English Alphabet Wikipedia

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Dec 27, 2025, 9:47 PM

Modern English is written with a Latin-script alphabet consisting of 26 letters, with each having both uppercase and lowercase forms. The word alphabet is a compound of alpha and beta, the names of the first two letters in the Greek alphabet. The earliest Old English writing during the 5th century used a runic alphabet known as the futhorc. The Old English Latin alphabet was adopted from the 7th century onward—and over the following centuries, various letters entered and fell out of use. By the 16th century, the present set of 26 letters had largely stabilised: There are 5 vowel letters (A, E, I, O, U) and 19 consonant letters—as well as 2 letters (Y and W) which may function as either type.

Written English has a large number of digraphs, such as ⟨ch⟩, ⟨ea⟩, ⟨oo⟩, ⟨sh⟩, and ⟨th⟩. Diacritics are generally not used to write native English words, which is unusual among orthographies used to write the languages of Europe. The names of the letters are commonly spelled out in compound words and initialisms (e.g., tee-shirt, deejay, emcee, okay, etc.), derived forms (e.g., exed out,[a] effing,[b] to eff and blind, aitchless,[c] etc.), and objects... The spellings listed below are from the Oxford English Dictionary. Plurals of consonant names are formed by adding -s (e.g., bees, efs or effs, ems) or -es in the cases of aitches, esses, exes. Plurals of vowel names also take -es (i.e., aes, ees, ies, oes, ues), but these are rare.

For a letter as a letter, the letter itself is most commonly used, generally in capitalised form, in which case the plural just takes -s or -'s (e.g. Cs or c's for cees). The most common diacritic marks seen in English publications are the acute (é), grave (è), circumflex (â, î, or ô), tilde (ñ), umlaut and diaeresis (ü or ï – the same symbol is used... English belongs to the Anglo-Frisian branch of the Germanic language family. It is related to Scots, Dutch, Frisian and other Germanic languages. It has a significant amount of vocabulary from Old Norse, Norman French, Latin and Greek, and loanwords from many other languages.

There are about 1.2 billion speakers of English. Some 350 million people speak English as a native language, and a further 850 million speak it as a second or foreign language. Countries where English is widely spoken include: the UK, Ireland, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore, Malaysia, Malta, Cyprus, Barbados, Marshall Islands, Jamaica, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, US Virgin Islands, Dominica, Palau, Grenada,... English evolved from the Germanic languages brought to Britain by the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and other Germanic tribes from about the 5th Century AD. These languages are known collectively as Anglo-Saxon or Old English, and began to appear in writing during the 5th century AD in a runic alphabet. English acquired vocabulary from Old Norse after Norsemen starting settling in parts of Britain, particularly in the north and east, from the 9th century.

To this day varieties of English spoken in northern England contain more words of Norse origin than other varieties of English. They are also said to retain some aspects of pronunciation from Old Norse. The Norman invasion of 1066 brought with it a deluge of Norman and Latin vocabulary, and for the next three centuries English became a mainly oral language spoken by ordinary people, while the nobility... When English literature began to reappear in the 13th century the language had lost the inflectional system of Old English, and the spelling had changed under Norman influence. For example, the Old English letters þ (thorn) and ð (eth) were replaced by th or y, is in Ye Olde Shope. This form of English is known as Middle English.

English is written with the Latin alphabet. It consists of 26 letters: Lower-case 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 Upper-case 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 Each letter has a lower-case and an upper-case (or capital) form. In some cases (e.g.

the letters S, X, and O), the upper-case form is simply a larger version of the lower-case. However, some letters have differing forms in upper- and lower-case, such as A, Q, and T. Lower-case letters evolved from modified forms of the upper-case letters, which were used in ancient times. The English alphabet consists of 26 letters . Each letter has an uppercase ("capital letter") and a lowercase ("small letter") form. The English language uses the twenty-six Latin script basic 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. Certain classes of words are, or were formerly, written with diacritics. One such class is certain words borrowed from other languages, including the words café, façade, Führer and naïve. Another class uses diaeresis to indicate in a pairing of identical vowels that the second vowel is to be pronounced separately from the first. In this case, the second vowel is either pronounced differently, as in reëxamine, or just pronounced separately with a slight hiatus or y sound, as in reëlect. This list of words that may be spelled with a ligature in English encompasses words which have letters that may, in modern usage, either be rendered as two distinct letters or as a single,...

This includes AE being rendered as Æ (an æsc or ash) and OE being rendered as Œ (an œthel). Note that when a c is before a ligature, it makes the sound /s/ rather than /k/ as might be expected (because it has the pronunciation of e). The English alphabet has 26 letters. In "alphabetical order", they are: 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 Five of the letters are "vowels": a e i o u

The remaining twenty-one letters are "consonants". We can write each letter as a "large letter" (capital) or "small letter". The English alphabet has a fascinating history, and the development of each letter of the alphabet has its own story. Although English is widely spoken, for the non-English speakers, the English language is one of the most difficult languages to learn. Indeed, there are many consistencies in English because several different languages came into the picture during its years of development. Scholars, missionaries and conquerors shaped the English language into what we know and speak today.

The early alphabetic writing started about four thousand years ago. According to many scholars, it was in Egypt that alphabetic writing developed between 1800 and 1900 BC. The origin was a Proto-Sinaitic (Proto-Canaanite) form of writing that was not very well known. About 700 years after, the Phoenicians developed an alphabet based on the earlier foundations. It was widely used in the Mediterranean, including southern Europe, North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula and the Levant. The alphabet was made up of 22 letters, all of the consonants.

In 750 BC, the Greeks added vowels to the Phoenician alphabet and the combination was regarded as the initial true alphabet. This was seized by the Latins (Romans) and combined with some Etruscan characters such as the letter S and F. Around the third century, ancient Latin script removed the letters G, J, V/U, W, Y and Z. When the Roman Empire was ruling parts of the world, they introduced the Roman alphabet derived from the Latin version, although the letters J, U/V and W were still omitted. When the Roman Empire reached Britain, they brought with them the Latin language. Britain at that time was under the control of the Anglo-Saxons, a Germanic tribe that used Old English as their language.

At that time Old English was using Futhorc, an older alphabet. It was also called a runic alphabet. Published on June 13, 2025 by Gina Rancaño, BA The English alphabet is composed of 26 letters, which are: Each letter has an uppercase form (above) and a lowercase form: Like many modern alphabets, the English alphabet can be traced back to the Phoenician (Semitic) alphabet, which consisted of 22 letters (all consonants) and was used in ancient Phoenicia.

Eventually, the Greeks shortened the Semitic alphabet and designated certain symbols to represent vowel sounds. Later, the Romans developed their version of the Greek alphabet. It is generally believed that the Roman alphabet reached England by way of Ireland during the early period of Old English. The English word alphabet (which has Latin origins), can be traced back to the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: “alpha” and “beta.” Modern English is written with a Latin-script alphabet consisting of 26 letters, with each having both uppercase and lowercase forms. The word alphabet is a compound of alpha and beta, the names of the first two letters in the Greek alphabet.

The earliest Old English writing during the 5th century used a runic alphabet known as the futhorc. The Old English Latin alphabet was adopted from the 7th century onward—and over the following centuries, various letters entered and fell out of use. By the 16th century, the present set of 26 letters had largely stabilised: There are 5 vowel letters (A, E, I, O, U) and 19 consonant letters—as well as 2 letters (Y and W) which may function as either type. Written English has a large number of digraphs, such as ⟨ch⟩, ⟨ea⟩, ⟨oo⟩, ⟨sh⟩, and ⟨th⟩. Diacritics are generally not used to write native English words, which is unusual among orthographies used to write the languages of Europe.

The names of the letters are commonly spelled out in compound words and initialisms (e.g., tee-shirt, deejay, emcee, okay, etc.), derived forms (e.g., exed out,[a] effing,[b] to eff and blind, aitchless,[c] etc.), and objects... The spellings listed below are from the Oxford English Dictionary. Plurals of consonant names are formed by adding -s (e.g., bees, efs or effs, ems) or -es in the cases of aitches, esses, exes. Plurals of vowel names also take -es (i.e., aes, ees, ies, oes, ues), but these are rare. For a letter as a letter, the letter itself is most commonly used, generally in capitalised form, in which case the plural just takes -s or -'s (e.g. Cs or c's for cees).

The most common diacritic marks seen in English publications are the acute (é), grave (è), circumflex (â, î, or ô), tilde (ñ), umlaut and diaeresis (ü or ï – the same symbol is used...

English Alphabet Wikipedia

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