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English alphabet The modern English alphabet is a Latin alphabet
consisting of 26 letters – the same letters that are found in the ISO basic Latin alphabet:
The exact shape of printed letters varies depending on the typeface. The shape of handwritten
letters can differ significantly from the standard printed form (and between individuals),
especially when written in cursive style. See the individual letter articles for information
about letter shapes and origins (follow the links on any of the uppercase letters above).
Written English uses a number of digraphs, such as ch, sh, th, wh, qu, etc., but they
are not considered separate letters of the alphabet. Some traditions also use two ligatures,
æ and œ, or consider the ampersand (&) part of the alphabet.
History Old English
The English language was first written in the Anglo-Saxon futhorc runic alphabet, in
use from the 5th century. This alphabet was brought to what is now England, along with
the proto-form of the language itself, by Anglo-Saxon settlers. Very few examples of
this form of written Old English have survived, these being mostly short inscriptions or fragments
The Latin script, introduced by Christian missionaries, began to replace the Anglo-Saxon
futhorc from about the 7th century, although the two continued in parallel for some time.
Futhorc influenced the emerging English alphabet by providing it with the letters thorn (Þ
þ) and wynn (Ƿ ƿ). The letter eth (Ð ð) was later devised as a modification of dee
(D d), and finally yogh (Ȝ ȝ) was created by Norman scribes from the insular g in Old
English and Irish, and used alongside their Carolingian g.
The a-e ligature ash (Æ æ) was adopted as a letter its own right, named after a futhorc
rune æsc. In very early Old English the o-e ligature ethel (Œ œ) also appeared as a
distinct letter, likewise named after a rune, œðel. Additionally, the v-v or u-u ligature
double-u (W w) was in use. In the year 1011, a writer named Byrhtferð
ordered the Old English alphabet for numerological purposes. He listed the 24 letters of the
Latin alphabet (including ampersand) first, then 5 additional English letters, starting
with the Tironian note ond (⁊) an insular symbol for and:
Modern English In the orthography of Modern English, thorn
(þ), eth (ð), wynn (ƿ), yogh (ȝ), ash (æ), and ethel (œ) are obsolete. Latin borrowings
reintroduced homographs of ash and ethel into Middle English and Early Modern English, though
they are not considered to be the same letters but rather ligatures, and in any case are
somewhat old-fashioned. Thorn and eth were both replaced by th, though thorn continued
in existence for some time, its lowercase form gradually becoming graphically indistinguishable
from the minuscule y in most handwriting. Y for th can still be seen in pseudo-archaisms
such as "Ye Olde Booke Shoppe". The letters þ and ð are still used in present-day Icelandic
and Faroese. Wynn disappeared from English around the 14th century when it was supplanted
by uu, which ultimately developed into the modern w. Yogh disappeared around the 15th
century and was typically replaced by gh. The letters u and j, as distinct from v and
i, were introduced in the 16th century, and w assumed the status of an independent letter,
so that the English alphabet is now considered to consist of the following 26 letters:
The variant lowercase form long s (ſ) lasted into early modern English, and was used in
non-final position up to the early 19th century. The ligatures æ and œ were until the 19th
century (slightly later in USA) used in formal writing for certain words of Greek or Latin
origin, such as encyclopædia and cœlom, although such ligatures were not used in either
classical Latin or ancient Greek. These are now rendered as "ae" and "oe" in all types
of writing, although in American English, a lone e has mostly supplanted both (for example,
encyclopedia for encyclopaedia, and fetus for foetus).
Diacritics Diacritic marks mainly appear in loanwords
such as naïve and façade. As such words become naturalised In English, there is a
tendency to drop the diacritics, as has happened with old borrowings such as hôtel, from French.
Informal English writing tends to omit diacritics because of their absence from the keyboard,
while professional copywriters and typesetters tend to include them. Words that are still
perceived as foreign tend to retain them; for example, the only spelling of soupçon
found in English dictionaries (the OED and others) uses the diacritic. Diacritics are
also more likely to be retained where there would otherwise be confusion with another
word (for example, résumé rather than resume), and, rarely, even added (as in maté, from
Spanish yerba mate, but following the pattern of café, from French).
Occasionally, especially in older writing, diacritics are used to indicate the syllables
of a word: cursed (verb) is pronounced with one syllable, while cursèd (adjective) is
pronounced with two. È is used widely in poetry, e.g. in Shakespeare's sonnets. Similarly,
while in chicken coop the letters -oo- represent a single vowel sound (a digraph), in obsolete
spellings such as zoölogist and coöperation, they represent two. An acute, grave or diaeresis
may also be placed over an 'e' at the end of a word to indicate that it is not silent,
as in saké. However, these devices are often not used even where they would serve to alleviate
some degree of confusion. Ampersand
The & has sometimes appeared at the end of the English alphabet, as in Byrhtferð's list
of letters in 1011. Historically, the figure is a ligature for the letters Et. In English
and many other languages it is used to represent the word and and occasionally the Latin word
et, as in the abbreviation &c (et cetera). In 2013, Australian restauranteur Paul Mathis
proposed the symbol Ћ, similar in appearance to the Cyrillic character Tshe, as a letter
in the alphabet to replace the word The, primarily as a means to save character space when sending
messages on phones or on Twitter. Apostrophe
The apostrophe, while not considered part of the English alphabet, is used to abbreviate
English words. A few pairs of words, such as its (belonging to it) and it's (it is or
it has), were (plural of was) and we're (we are), and shed (to get rid of) and she'd (she
would or she had) are distinguished in writing only by the presence or absence of an apostrophe.
The apostrophe also distinguishes the possessive endings -'s and -s' from the common plural
ending -s, a practice introduced in the 18th century; before, all three endings were written
-s, which could lead to confusion (as in, the Apostles words).
Letter names The names of the letters are rarely spelled
out, except when used in derivations or compound words (for example tee-shirt, deejay, emcee,
okay, aitchless, wye-level, etc.), derived forms (for example exed out, effing, to eff
and blind, etc.), and in the names of objects named after letters (for example em (space)
in printing and wye (junction) in railroading). The forms listed below are from the Oxford
English Dictionary. Vowels stand for themselves, and consonants usually have the form consonant
+ ee or e + consonant (e.g. bee and ef). The exceptions are the letters aitch, jay, kay,
cue, ar, ess (but es- in compounds ), wye, and zed. Plurals of consonants end in -s (bees,
efs, ems) or, in the cases of aitch, ess, and ex, in -es (aitches, esses, exes). Plurals
of vowels end in -es (aes, ees, ies, oes, ues); these are rare. Of course, all letters
may stand for themselves, generally in capitalized form (okay or OK, emcee or MC), and plurals
may be based on these (aes or As, cees or Cs, etc.)
Some groups of letters, such as pee and bee, or em and en, are easily confused in speech,
especially when heard over the telephone or a radio communications link. Spelling alphabets
such as the ICAO spelling alphabet, used by aircraft pilots, police and others, are designed
to eliminate this potential confusion by giving each letter a name that sounds quite different
from any other. Etymology
The names of the letters are for the most part direct descendents, via French, of the
Latin (and Etruscan) names. (See Latin alphabet: Origins.)
The regular phonological developments (in rough chronological order) are:
palatalization before front vowels of Latin /k/ successively to /tʃ/, /ts/, and finally
to Middle French /s/. Affects C. palatalization before front vowels of Latin
/ɡ/ to Proto-Romance and Middle French /dʒ/. Affects G.
fronting of Latin /uː/ to Middle French /yː/, becoming Middle English /iw/ and then Modern
English /juː/. Affects Q, U. the inconsistent lowering of Middle English
/ɛr/ to /ar/. Affects R. the Great Vowel Shift, shifting all Middle
English long vowels. Affects A, B, C, D, E, G, H, I, K, O, P, T, and presumably Y.
The novel forms are aitch, a regular development of Medieval Latin acca; jay, a new letter
presumably vocalized like neighboring kay to avoid confusion with established gee (the
other name, jy, was taken from French); vee, a new letter named by analogy with the majority;
double-u, a new letter, self-explanatory (the name of Latin V was ū); wye, of obscure origin
but with an antecedent in Old French wi; zee, an American leveling of zed by analogy with
the majority; and izzard, from the Romance phrase i zed or i zeto "and Z" said when reciting
the alphabet. Phonology
The letters A, E, I, O, and U are considered vowel letters, since (except when silent)
they represent vowels; the remaining letters are considered consonant letters, since when
not silent they generally represent consonants. However, Y commonly represents vowels as well
as a consonant (e.g., "myth"), as very rarely does W (e.g., "cwm"). Conversely, U sometimes
represents a consonant (e.g., "quiz"). Letter frequencies
The letter most frequently used in English is E. The least frequently used letter is
Z. The list below shows the frequency of letter
use in a particular sample of English, although the frequencies vary somewhat according to
the type of text.