Writing systems:
abjads |
alphabets |
syllabic alphabets |
syllabaries |
semanto-phonetic scripts
undeciphered scripts |
alternative scripts |
your con-scripts |
A-Z index |
Direction index
Writing systems:
abjads |
alphabets |
syllabic alphabets |
syllabaries |
semanto-phonetic scripts
undeciphered scripts |
alternative scripts |
your con-scripts |
A-Z index |
Direction index
The earliest known inscriptions in the Latin alphabet date from the 6th century BC. It was adapted from the Etruscan alphabet during the 7th century BC. The letters Y and Z were taken from the Greek alphabet to write Greek loan words. Other letters were added from time to time as the Latin alphabet was adapted for other languages and many letters had several different shapes.
Ancient Latin, Irish Uncial, Old English
The Romans used just 23 letters to write Latin:
A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X Y Z
There were no lower case letters, and K, Y and Z used only for writing words of Greek origin. The letters J, U and W were added to the alphabet at a later stage to write languages other than Latin. J is a variant of I, U is a variant of V, and W was introduced as a 'double-v' to make a distinction between the sounds we know as 'v' and 'w' which was unnecessary in Latin.
The modern Latin alphabet consists of 52 letters, including both upper and lower case, plus 10 numerals, punctuation marks and a variety of other symbols such as &, % and @. Many languages add a variety of accents to the basic letters, and a few also use extra letters and ligatures.
The lowercase letters developed from cursive versions of the uppercase letters.
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
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
Many languages supplement the basic Latin alphabet with a variety of accented letters:
These accented letters can have a number of different functions:
How to type accented letters in Windows, Mac and HTML
Eth, Thorn, Yogh and Wynn were used in Old English; Eth and Thorn are also used in Icelandic; the dotless i is used in Turkish, and the schwa is used in Azeri. The other letters are used in various other languages, particularly those spoken in West Africa.
These are used in a number of languages including French, German, Icelandic, Croatian and Dutch:
Click here to find out how to type ligatures in Windows, Mac and HTML
Further information about diacritics and their usage
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/dia/diacritics-revised.htm,
Some of the languages written with the Latin alphabet
Armenian, Avestan, Bassa (Vah), Beitha Kukju, Coptic, Cyrillic, Elbsan, Etruscan, Fraser, Georgian (Asomtavruli & Nuskha-khucuri), Georgian (Mkhedruli), Glagolitic, Gothic, Greek, Hungarian Runes, Irish, Kayah Li, Korean, Latin, Lycian, Lydian, Manchu, Meroïtic, Mongolian, N'Ko, Ogham, Old Church Slavonic, Oirat Clear Script, Old Italic, Old Permic, Orkhon, Pollard Miao, Runic, Santali, Somali, Sutton SignWriting, Tai Dam, Thaana, Uyghur
ALPHABETUM is a Unicode font specifically designed for ancient languages that includes
Ancient, Classical & Medieval Latin and many other ancient scripts
http://guindo.pntic.mec.es/~jmag0042/alphabet.html
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