azeri language Azeri,
Uzbek language Uzbek, and
Turkmen language Turkmen, respectively. In the 1970s, the
People's Republic of China developed an official transliteration of
Mandarin Chinese into the Latin alphabet, called
Pinyin, although use of Chinese characters is still predominant.
West Slavic languages West Slavic and most
South Slavic languages South Slavic languages use the Latin alphabet rather than the
Cyrillic alphabet Cyrillic, a reflection of the dominant religion practiced among those peoples. Among these,
Polish language Polish uses a variety of diacritics and digraphs to represent special phonetic values, as well as the
l with stroke - Å‚ - for a sound similar to w.
Czech language Czech uses
diacritics as in Dvořák — the term
háÄ?ek (caron) originates from Czech.
Croatian language Croatian and the Latin version of
Serbian language Serbian use carons in Ä?, Å¡, ž, an
acute in ć and a
bar (diacritic) bar in Ä‘. The languages of
Eastern Orthodox Slavs generally use Cyrillic instead which is much closer to the Greek alphabet. The
Serbian language uses two alphabets.
Collating sequence with extensions
Alphabets derived from the Latin have varying
collating rules:
* In
Breton language Breton, there is no "c" but there are the ligatures "ch" and "c'h", which are collated between "b" and "d". For example: « buzhugenn, chug, c'hoar, daeraouenn » (earthworm, juice, sister, teardrop).
* In
Croatian language Croatian and
Serbian language Serbian and related South Slavic languages, the five accented characters and three conjoined characters are sorted after the originals: ..., C, ÄŒ, Ć, D, DŽ, Ä?, E, ..., L, LJ, M, N, NJ, O, ..., S, Å , T, ..., Z, Ž.
* In
Czech language Czech and
Slovak language Slovak, accented vowels have secondary collating weight - compared to other letters, they are treated as their unaccented forms (A-Ã?, E-É-Äš, I-Ã?, O-Ó-Ô, U-Ú-Å®, Y-Ã?), but then they are sorted after the unaccented letters (for example, the correct lexicographic order is baa, baá, báa, bab, báb, bac, bác, baÄ?, báÄ?). Accented consonants (the ones with
caron) have primary collating weight and are collocated immediately after their unaccented counterparts, with exception of Ď, Ň and Ť, which have again secondary weight.
CH is considered to be a separate letter and goes between
H and
I. In Slovak,
DZ and
DŽ are also considered separate letters and are positioned between
ÄŽ and
E (A-�-Ä-B-C-Č-D-Ď-DZ-DŽ-E-É…).
* In the
Danish and Norwegian alphabets, the same extra vowels as in Swedish (see below) are also present but in a different order and with different
glyphs (..., X, Y, Z,
Æ,
Ø,
Ã…). Also, "Aa" collates as an equivalent to "Ã…". The Danish alphabet has traditionally seen "W" as a variant of "V", but nowadays "W" is considered a separate letter.
* In
Dutch language Dutch the combination IJ (representing
IJ (letter) IJ (letter IJ)) was formerly to be collated as Y (or sometimes, as a separate letter Y < IJ < Z), but is currently mostly collated as 2 letters (II < IJ < IK). Exceptions are phone directories; IJ is always collated as Y here because in many Dutch family names Y is used where modern spelling would require IJ. Note that a word starting with ij that is written with a capital I is also written with a capital J, for example, the town
IJmuiden (mun.
Velsen) and the river
IJssel.
* In
Esperanto, consonants with
circumflex accents (
c-circumflex '''ĉ''',
g-circumflex '''Ä?''',
h-circumflex '''Ä¥''',
j-circumflex '''ĵ''',
s-circumflex '''Å?'''), as well as
u-breve '''Å''' (u with
breve), are counted as separate letters and collated separately (c, ĉ, d, e, f, g, Ä?, h, Ä¥, i, j, ĵ ... s, Å?, t, u, Å, v, z).
* In
Estonian language Estonian õ,
ä,
ö and
ü are considered separate letters and collate after
w. Letters
Å¡,
z and
ž appear in loanwords and foreign proper names only and follow the letter
s in the
Estonian alphabet, which otherwise does not differ from the basic Latin alphabet.
* The
Faroese alphabet also has some of the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish extra letters, namely
Æ and
Ø. Furthermore, the
Faroese alphabet uses the Icelandic eth, which follows the
D. Five of the six vowels
A,
I,
O,
U and
Y can get accents and are after that considered separate letters. The consonants
C,
Q,
X,
W and
Z are not found. Therefore the first five letters are
A,
Ã?,
B,
D and
Ã?, and the last five are
V,
Y,
Ã?,
Æ,
Ø
* In
Filipino language Filipino and other Philippine languages, the letter Ng is treated as a separate letter. Also, letter derivatives (such as
Ñ) immediately follow the base letter.
Filipino language Filipino also is written with accents and other marks, but the marks are not in very wide use (except the
tilde). It is pronounced as in sing, ping-pong, etc. By itself, it is pronounced '''nang''', but in general Philippine
orthography, it is spelled as if it were two separate letters (n and g). (Philippine orthography also includes spelling.)
* The
Finnish alphabet and collating rules are the same as in Swedish, except for the addition of the letters
Å and
Ž, which are considered variants of S and Z.
* In
French alphabet French and
English alphabet English, characters with
diaeresis (
ä,
ë,
ï,
ö,
ü,
ÿ) are usually treated just like their un-accented versions. If two words differ only by an accent in French, the one with the accent is greater. (However, the
Unicode 3.0 book specifies a more complex traditional French sorting rule for accented letters.)
* In
German alphabet German letters with umlaut (
Ä,
Ö,
Ü) are treated generally just like their non-umlauted versions;
ß is always sorted as ss. This makes the alphabetic order Arg, Ärgerlich, Arm, Assistant, Aßlar, Assoziation. For phone directories and similar lists of names, the umlauts are to be collated like the letter combinations "ae", "oe", "ue". This makes the alphabetic order Udet, Übelacker, Uell, Ülle, Ueve, Üxküll, Uffenbach.
* The
Hungarian language Hungarian vowels have accents, umlauts, and double accents, while consonants are written with single or with double characters (digraphs). In collating, accented vowels always follow their non-accented counterparts and double characters follow their single originals. Hungarian alphabetic order is: A, Ã?, B, C, CS, D, E, É, F, G, GY, H, I, Ã?, J, K, L, LY, M, N, NY, O, Ó, Ö, Å?, P, Q, R, S, SZ, T, TY, U, Ú, Ãœ, Å°, V, W, X, Y, Z, ZS. (For example, the correct lexicographic order is baa, baá, bab, bac, bacs, ..., baz, bazs, báa, báá, báb, bác, bács).
* In
Icelandic language Icelandic,
Þ is added, and D is followed by
Ã?. Each vowel (A, E, I, O, U, Y) is followed by its correspondent with
acute: �, É, �, Ó, Ú, �. There is no Z, and after �, it goes like this: ...
Þ,
Æ, Ö.
** Both letters were also used by
Anglo-Saxon scribes who also used the Runic letter
Wynn to represent /w/.
**
thorn (letter) Þ (called thorn; lowercase þ) is also a Runic letter.
**
Eth (letter) � (called eth; lowercase ð) is the letter
D with an added stroke.
* In
Polish language Polish, specifically Polish letters derived from the Latin alphabet are collated after their originals: A, Ä„, B, C, Ć, D, E, Ę, ..., L, Å?, M, N, Ń, O, Ó, P, ..., S, Åš, T, ..., Z, Å», Ź.
* In
Romanian language Romanian, special characters derived from the Latin alphabet are collated after their originals: A, Ă, Â, ..., I, Î, ..., S, Ş, T, Ţ, ..., Z.
* In the
Swedish alphabet, "W" is seen as a variant of "V" and not a separate letter. It is however recognised and maintained in names, like in "William". The alphabet also has three extra
vowels placed at its end (..., X, Y, Z,
Ã…,
Ä,
Ö).
* Some languages have more complex rules: for example,
Spanish alphabet Spanish treated (until 1997) "CH" and "LL" as single letters, giving an ordering of CINCO, CREDO, CHISPA and LOMO, LUZ, LLAMA. This is not true anymore since in 1997
Real Academia Española RAE adopted the more conventional usage, and now LL is collated between LK and LM, and CH between CG and CI. The only Spanish specific collating question is
Ñ (eñe) as a different letter collated after N.
* In
Tatar language Tatar and
Turkish language Turkish, there are 9 additional letters. 5 of them are vowels, paired with main alphabet vowels as hard-smooth: a-ä, o-ö, u-ü, Ã-i, ı-e. The four remaining are consonants: ÅŸ is sh, ç is ch, ñ is ng and ÄŸ is gh.
*
Welsh language Welsh also has complex rules: the combinations CH, DD, FF, NG, LL, PH, RH and TH are all considered single letters, and each is listed after the letter which is the first character in the combination, with the exception of NG which is listed after G. However, the situation is further complicated by these combinations not always being single letters. An example ordering is LAWR, LWCUS, LLONG, LLOM, LLONGYFARCH: the last of these words is a juxtaposition of LLON and GYFARCH, and, unlike LLONG, does not contain the letter NG.
The
Unicode Collation Algorithm can be used to get any of the collation sequences
described above, by tailoring its default collation table. Several such tailorings
are collected in
Common Locale Data Repository.
See also
*
Collation
*
Roman square capitals
*
Roman cursive
*
Alphabets derived from the Latin
*
Roman letters used in mathematics
*
Beghilos
References
* {{cite book| author = Jensen, Hans | year = 1970| title = Sign Symbol and Script | publisher = London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd| id = ISBN 0044000219 }}. Transl. of {{cite book | author = Jensen, Hans | title = Die Schrift in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart | publisher = VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften | year = 1958}}, as revised by the author
* {{cite book| author =
Helmut Rix Rix, Helmut | year = 1993 | chapter = La scrittura e la lingua|editor =
Mauro Cristofani Cristofani, Mauro (hrsg.) |title = Gli etruschi - Una nuova immagine|publisher = Firenze: Giunti|pages = S.199-227}}
* {{cite book| author = Sampson, Geoffrey | year = 1985| title = Writing systems | publisher = London (etc.): Hutchinson}}
* {{cite book| author = Wachter, Rudolf | year = 1987 | title = Altlateinische Inschriften: sprachliche und epigraphische Untersuchungen zu den Dokumenten bis etwa 150 v.Chr. Bern (etc.)}}: Peter Lang.
* {{cite book| chapter = The names of the letters of the Latin alphabet ''(Appendix C)'' | author = W. Sidney Allen| title = Vox Latina — a guide to the pronunciation of classical Latin | publisher = Cambridge University Press| year = 1978 | id = ISBN 0521220491 (Second edition)}}
* {{cite book| author = BiktaÅŸ, Åžamil | year = 2003 | title = TuÄŸan Tel}}
External links
* ''[http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/alpha/ Who runs the alphabet?]'' by Michal Zalewski
-
Diacritics Project — All you need to design a font with correct accents
{{Latin alphabet}}
Category:Latin alphabet *
af:Latynse alfabet
als:Lateinisches Alphabet
ar:كتابة لاتينية
ast:Alfabetu llatinu
bg:ЛатинÑ?ка азбука
zh-min-nan:Lô-má-jī
be:ЛацінÑ?кі альфабÑ?Ñ‚
bs:Latinica
ca:Alfabet llatÃ
cs:Latinka
de:Lateinisches Alphabet
el:Λατινικό αλφάβητο
es:Alfabeto latino
eo:Latina alfabeto
fa:الÙ?بای لاتین
fr:Alphabet latin
fur:Alfabet latin
gl:Alfabeto latino
ko:로마 문�
hi:रोमन लिपि
hr:Latinica
io:Latinal alfabeto
id:Abjad Latin
is:Latneskt stafróf
it:Alfabeto latino
he:×?לפבית ×œ×˜×™× ×™
lv:Latīņu alfabēts
hu:Latin Ãrás
nl:Latijns alfabet
ja:ラテン文å—
no:Det latinske alfabetet
nn:Det latinske alfabetet
pl:Alfabet łaciński
pt:Alfabeto latino
ro:Alfabetul latin
ru:ЛатинÑ?кий алфавит
sh:Latinica
simple:Roman alphabet
sl:Latinica
sr:Латиница
fi:Latinalaiset aakkoset
sv:Latinska alfabetet
tl:Alpabetong Latin
tt:LatÃn älifba
th:à¸à¸±à¸?ษรละติน
tr:Latin abecesi
uk:ЛатинÑ?ька абетка
zh:拉ä¸?å—æ¯?
{| cellspacing="4" cellpadding="0" class="toccolours" id="latin-alphabet" style="margin:0 auto; width:80%; clear: both;"
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
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Latin alphabet
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Aa .html">Bb _Cc .html" title="Meaning of C.html" title="Meaning of C">Cc ">Ee _Ff Dd .html" title="Meaning of F.html" title="Meaning of F">Ff Dd "> Gg .html">Hh _Ii .html" title="Meaning of I.html" title="Meaning of I">Ii ">Kk _Ll Jj .html" title="Meaning of L.html" title="Meaning of L">Ll Jj "> Mm .html">Nn _Oo .html" title="Meaning of O.html" title="Meaning of O">Oo ">Qq _Rr Pp .html" title="Meaning of R.html" title="Meaning of R">Rr Pp "> Ss .html">Tt _Uu .html" title="Meaning of U.html" title="Meaning of U">Uu ">Ww _Xx Vv .html" title="Meaning of X.html" title="Meaning of X">Xx Vv "> Yy | Zz
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
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Diacritic Modified characters
||
{{unicode|grave accent Àà }} | {{unicode|acute accent Ã?á}} | {{unicode|circumflex Ââ}} | {{unicode|Ä Ää}} | {{unicode|à Ãã}} | {{unicode|Ä€ Ä€Ä?}} | {{unicode|Ogonek Ä„Ä…}} | {{unicode|Ä‚ Ăă}} | {{unicode|caron Ç?ÇŽ}} | {{unicode|Cedilla Çç}} | {{unicode|Ĉ Ĉĉ}} | {{unicode|ÄŒ ÄŒÄ?}} | {{unicode|Ć Ćć}} | {{unicode|D with stroke Ä?Ä‘}} | {{unicode|ÄŽ ÄŽÄ?}} | {{unicode|Grave accent Èè}} | {{unicode|acute accent Éé}} | {{unicode|circumflex Êê}} | {{unicode|Ë Ëë}} | {{unicode|Ogonek Ęę}} | {{unicode|Ä’ Ä’Ä“}} | {{unicode|Ä” Ĕĕ}} | {{unicode|Ä– Ä–Ä—}} | {{unicode|Äš Ěě}} | {{unicode|Äœ ÄœÄ?}} | {{unicode|Äž Ğğ}} | {{unicode|Ä Ä Ä¡}} | {{unicode|Ä¢ Ģģ}} | {{unicode|G-caron Ǧǧ}} | {{unicode|Ĥ Ĥĥ}} | {{unicode|Ħ Ħħ}} | {{unicode|grave accent Ìì}} | {{unicode|acute accent Ã?Ã}} | {{unicode|circumflex Îî}} | {{unicode|diaeresis Ã?ï}} | {{unicode|Ogonek Įį}} | {{unicode|Turkish dotted and dotless I İı}} | {{unicode|Ĩ Ĩĩ}} | {{unicode|Ī Īī}} | {{unicode|Ĭ ĬÄ}} | {{unicode|Ä´ Ĵĵ}} | {{unicode|Ķ Ķķ}} | {{unicode|K-caron Ǩǩ}} | {{unicode|acute accent Ĺĺ}} | {{unicode|Ä» Ļļ}} | {{unicode|Ľ Ľľ}} | {{unicode|Ä¿ Ä¿Å€}} | {{unicode|Å? Å?Å‚}} | {{unicode|acute accent Ńń}} | {{unicode|Å… Ņņ}} | {{unicode|Ň Ňň}} | {{unicode|grave accent Òò}} | {{unicode|acute accent Óó}} | {{unicode|circumflex Ôô}} | {{unicode|Ö Öö}} | {{unicode|Õ Õõ}} | {{unicode|Å? Å?Å‘}} | {{unicode|Ogonek Ǫǫ}} | {{unicode|ÅŒ ÅŒÅ?}} | {{unicode|ÅŽ ÅŽÅ?}} | {{unicode|Æ Æ Æ¡}} | {{unicode|acute accent Ŕŕ}} | {{unicode|Å– Å–Å—}} | {{unicode|Ř Řř}} | {{unicode|acute accent Śś}} | {{unicode|Åœ ÅœÅ?}} | {{unicode|Åž Şş}} | {{unicode|Ș Șș}} | {{unicode|Å Å Å¡}} | {{unicode|Ť Ťť}} | {{unicode|Ŧ Ŧŧ}} | {{unicode|Å¢ Ţţ}} | {{unicode|T-comma Țț}} | {{unicode|grave accent Ùù}} | {{unicode|acute accent Úú}} | {{unicode|circumflex Ûû}} | {{unicode|Ãœ Üü}} | {{unicode|Ũ Ũũ}} | {{unicode|Ū Ūū}} | {{unicode|Ŭ ŬÅ}} | {{unicode|Ogonek Ųų}} | {{unicode|Å® Ůů}} | {{unicode|Å° Űű}} | {{unicode|Ư Ưư}} | {{unicode|circumflex Ŵŵ}} | {{unicode|acute accent Ã?ý}} | {{unicode|circumflex Ŷŷ}} | {{unicode|diaeresis Ÿÿ}} | {{unicode|acute accent Źź}} | {{unicode|Ž Žž}} | {{unicode|Å» Żż}}
|- style="vertical-align:top;"
! style="text-align:right;" |
:Category:Uncommon Latin letters Alphabet extensions
||
{{unicode|È€ È€È?}} | {{unicode|È‚ Ȃȃ}} | {{unicode|Æ Ææ}} | {{unicode|Ǽ Ǽǽ}} | {{unicode|Ç¢ Ǣǣ}} | {{unicode|Ã… Ã…Ã¥}} | {{unicode|ÄŠ ÄŠÄ‹}} | {{unicode|Eth Ã?ð}} | {{unicode|DZ (letter) DZdz}} | {{unicode|Dž Dždž}} | {{unicode|Æ? Æ?É›}} | {{unicode|È„ È„È…}} | {{unicode|Ȇ Ȇȇ}} | {{unicode|Schwa Æ?É™}} | {{unicode|Æ‘ Æ‘Æ’}} | {{unicode|Ǥ Ǥǥ}} | {{unicode|Ǧ Ǧǧ}} | {{unicode|Gha (letter) Ƣƣ}} | {{unicode|Hwair Ƕƕ}} | {{unicode|IJ (letter) IJij}} | {{unicode|Ç? Ç?Ç?}} | {{unicode|Ȉ Ȉȉ}} | {{unicode|ÈŠ ÈŠÈ‹}} | {{unicode|Ǩ Ǩǩ}} | {{unicode|kra (letter) ĸ}} | {{unicode|Lj (letter) Ljlj}} | {{unicode|Ll LLll}} | {{unicode|Ä¿L Ä¿LÅ€l}} | {{unicode|Ñ Ññ}} | {{unicode|Nj (letter) Ç‹ÇŒ}} | {{unicode|Eng (letter) ÅŠÅ‹}} | {{unicode|Å’ Å’Å“}} | {{unicode|Ø Øø}} | {{unicode|Ǿ Ǿǿ}} | {{unicode|Ç‘ Ç‘Ç’}} | {{unicode|ÈŒ ÈŒÈ?}} | {{unicode|ÈŽ ÈŽÈ?}} | {{unicode|Ɔ Ɔɔ}} | {{unicode|Ou (letter) Ȣȣ}} | R rotunda {{mufi|}} | {{unicode|È? È?È‘}} | {{unicode|È’ È’È“}} | {{unicode|Long s Å¿}} | {{unicode|ß}} .html">Esh (letter) Ʃʃ}} | {{unicode|Ç“ Ç“Ç”}} | {{unicode|È” Ȕȕ}} | {{unicode|È– È–È—}} | {{unicode|Wynn Ç·Æ¿}} | {{unicode|Yogh ÈœÈ?}} | {{unicode|Ȥ Ȥȥ}} | {{unicode|Ƶ Ƶƶ}} | {{unicode|Ezh (letter) Æ·Ê’}} | {{unicode|Ç® Ǯǯ}} | {{unicode|Thorn (letter) Þþ}}
|-
| colspan=2 align=right |
[{{SERVER}}{{localurl:Template:Latin alphabet|action=edit}} edit ]
|}
it:Template:Alfabeto
ko:Template:로마 �
no:Mal:Latinsk alfabet
zh:Template:Latin alphabet
All 26 standard
letters of the '''Latin alphabet''', plus all extended Latin
grapheme characters considered as distinct letters in languages that use the Latin
alphabet.
{{catmore}}
Category:Alphabetic writing systems
fr:Catégorie:Alphabet latin
tl:Category:Alpabetong Romano
see
Latin alphabet
*** Shopping-Tip: Latin Alphabet
