Latin alphabet

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This article is about the alphabet used to write the Latin language. For modern alphabets derived from it used in other languages and applications, see Latin script and Latin-script alphabet.

Latin
Script type
Time period
c. 
Latin characters in Unicode
 This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
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History of the alphabet
Graphical descent from Egyptian hieroglyphs

Egyptian hieroglyphs 32nd c. BCE

Graphically independent
Part of a series on
Calligraphy
By culture

The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the

English and many modern Asian languages, including Malay, Indonesian and Modern Standard Syloti (MSS).[1] With modifications, it is also used for other alphabets, such as the Vietnamese alphabet. Its modern repertoire is standardised as the ISO basic Latin alphabet
.

Etymology

The term Latin alphabet may refer to either the alphabet used to write Latin (as described in this article) or other alphabets based on the

lower-case
, forms which did not exist in the Classical period alphabet.

Evolution

For broader coverage of this topic, see History of the alphabet.

The Latin alphabet evolved from the visually similar

Cumaean Greek version of the Greek alphabet, which was itself descended from the Phoenician alphabet, which in turn derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs.[2] The Etruscans ruled early Rome
; their alphabet evolved in Rome over successive centuries to produce the Latin alphabet. During the
African reference alphabet
.

Signs and abbreviations

Although Latin did not use diacritical marks, signs of truncation of words (often placed above or at the end of the truncated word) were very common. Furthermore, abbreviations or smaller overlapping letters were often used. This was due to the fact that if the text was engraved on stone, the number of letters to be written was reduced, while if it was written on paper or parchment, it saved precious space. This habit continued even in the Middle Ages. Hundreds of symbols and abbreviations exist, varying from century to century.[3]

History

Main article: History of the Latin script

Origins

It is generally believed that the Latin alphabet used by the

Old Italic alphabet used by the Etruscans.[4]
That alphabet was derived from the Euboean alphabet used by the Cumae, which in turn was derived from the Phoenician alphabet.[citation needed]

Old Italic alphabet

Duenos inscription
The Duenos inscription, dated to the 6th century BC, shows the earliest known form of the Old Latin alphabet.
Old Italic alphabet
Letters 𐌀 𐌁 𐌂 𐌃 𐌄 𐌅 𐌆 𐌇 𐌈 𐌉 𐌊 𐌋 𐌌 𐌍 𐌎 𐌏 𐌐 𐌑 𐌒 𐌓 𐌔 𐌕 𐌖 𐌗 𐌘 𐌙 𐌚
Transliteration A B C D E V Z H Θ I K L M N Ξ O P Ś Q R S T Y X Φ Ψ F

Archaic Latin alphabet

Archaic Latin alphabet
As Old Italic 𐌀 𐌁 𐌂 𐌃 𐌄 𐌅 𐌆 𐌇 𐌉 𐌊 𐌋 𐌌 𐌍 𐌏 𐌐 𐌒 𐌓 𐌔 𐌕 𐌖 𐌗
As Latin A B C D E F Z H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X

Old Latin alphabet

Latin included 21 different characters. The letter ⟨C⟩ was the western form of the Greek

Kalendae
, often interchangeably with ⟨C⟩.

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

Classical Latin alphabet

After the

Roman conquest of Greece in the 1st century BC, Latin adopted the Greek letters ⟨Y⟩ and ⟨Z⟩ (or 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 during the classical Latin
period that the Latin alphabet contained 21 letters and 2 foreign letters:

Classical Latin alphabet
Letter A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X Y Z
Latin name (majus) á bé cé dé é ef gé há ꟾ ká el em en ó pé qv́ er es té v́ ix ꟾ graeca zéta
Transliteration ā bē cē dē ē ef gē hā ī kā el em en ō pē qū er es tē ū ix ī Graeca zēta
Latin pronunciation (IPA) aː beː keː deː eː ɛf ɡeː haː iː kaː ɛl ɛm ɛn oː peː kuː ɛr ɛs teː uː iks iː ˈɡraɪka ˈdzeːta
The apices in this first-century inscription are very light. (There is one over the ó in the first line.) The vowel I is written taller rather than taking an apex. The interpuncts are comma-shaped, an elaboration of a more typical triangular shape. From the shrine of the Augustales at Herculaneum.

The Latin names of some of these letters are disputed; for example, ⟨H⟩ may have been called

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 as a rule 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

Latin spelling and pronunciation; for the names of the letters in English see English alphabet
.

taller
: ⟨á é ꟾ ó v́⟩. For example, what is today transcribed Lūciī a fīliī was written ⟨lv́ciꟾ·a·fꟾliꟾ⟩ in the inscription depicted. Some letters have more than one form in epigraphy. Latinists have treated some of them especially such as ⟨
Ꟶ⟩, a variant of ⟨H⟩ found in Roman Gaul
.

The primary mark of punctuation was the interpunct, which was used as a word divider, though it fell out of use after 200 AD.

majuscule script commonly used from the 3rd to 8th
centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Tironian notes were a shorthand system consisting of thousands of signs.

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 a variety of regional medieval scripts (for example, the Merovingian, Visigothic and Benevantan scripts), to be later supplanted by the Carolingian minuscule
.

Medieval and later developments

De chalcographiae inventione (1541, Mainz) with the 23 letters. J, U and W are missing.
Jeton from Nuremberg, c. 1553

It was not until the

Germanic languages which did not exist in medieval Latin, and only 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 allographs of the latter.[citation needed
]

With the fragmentation of political power, the

lower case
forms of the letters, as well as other writing conventions that have since become standard.

The languages that use the

United States Constitution: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. This is still systematically done in modern German
.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Sylheti language and the Syloti-Nagri alphabet". www.omniglot.com. Retrieved 8 March 2024.
  2. ^ Michael C. Howard (2012), Transnationalism in Ancient and Medieval Societies. p. 23.
  3. ISBN 88-203-1100-3
    .
  4. ^ "Etruscan alphabet | Etruscan Writing, Ancient Scripts & Language". Britannica. Retrieved 17 October 2023.
  5. ^ Liberman, Anatoly (7 August 2013). "Alphabet soup, part 2: H and Y". Oxford Etymologist. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 3 October 2013.
  6. ISBN 9780521530330
    – via Google Books.

Further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Latin alphabet.
Library resources about
Latin alphabet
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