Alphabets derived from the Latin

Alphabets derived from the Latin

Variants of the Latin alphabet are used by the writing systems of many languages throughout the world. The tables below summarize and compare some of the alphabets known to the various contributors. In this article, the word "alphabet" is intentionally broadened to include letters with tone marks and other diacritics used to represent a wide range of orthographic traditions found in modern and classical literature, without special regard as to whether the modified letters have their own traditional alphabetic place or are interfiled, or whether the letters are in the sequence in the table or elsewhere. Peculiarities of the particular alphabet in question may be noted in footnotes, in referenced Wikipedia articles, or elsewhere on the Internet.

Basic Modern Latin alphabet

The Afrikaans, Basque [#n-eu| [4] , Breton, Catalan [#n-ca| [6] , Czech [#n-cs| [8] , Danish [#n-da| [9] , Dutch [#n-nl| [10] , English [#n-en| [36] , Estonian, Filipino [#n-tl| [11] , Finnish, French [#n-fr| [12] , German [#n-de| [13] , Hungarian [#n-hu| [15] , Interlingua, Kurdish, Modern Latin, Malay, Norwegian [#n-da| [9] , Pan-European, Slovak [#n-sk| [24] , Spanish [#n-es| [25] , Swedish, Võro, Xhosa, and Zulu alphabets include all 26 letters "at least" in their largest version, according to the references cited here.

Letters associated with H-Q

Letters associated with R-Z

Notes

*↑ In classical Latin, the digraphs "CH", "PH", "RH", "TH" were used in loanwords from Greek, but they were not included in the alphabet. The ligatures "Æ", "Œ" and "W", as well as lowercase letters, were added to the alphabet only in Middle Ages. The letters "J" and "U" were used as typographical variants of "I" and "V", respectively, roughly until the Enlightenment.
*↑ Albanian officially has the digraphs "dh, gj, ll, nj, rr, sh, th, xh, zh", which is sufficient to represent the Tosk dialect. The Gheg dialect supplements the official alphabet with 6 nasal vowels, namely â, ê, î, ô, û, ŷ.
*↑ Arbëresh apparently requires the digraphs "dh, gj, hj, ll, nj, rr, sh, th, xh, zh". Arbëresh has the distinctive hj, which is considered as a letter in its own right.
*↑ Basque has several digraphs: "dd, ll, rr, ts, tt, tx, tz". The ü, which is pronounced as /ø/, is required for various words in its Zuberoan dialect.
*↑ Belarusian also has several digraphs: "ch, dz, dź, dž".
*↑ Breton also has the digraphs "ch, c'h, zh".
* Catalan also has a large number of digraphs: "dz, gu, (gü), ig, ix, ll, l·l, nc, ny, qu, (qü), rr, ss, tz".
*↑ Corsican has the trigraphs: "chj, ghj".
*↑↑ Croatian also has the digraphs: "dž", "lj", "nj". It can also be written with four tone markers above on top of the vowels. Note that Croatian Latin is the same as Serbian Latin and they both map 1:1 to Serbian Cyrillic, where the three digraphs map to Cyrillic letters џ, љ and њ, respectively. Rarely, digraph "dj" is used instead of đ (Cyrillic ђ).
*↑ Czech also has the digraph: "ch".
* The Norwegian alphabet is currently identical with the Danish alphabet. C is part of both alphabets and is used in native Danish, but not in native Norwegian. Norwegian and Danish uses é in "én" and more uses, although é is considered a diacritic mark, while å, æ and ø are letters. Q, w, z are not used except for names and some foreign words.
* The status of "ij" as a letter in Dutch is disputed.
* English generally now uses extended Latin letters only in loan words. Rare publication guides may still use the dieresis on words, such as "coöperate", rather than the now-more-common "cooperate". For a fuller discussion, see articles branching from Lists of English words of international origin, which was used to determine the diacritics needed for more unambiguous English.
* Filipino also uses the digraph "ng", even originally with a large tilde that spanned both n and g (though its use is now rare).
* In standard French, uppercase diacritics are never obligatory, but always in good style. Many pairs or triplets are read as digraphs or trigraphs depending on context, but are not treated as such lexicographically: consonants "ph, (ng), th, gu/gü, qu, ce, ch/(sh/sch), rh"; vocal vowels "(ee), ai/ay, ei/ey, eu, au/eau, ou"; nasal vowels "ain/aim, in/im/ein, un/um/eun, an/am, en/em, om/on"; the half-consonant "-(i)ll-"; half-consonant and vowel pairs "oi, oin/ouin, ien, ion". When rules that govern the French orthography are not observed, they are read as separate letters, or using an approximating phonology of a foreign language for loan words, and there are many exceptions. In addition, most final consonants are mute (including those consonants that are part of feminine, plural, and conjugation endings). Accents on uppercase letters are generally obligatory in Canada.
* Galician. The standard of 1982 set also the digraphs "gu", "qu" (both always before "e" and "i"), "ch, ll, nh" and "rr". In addition, the standard of 2003 added the grapheme "ao" as an alternative writing of "ó". Although not marked (or forgotten) in the list of digraphs, they are used to represent the same sound, so the sequence "ao" should be considered as a digraph. Note also that "nh" represents a velar nasal (not a palatal as in Portuguese) and is restricted only to three feminine words, being either demonstrative or pronoun: "unha" ('a' and 'one'), "algunha" ('some') and "ningunha" ('not one'). The Galician "reintegracionismo" movement uses it as in Portuguese.
* German also retains most original letters in French loan words. Swiss German does not use "ß" any more. The long s "(ſ)" was in use until the mid-20th century. "Sch" is usually not treated like a true trigraph, neither are "ch " and "qu" digraphs. "Q" only appears in the sequence "qu", while "y" is found only (and "x" almost only) in loan words.
*↑ Guaraní also uses tilde over "e, i, y", and "g" (the last one not available precomposed in Unicode), as well as digraphs "ch, mb, nd, ng, nt, rr" and the glottal stop " ' ".
*↑ Hausa has the digraphs: "sh, ts".
*↑ Hungarian also has the digraphs: "cs, dz, gy, ly, ny, sz, ty, zs"; and the trigraph: "dzs".
*↑ Irish formerly used the dot diacritic in "ḃ, ċ, ḋ, ḟ, ġ, ṁ, ṗ, ṡ, ṫ". These have been replaced by the digraphs: "bh, ch, dh, fh, gh, mh, ph, sh, th" except for in formal instances.
*↑ Italian also has the digraphs: "ch, gh, gn, gl, sc". J, K, W, X, Y are used in foreign words. X is also used for native words derived from Latin and Greek.
*↑ Karakalpak also has the digraphs: "ch, sh". "C" used only in digraphs. "A', N', O', U"' are considered as letters. "ı" is lower case of "I" and "İ" is upper case of "i". "F, H, V, X" are used in foreign words.
*↑ Latvian also has the digraphs: "dz, dž, ie," as well as the triphthongal letter "o". "Dz" and "dž" are occasionally considered separate letters of the alphabet in more archaic examples (which have been published as recently as the 1950s,) however modern alphabets and teachings discourage this due to an ongoing effort to set decisive rules for Latvian (and eliminate barbaric words accumulated during the Soviet occupation.) The digraph "ie" is never considered a separate letter. The Latvian "o" is also the only single-letter triphthong in any language—in one letter it has the three vowel sounds "u," "o," and "a," which combine into "uoa."
*↑ Lithuanian also has the digraphs: "ch, dz, dž, ie, uo". However, these are not considered separate letters of the alphabet.
*↑ Maltese also has the digraphs: "ie, għ".
*↑ Māori uses "g" only in "ng" digraph. "Wh" is also a digraph.
*↑ Some Mohawk speakers use orthographic "i" in place of the consonant "y". The glottal stop is indicated with an apostrophe "’" and long vowels are written with a colon ":".
*↑ Piedmontese also uses the letter "n-" to indicate a velar nasal N-sound (pronounced as the gerundive termination in going), which usually precedes a vowel, as in lun-a [moon] .
*↑ Pinyin has four tone markers that can go on top of the any of the six vowels "(a, e, i, o, u, ü)"; e.g.: macron "(ā, ē, ī, ō, ū, ǖ)", acute accent "(á, é, í, ó, ú, ǘ)", caron "(ǎ, ě, ǐ, ǒ, ǔ, ǚ)", grave accent "(à, è, ì, ò, ù, ǜ)". It also uses the digraphs: "ch, sh, zh".
*↑ Polish also has the digraphs: "ch, cz, dz, dż, dź, sz, rz".
*↑ Portuguese also uses the digraphs "ch, lh, nh, ou, rr, ss". The trema on "ü" is currently only used in Brazilian Portuguese. Neither the digraphs nor accented letters are considered part of the alphabet.
*↑ Romani has the digraphs: "čh, dž, kh, ph, th".
* Slovak also has the digraphs: "dz, dž, ch" and unique letters "Ľ/ľ, Ĺ/ĺ".
* Spanish uses several digraphs to represented single sounds: "ch", "gu" (preceding "e" or "i"), "ll", "qu", "rr"; of these, the digraphs "ch" and "ll" were traditionally considered individual letters with their own name ("che", "elle") and place in the alphabet (after "c" and "l", respectively), but in order to facilitate international compatibility the Royal Spanish Academy decided to cease this practice in 1994 and all digraphs are now collated as combinations of two separate characters. The "c"-cedilla "ç" used earlier has been replaced completely by "z".
*↑ Swedish uses é in well integrated loan words like "idé" and "armé", although é is considered a modified e, while å, ä, ö are letters. á and à are rarely used words. W and z are used in some integrated words like webb and zon. Q, ü, è are used for names only, but exist in Swedish names. For foreign names ó, ë, ñ and more are sometimes used, but usually not. Swedish has many digraphs and some trigraphs. "ch", "dj", "lj", "rl", "rn", "rs", "sj", "sk", "si", "ti", "sch", "skj", "stj" and others are usually pronounced as one sound.
*↑ Uzbek also has the digraphs: "ch, ng, sh" considered as letters. "C" used only in digraphs. "G`, O`" and apostrophe (') are considered as letters. Latters has typographical variants: unicode|Gʻ, Oʻ and ʼ respective.
*↑ Vietnamese has five tone markers that can go on top (or below) any of the 12 vowels "(a, ă, â, e, ê, i, o, ô, ơ, u, ư, y)"; e.g.: grave accent "(à, ằ, ầ, è, ề, ì, ò, ồ, ờ, ù, ừ, ỳ)", hook above "(ả, ẳ, ẩ, ẻ, ể, ỉ, ỏ, ổ, ở, ủ, ử, ỷ)", tilde "(ã, ẵ, ẫ, ẽ, ễ, ĩ, õ, ỗ, ỡ, ũ, ữ, ỹ)", acute accent "(á, ắ, ấ, é, ế, í, ó, ố, ớ, ú, ứ, ý)", and dot below "(ạ, ặ, ậ, ẹ, ệ, ị, ọ, ộ, ợ, ụ, ự, ỵ)". It also uses the digraphs and trigraphs: "ch, gi, kh, ng, ngh, nh, ph, th, tr", but they are no longer considered letters.
*↑ Walloon has the digraphs and trigraphs: "ae, ch, dj, ea, jh, oe, oen, oi, sch, sh, tch, xh"; the letter "x" is only used in "xh" digraph, the letter "j" is almost only used in "dj" and "jh" digraphs
*↑ Welsh has the digraphs "ch, dd, ff, ng, ll, ph, rh, th". It also occasionally uses circumflexes, diaereses, acute accents and grave accents on its seven vowels "(a, e, i, o, u, w, y)", but accented characters are not regarded as separate letters of the alphabet.
*↑ Xhosa has a large number of digraphs, trigraphs, and even one tetragraph are used to represent various phonemes: "bh, ch, dl, dy, dz, gc, gq, gr, gx, hh, hl, kh, kr, lh, mb, mf, mh, n', nc, ndl, ndz, ngc, ngh, ngq, ngx, nh, nkc, nkq, nkx, nq, nx, ntl, ny, nyh, ph, qh, rh, sh, th, ths, thsh, ts, tsh, ty, tyh, wh, xh, yh, zh". It also occasionally uses acute accents, grave accents, circumflexes, and diaereses on its five vowels "(a, e, i, o, u)", but accented characters are not regarded as separate letters of the alphabet.

Miscellanea

*Africa Alphabet
*African reference alphabet
*All-India Alphabet (a subset of the International Phonetic Alphabet designed specifically for transliterating all the various languages of India)
*Beghilos
*Dinka alphabet
*Hawaiian alphabet
*International Phonetic Alphabet
*Łatynka for Ukrainian
*"L337" alphabet
*Montenegrin latin alphabet
* Various Romanization schemes
*Romany alphabet for most Romany languages
*Sámi latin alphabet
*Standard Alphabet by Lepsius
*Tatar alphabet, similar to Turkish alphabet and Jaŋalif as a part of Uniform Turkic alphabet
*Uralic Phonetic Alphabet

Footnotes

ee also

*Diacritic
*Digraph (orthography)
*Gaj's Latin alphabet, is the only script of the Croatian and Bosnian standard languages in current use, and one of the two scripts of the Serbian standard language.
*Latin characters in Unicode
*List of Latin letters
*List of precomposed Latin characters in Unicode
*Romanization
*Trigraph (orthography)
*Typographical ligature
*Writing systems of Africa
*
*
*
*
*

Further reading

*Michael Everson's [http://www.evertype.com/alphabets Alphabets of Europe]
* [http://euro.typo.cz/ Typo.cz Information on Central European typography and typesetting]
* [http://www.eki.ee/letter/ Letter database of the Institute of Estonian Language]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • History of the Latin alphabet — The Latin alphabet originated in the 7th century BC, undergoing a history of 2,500 years before emerging as one of the dominant writing systems in use today.OriginsIt is generally held that the Latins adopted the western variant of the Greek… …   Wikipedia

  • Latin — Infobox Language name=Latin nativename= la. Lingua Latina pronunciation=/laˈtiːna/ states=Vatican City speakers= Native: none Second Language Fluent: estimated at 5,000Fact|date=April 2007 Second Language Literate: estimated 25,000Fact|date=April …   Wikipedia

  • Latin alphabet — Infobox Writing system name=Latin alphabet type=Alphabet languages=Latin and Romance languages; most languages of Europe; Romanizations exist for practically all known languages. time= 700 B.C. to the present. fam1=Egyptian hieroglyphs fam2=Proto …   Wikipedia

  • Genealogy of scripts derived from Proto-Sinaitic — Nearly all the segmental scripts (loosely alphabets , but see below for more precise terminology) used around the globe appear to have derived from the Proto Sinaitic alphabet. These include the Latin alphabet mdash; forms of which are used today …   Wikipedia

  • Berber Latin alphabet — The Berber Latin alphabet is the version of the Latin alphabet commonly used to write Northern Berber languages. It uses the 23 standard letters, 7 modified letters and borrows 2 letters from the Greek alphabet. In the interests of pan dialectal… …   Wikipedia

  • Latin alphabet — the alphabetical script derived from the Greek alphabet through Etruscan, used from about the 6th century B.C. for the writing of Latin, and since adopted, with modifications and additions of letters such as w, by the languages of Western Europe …   Universalium

  • The Gallican Rite —     The Gallican Rite     † Catholic Encyclopedia ► The Gallican Rite     This subject will be treated under the following six heads:     I. History and Origin; II. MSS. and Other Sources; III. The Liturgical Year; IV. The Divine Office; V. The… …   Catholic encyclopedia

  • List of Latin letters — List of Latin letters.Basic alphabetExtensions and ligaturesLetters with diacriticsDigraphs, trigraphs, and tetragraphsee also*Alphabets derived from the Latin *Latin characters in Unicode * * * * * *Footnotes …   Wikipedia

  • List of precomposed Latin characters in Unicode — This is the list of all precomposed characters in Unicode. Unicode typefaces (e.g. Fixedsys Excelsior) may be needed for these to display correctly. Latin Alphabets with diacritics Ligatures Row cell order. See also *Alphabets derived from the… …   Wikipedia

  • History of the alphabet — The history of the alphabet begins in Ancient Egypt, more than a millennium into the history of writing. The first pure alphabet emerged around 2000 BCE to represent the language of Semitic workers in Egypt (see Middle Bronze Age alphabets), and… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”