A pangram, or holoalphabetic sentence, is a sentence that includes every letter used to write a particular language at least once. The best-known example in English is “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog”.
This pangram has been used used since at least the late 19th century. Telegraph companies such as Western Union used it to test the accuracy and reliabilty of their equipment, and these days, pangrams are used to display typefaces in computers, and for other programs.
An even more difficult challenge is to construct a short pangram using – that is, one that contains as few letters as possible.
Here are some examples:
- Quick nymph bugs vex fjord waltz (27 letters)
- Waltz, bad nymph, for quick jigs vex (28 letters)
- Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow (29 letters)
- How quickly daft jumping zebras vex (30 letters)
- The five boxing wizards jump quickly (31 letters)
- Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs (32 letters)
A perfect pangram is one that contains each letter of the alphabet once. here are some examples:
- Blowzy night-frumps vex’d Jack Q
- Mr. Jock, TV quiz PhD, bags few lynx
- Cwm fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
The Finnish word Törkylempijävongahdus, which means “a whinge of a sleazy lover”, is an example of a short pangram in one word. It contain all the letters of Finnish alphabet used to write Finnish words, but not the ones used to write words borrowed from other languages.
Are there similar examples in any other languages?
Another kind of pangram is a phonetic pangram, that is, one that contains all the phonemes of a particular language. Here’s one for English sent in by Murray Callahan, who inspired this post:
That quick beige fox jumped in the air over each thin dog. Look out, I shout, for he has foiled you again, creating chaos.
Can you come up with any others for English or other languages?
Sources and information about pangrams:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangram
https://clagnut.com/blog/2380/
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pangram
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/385085/is-there-such-a-thing-as-pangram-for-phonemes
