Latin alphabet

Also known as Roman alphabet

alphabet used to write the Roman Latin language, then adapted and used in most languages of the world

AI overview

The Latin alphabet is the writing system originally used for the Roman Latin language that was later adapted to write most languages around the world. It matters because it became the most widely used alphabet globally, making it fundamental to how billions of people communicate in writing today.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Wikidata facts

Subclass of: alphabet
Based on: Etruscan alphabet
Has use: Latin

Show 6 more facts

language of work or name: Latin
writing system: Latin script
topic's main category: Category:Latin script
quantity: 26
on focus list of Wikimedia project: Wikipedia:List of articles all languages should have
history of topic: history of the Latin alphabet

Sources (1)

meta.wikimedia.org

via Wikidata · CC0

~13 min read

Encyclopedic overview

The Latin alphabet is the set of letters used by the ancient Romans to write Classical Latin, later augmented with lower-case letters to write Medieval Latin, and continued in a slightly altered form today to write Modern Latin.

The core 26-letter modern inventory is standardized as the ISO basic Latin alphabet. This slightly expanded inventory resulted from two splits in the Early Modern era: ⟨J⟩ from ⟨I⟩ and ⟨U⟩ from ⟨V⟩; and one addition: ⟨W⟩. This modern form is the basis of the Latin script, which is the most widely used writing system in the world, often with diacritics or additional letters beyond the basic 26. The Latin script is used to write over 3,000 languages, spoken by about 70% of the global population, principally in western and central Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas and Oceania.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Latin alphabet” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.