Latin alphabet

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The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered excepting several letters splitting—i.e. Template:Angbr from Template:Angbr, and Template:Angbr from Template:Angbr—additions such as Template:Angbr, and extensions such as letters with diacritics, it forms the Latin script that is used to write most languages of modern Europe, Africa, America and Oceania. Its basic modern inventory is standardised as the ISO basic Latin alphabet.

Etymology

The term Latin alphabet may refer to either the alphabet used to write Latin (as described in this article) or other alphabets based on the Latin script, which is the basic set of letters common to the various alphabets descended from the classical Latin alphabet, such as the English alphabet. These Latin-script alphabets may discard letters, like the Rotokas alphabet, or add new letters, like the Danish and Norwegian alphabets. Letter shapes have evolved over the centuries, including the development in Medieval Latin of lower-case, forms which did not exist in the Classical period alphabet.

Evolution

Template:Broader The Latin alphabet evolved from the visually similar Etruscan alphabet, which evolved from the Cumaean Greek version of the Greek alphabet, which was itself descended from the Phoenician alphabet, which in turn derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The Etruscans ruled early Rome; their alphabet evolved in Rome over successive centuries to produce the Latin alphabet. During the Middle Ages, the Latin alphabet was used (sometimes with modifications) for writing Romance languages, which are direct descendants of Latin, as well as Celtic, Germanic, Baltic and some Slavic languages. With the age of colonialism and Christian evangelism, the Latin script spread beyond Europe, coming into use for writing indigenous American, Australian, Austronesian, Austroasiatic and African languages. More recently, linguists have also tended to prefer the Latin script or the International Phonetic Alphabet (itself largely based on the Latin script) when transcribing or creating written standards for non-European languages, such as the African reference alphabet.

Signs and abbreviations

Although Latin did not use diacritical marks, signs of truncation of words (often placed above or at the end of the truncated word) were very common. Furthermore, abbreviations or smaller overlapping letters were often used. This was due to the fact that if the text was engraved on stone, the number of letters to be written was reduced, while if it was written on paper or parchment, it saved precious space. This habit continued even in the Middle Ages. Hundreds of symbols and abbreviations exist, varying from century to century.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

History

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Origins

It is generally believed that the Latin alphabet used by the Romans was derived from the Old Italic alphabet used by the Etruscans. That alphabet was derived from the Euboean alphabet used by the Cumae, which in turn was derived from the Phoenician alphabet.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Old Italic alphabet

Duenos inscription

The Duenos inscription, dated to the 6th century BC, shows the earliest known form of the Old Latin alphabet.

Old Italic alphabet
Letters	𐌀	𐌁	𐌂	𐌃	𐌄	𐌅	𐌆	𐌇	𐌈	𐌉	𐌊	𐌋	𐌌	𐌍	𐌎	𐌏	𐌐	𐌑	𐌒	𐌓	𐌔	𐌕	𐌖	𐌗	𐌘	𐌙	𐌚
Transliteration	A	B	C	D	E	V	Z	H	Θ	I	K	L	M	N	Ξ	O	P	Ś	Q	R	S	T	Y	X	Φ	Ψ	F

Archaic Latin alphabet

Archaic Latin alphabet
As Old Italic	𐌀	𐌁	𐌂	𐌃	𐌄	𐌅	𐌆	𐌇	𐌉	𐌊	𐌋	𐌌	𐌍	𐌏	𐌐	𐌒	𐌓	𐌔	𐌕	𐌖	𐌗
As Latin	A	B	C	D	E	F	Z	H	I	K	L	M	N	O	P	Q	R	S	T	V	X

Old Latin alphabet

Latin included 21 different characters. The letter Template:Angle bracket was the western form of the Greek gamma, but it was used for the sounds Template:IPA and Template:IPA alike, possibly under the influence of Etruscan, which might have lacked any voiced plosives. Later, probably during the 3rd century BC, the letter Template:Angle bracket – not needed to write Latin properly – was replaced with the new letter Template:Angle bracket, a Template:Angle bracket modified with a small vertical stroke, which took its place in the alphabet. From then on, Template:Angle bracket represented the voiced plosive Template:IPA, while Template:Angle bracket was generally reserved for the voiceless plosive Template:IPA. The letter Template:Angle bracket was used only rarely, in a small number of words such as Kalendae, often interchangeably with Template:Angle bracket.

Old Latin alphabet
Letter	A	B	C	D	E	F	Z	G	H	I	K	L	M	N	O	P	Q	R	S	T	V	X

Classical Latin alphabet

After the Roman conquest of Greece in the 1st century BC, Latin adopted the Greek letters Template:Angle bracket and Template:Angle bracket (or readopted, in the latter case) to write Greek loanwords, placing them at the end of the alphabet. An attempt by the emperor Claudius to introduce three additional letters Template:Angle bracket did not last. Thus it was during the classical Latin period that the Latin alphabet contained 21 letters and 2 foreign letters:

Classical Latin alphabet
Letter	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	K	L	M	N	O	P	Q	R	S	T	V	X	Y	Z
Latin name (majus)	Template:Sm	Template:Sm	Template:Sm	Template:Sm	Template:Sm	Template:Sm	Template:Sm	Template:Sm	Template:Sm	Template:Sm	Template:Sm	Template:Sm	Template:Sm	Template:Sm	Template:Sm	Template:Sm Template:Sm	Template:Sm	Template:Sm	Template:Sm	Template:Sm	Template:Sm	Template:Sm	Template:Sm
Transliteration	ā	bē	cē	dē	ē	ef	gē	hā	ī	kā	el	em	en	ō	pē	qū	er	es	tē	ū	ix	Template:Nowrap	zēta
Latin pronunciation (IPA)	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA

File:Inscription displaying apices (from the shrine of the Augustales at Herculaneum).jpg

The apices in this first-century inscription are very light. (There is one over the Template:Sm in the first line.) The vowel I is written taller rather than taking an apex. The interpuncts are comma-shaped, an elaboration of a more typical triangular shape. From the shrine of the Augustales at Herculaneum.

The Latin names of some of these letters are disputed; for example, Template:Angle bracket may have been called Template:IPA or Template:IPA.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In general the Romans did not use the traditional (Semitic-derived) names as in Greek: the names of the plosives were formed by adding Template:IPA to their sound (except for Template:Angle bracket and Template:Angle bracket, which needed different vowels to be distinguished from Template:Angle bracket) and the names of the continuants consisted as a rule either of the bare sound, or the sound preceded by Template:IPA.

The letter Template:Angle bracket when introduced was probably called "hy" Template:IPA as in Greek, the name upsilon not being in use yet, but this was changed to Template:Lang ("Greek i") as Latin speakers had difficulty distinguishing its foreign sound Template:IPA from Template:IPA. Template:Angle bracket was given its Greek name, zeta. This scheme has continued to be used by most modern European languages that have adopted the Latin alphabet. For the Latin sounds represented by the various letters see Latin spelling and pronunciation; for the names of the letters in English see English alphabet.

Diacritics were not regularly used, but they did occur sometimes, the most common being the apex used to mark long vowels, which had previously sometimes been written doubled. However, in place of taking an apex, the letter i was written taller: Template:Angle bracket. For example, what is today transcribed Template:Lang was written Template:Angle bracket in the inscription depicted. Some letters have more than one form in epigraphy. Latinists have treated some of them especially such as Template:Angbr, a variant of Template:Angbr found in Roman Gaul.

File:Musée Saint-Raymond - 2016-06-18 - US 2185 - 2037.jpg

Inscription with triangle-shaped interpunct

The primary mark of punctuation was the interpunct, which was used as a word divider, though it fell out of use after 200 AD.

Old Roman cursive script, also called majuscule cursive and capitalis cursive, was the everyday form of handwriting used for writing letters, by merchants writing business accounts, by schoolchildren learning the Latin alphabet, and even emperors issuing commands. A more formal style of writing was based on Roman square capitals, but cursive was used for quicker, informal writing. It was most commonly used from about the 1st century BC to the 3rd century, but it probably existed earlier than that. It led to Uncial, a majuscule script commonly used from the 3rd to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Tironian notes were a shorthand system consisting of thousands of signs.

New Roman cursive script, also known as minuscule cursive, was in use from the 3rd century to the 7th century, and uses letter forms that are more recognizable to modern eyes; Template:Angle bracket, Template:Angle bracket, Template:Angle bracket, and Template:Angle bracket had taken a more familiar shape, and the other letters were proportionate to each other. This script evolved into a variety of regional medieval scripts (for example, the Merovingian, Visigothic and Benevantan scripts), to be later supplanted by the Carolingian minuscule.

Medieval and later developments

File:Ioanne Arnoldo 1541.PNG

De chalcographiae inventione (1541, Mainz) with the 23 letters. J, U and W are missing.

File:Rekenaar 1553.jpg

Jeton from Nuremberg, Template:Circa

It was not until the Middle Ages that the letter Template:Angle bracket (originally a ligature of two Template:Angle brackets) was added to the Latin alphabet, to represent sounds from the Germanic languages which did not exist in medieval Latin, and only after the Renaissance did the convention of treating Template:Angle bracket and Template:Angle bracket as vowels, and Template:Angle bracket and Template:Angle bracket as consonants, become established. Prior to that, the former had been merely allographs of the latter.Template:Citation needed

With the fragmentation of political power, the style of writing changed and varied greatly throughout the Middle Ages, even after the invention of the printing press. Early deviations from the classical forms were the uncial script, a development of the Old Roman cursive, and various so-called minuscule scripts that developed from New Roman cursive, of which the insular script developed by Irish literati and derivations of this, such as Carolingian minuscule were the most influential, introducing the lower case forms of the letters, as well as other writing conventions that have since become standard.

The languages that use the Latin script generally use capital letters to begin paragraphs and sentences and proper nouns. The rules for capitalization have changed over time, and different languages have varied in their rules for capitalization. Old English, for example, was rarely written with even proper nouns capitalized, whereas Modern English writers and printers of the 17th and 18th century frequently capitalized most and sometimes all nouns;<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> for example, from the preamble of the United States Constitution: Template:Blockquote This is still systematically done in modern German.

References

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External links

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