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In a writing system, a letter is a grapheme that generally corresponds to a phoneme—the smallest functional unit of speech—though there is rarely total one-to-one correspondence between the two. An alphabet is a writing system that uses letters.
Definition and usage
A letter is a type of grapheme, the smallest functional unit within a writing system. Letters are graphemes that broadly correspond to phonemes, the smallest functional units of sound in speech. Similarly to how phonemes are combined to form spoken words, letters may be combined to form written words. A single phoneme may also be represented by multiple letters in sequence, collectively called a multigraph. Multigraphs include digraphs of two letters (e.g. English ch, sh, th), and trigraphs of three letters (e.g. English tch).
The same letterform may be used in different alphabets while representing different phonemic categories. The Latin H, Greek eta ⟨Η⟩, and Cyrillic en ⟨Н⟩ are homoglyphs, but represent different phonemes. Conversely, the distinct forms of ⟨S⟩, the Greek sigma ⟨Σ⟩, and Cyrillic es ⟨С⟩ each represent analogous /s/ phonemes.
Letters are associated with specific names, which may differ between languages and dialects. Z, for example, is usually called zed outside of the United States, where it is named zee. Both ultimately derive from the name of the parent Greek letter zeta ⟨Ζ⟩. In alphabets, letters are arranged in alphabetical order, which also may vary by language. In Spanish, ⟨ñ⟩ is considered to be a separate letter from ⟨n⟩, though this distinction is not usually recognised in English dictionaries. In computer systems, each has its own code point, U+006E n LATIN SMALL LETTER N and U+00F1 ñ LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH TILDE, respectively.
Letters may also function as numerals with assigned numerical values, for example with Roman numerals. Greek and Latin letters have a variety of modern uses in mathematics, science, and engineering.
People and objects are sometimes named after letters, for one of these reasons:
- The letter is an abbreviation, e.g. "G-man" as slang for a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, arose as short for "Government Man"
- Alphabetical order used as a counting system, e.g. Plan A, Plan B, etc.; alpha ray, beta ray, gamma ray, etc.
- The shape of the letter, e.g. A-clamp, A-frame, D-ring, F-clamp, G-clamp, H-block, H engine, O-ring, R-clip, S or Z twist, U engine, U-bend, V engine, W engine, X engine, Z-drive, a river delta, omega block
- Other reasons, e.g. X-ray after "x the unknown" in algebra, because the discoverer did not know what they were
The word letter entered Middle English c. 1200, borrowed from the Old French letre. It eventually displaced the previous Old English term bōcstæf 'bookstaff'. Letter ultimately descends from the Latin littera, which may have been derived from the Greek diphthera 'writing tablet' via Etruscan. Until the 19th century, letter was also used interchangeably to refer to a speech segment.
History
Before alphabets, phonograms, graphic symbols of sounds, were used. There were three kinds of phonograms: verbal, pictures for entire words, syllabic, which stood for articulations of words, and alphabetic, which represented signs or letters. The earliest examples of which are from Ancient Egypt and Ancient China, dating to c. 3000 BCE. The first consonantal alphabet emerged around c. 1800 BCE, representing the Phoenicians, Semitic workers in Egypt. Their script was originally written and read from right to left. From the Phoenician alphabet came the Etruscan and Greek alphabets. From there, the most widely used alphabet today emerged, Latin, which is written and read from left to right.
The Phoenician alphabet had 22 letters, nineteen of which the Latin alphabet used, and the Greek alphabet, adapted c. 900 BCE, added four letters to those used in Phoenician. This Greek alphabet was the first to assign letters not only to consonant sounds, but also to vowels.
The Roman Empire further developed and refined the Latin alphabet, beginning around 500 BCE. During the fifth and sixth centuries, the development of lowercase letters began to emerge in Roman writing. At this point, paragraphs, uppercase and lowercase letters, and the concept of sentences and clauses still had not emerged; these final bits of development emerged in the late 7th and early 8th centuries.
Finally, many slight letter additions and drops were made to the common alphabet used in the western world. Minor changes were made such as the removal of certain letters, such as thorn ⟨Þ þ⟩, wynn ⟨Ƿ ƿ⟩, and eth ⟨Ð ð⟩.
Types
Uppercase and lowercase
A letter can have multiple variants, or allographs, related to variation in style of handwriting or printing. Some writing systems have two major types of allographs for each letter: an uppercase form (also called capital or majuscule) and a lowercase form (also called minuscule). Upper- and lowercase letters represent the same sound, but serve different functions in writing. Capital letters are most often used at the beginning of a sentence, as the first letter of a proper name or title, or in headers or inscriptions. They may also serve other functions, such as in the German language where all nouns begin with capital letters.
The terms uppercase and lowercase originated in the days of handset type for printing presses. Individual letter blocks were kept in specific compartments of drawers in a type case. Capital letters were stored in a higher drawer or upper case.
Diacritics
In most alphabetic scripts, diacritics (or accents) are routinely used. English is unusual in not using them except for loanwords from other languages or personal names (for example, naïve, Brontë). The ubiquity of this usage is indicated by the existence of precomposed characters for use with computer systems (for example, ⟨á⟩, ⟨à⟩, ⟨ä⟩, ⟨â⟩, ⟨ã⟩.)
Examples in writing systems
In the following table, letters from multiple different writing systems are shown, to demonstrate the variety of letters used throughout the world.
| Example alphabet | Letters in example alphabet |
|---|---|
| Assamese | অ, আ, ই, ঈ, উ, ঊ, ঋ, এ, ঐ, ও, ঔ, ক, খ, গ, ঘ, ঙ, চ, ছ, জ, ঝ, ঞ, ট, ঠ, ড, ঢ, ণ, ত, থ, দ, ধ, ন, প, ফ, ব, ভ, ম, য, ৰ, ল, ৱ, শ, ষ, স, হ,ক্ষ, ড়, ঢ়, য়, ৎ, ং, ঃ, ঁ |
| Bengali | অ, আ, ই, ঈ, উ, ঊ, ঋ, এ, ঐ, ও, ঔ, ক, খ, গ, ঘ, ঙ, চ, ছ, জ, ঝ, ঞ, ট, ঠ, ড, ঢ, ণ, ত, থ, দ, ধ, ন, প, ফ, ব, ভ, ম, য, ল, শ, ষ, স, হ,ক্ষ, ড়, ঢ়, য়, ৎ, ং, ঃ, ঁ |
| Arabic | (Alphabetical from right to left) ﺍ, ﺏ, ﺕ, ﺙ, ﺝ, ﺡ, ﺥ, ﺩ, ﺫ, ﺭ, ﺯ, ﺱ, ﺵ, ﺹ, ﺽ, ﻁ, ﻅ, ﻉ, ﻍ, ﻑ, ﻕ, ﻙ, ﻝ, ﻡ, ﻥ, هـ, ﻭ, ﻱ |
| Armenian | Ա, Բ, Գ, Դ, Ե, Զ, Է, Ը, Թ, Ժ, Ի, Լ, Խ, Ծ, Կ, Հ, Ձ, Ղ, Ճ, Մ, Յ, Ն, Շ, Ո, Չ, Պ, Ջ, Ռ, Ս, Վ, Տ, Ր, Ց, Ւ, Փ, Ք, Օ, Ֆ |
| Syriac | (Alphabetical from right to left) ܐ, ܒ, ܓ, ܕ, ܗ, ܘ, ܙ, ܚ, ܛ, ܝ, ܟܟ, ܠ, ܡܡ, ܢܢ, ܣ, ܥ, ܦ, ܨ, ܩ, ܪ, ܫ, ܬ |
| Cyrillic script | А, Б, В, Г, Д, Е, Ё, Ж, З, И, Й, К, Л, М, Н, О, П, Р, С, Т, У, Ф, Х, Ц, Ч, Ш, Щ, Ъ, Ы, Ь, Э, Ю, Я |
| Georgian script | ა, ბ, გ, დ, ე, ვ, ზ, თ, ი, კ, ლ, მ, ნ, ო, პ, ჟ, რ, ს, ტ, უ, ფ, ქ, ღ, ყ, შ, ჩ, ც, ძ, წ, ჭ, ხ, ჯ, ჰ |
| Greek | Α, Β, Γ, Δ, Ε, Ζ, Η, Θ, Ι, Κ, Λ, Μ, Ν, Ξ, Ο, Π, Ρ, Σ, Τ, Υ, Φ, Χ, Ψ, Ω |
| Hebrew alphabet | (Alphabetical from right to left) א, ב, ג, ד, ה, ו, ז, ח, ט, י, כ, ל, מ, נ, ס, ע, פ, צ, ק, ר, ש, ת |
| Latin alphabet | 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 |
| Hangul | ㄱ ㄲ ㄴ ㄷ ㄸ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅃ ㅅ ㅆ ㅇ ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ ㅏ ㅐ ㅑ ㅒ ㅓ ㅔ ㅕ ㅖ ㅗ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅛ ㅜ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅠ ㅡ ㅢ ㅣ |
| Burmese | က ခ ဂ ဃ င စ ဆ ဇ ဈ ည ဋ ဌ ဍ ဎ ဏ တ ထ ဒ ဓ န ပ ဖ ဗ ဘ မ ယ ရ လ ဝ သ ဟ ဠ အ |
| Bopomofo | ㄅ ㄆ ㄇ ㄈ ㄉ ㄊ ㄋ ㄌ ㄍ ㄎ ㄏ ㄐ ㄑ ㄒ ㄓ ㄔ ㄕ ㄖ ㄗ ㄘ ㄙ ㄚ ㄛ ㄜ ㄝ ㄞ ㄟ ㄠ ㄡ ㄢ ㄣ ㄤ ㄥ ㄦ ㄧ ㄨ ㄩ ㄭ |
| Ogham | ᚁ ᚂ ᚃ ᚄ ᚅ ᚆ ᚇ ᚈ ᚉ ᚊ ᚋ ᚌ ᚍ ᚎ ᚏ ᚐ ᚑ ᚒ ᚓ ᚔ ᚕ ᚖ ᚗ ᚘ ᚙ ᚚ ᚛ ᚜ |
| Ethiopic | ሀ ለ ሐ መ ሠ ረ ሰ ሸ ቀ በ ተ ቸ ኀ ነ ኘ አ ከ ኸ ወ ዐ ዘ ዠ የ ደ ጀ ገ ጠ ጨ ጰ ጸ ፀ ፈ ፐ |
| Tifinagh (Amazigh alphabet) | ⴰ, ⴱ, ⵛ, ⴷ, ⴹ, ⴻ, ⴼ, ⴳ, , ⵀ, ⵃ, ⵉ, ⵊ, ⴽ, , ⵍ, ⵎ, ⵏ, ⵓ, ⵄ, ⵖ, ⵅ, ⵇ, ⵔ, ⵕ, ⵙ, ⵚ, ⵜ, ⵟ, ⵡ, ⵢ, ⵣ, ⵥ |
| Meetei Mayek | ꯀ, ꯁ, ꯂ, ꯃ, ꯄ, ꯅ, ꯆ, ꯈ, ꯉ, ꯊ, ꯋ, ꯌ, ꯍ, ꯎ, ꯏ, ꯐ, ꯑ, ꯒ, ꯓ, ꯔ, ꯕ, ꯖ, ꯗ, ꯘ, ꯙ, ꯚ, ꯛ, ꯜ, ꯝ, ꯞ, ꯟ, ꯠ, ꯡ, ꯢ, ꯥ, ꯤ, ꯨ, ꯦ, , ꯩ, ꯧ, ꯪ |
See also
- Abecedarium – Inscription consisting of the letters of an alphabet
- Constructed script – Writing system specifically created by an individual or group
- Character (computing) – Primitive data type
- Collation – Assembly of written information into a standard order
- Diacritic – Modifier mark added to a letter
- Glyph – Purposeful written mark
- History of the alphabet
- Ligature (writing) – Glyph combining two or more letterforms
- Orthography – Set of conventions for written language
- Typeface – Set of characters that share common design features
- Typography – Art of arranging type
References
Inline citations
- Rogers (2005), p. 13–14.
- Rogers (2005), p. 35.
- Harper, Douglas. "Origin and meaning of letter". Online Etymology Dictionary. Archived from the original on 2017-11-03.
- Abercrombie, David (1949). "What is a "letter?"". Lingua. 2: 54–63. doi:10.1016/0024-3841(49)90006-6.
- Taylor, Isaac (1899). The history of the alphabet; an account of the origin and development of letters. New York: C. Scribner's Sons.
- Mason, William Albert (1920). A history of the art of writing. New York: The Macmillan company – via HathiTrust.
- Taylor, Isaac (1879). Greeks and Goths: a study on the runes. London: Macmillan and co. – via HathiTrust.
- Rogers (2005), p. 10–11.
- Flippo, Hyde (February 14, 2020). "Capitalization in German". ThoughtCo. Archived from the original on 2021-11-19. Retrieved 2022-03-15.
- Hansard, Thomas Curson (1825). Typographia, an Historical Sketch of the Origin and Progress of the Art of Printing. p. 406. Retrieved 12 August 2015.
- Drogin, Marc (1980). Medieval Calligraphy: Its History and Technique. Courier Corporation. p. 37. ISBN 9780486261423. Archived from the original on 2022-01-23. Retrieved 2022-03-14.
General references
- Rogers, Henry (2005). Writing Systems. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-0631234647.
Further reading
- Clodd, Edward (1904). The Story of the Alphabet. [New York]: McClure, Phillips & Co.
- Daniels, Peter T, and William Bright, eds (1996). ISBN 0-19-507993-0.
- Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams (2014). An Introduction to Language (Tenth Ed.). [Boston]: Wadsworth Cengage. ISBN 978-1-1333-1068-6.
- Man, John (2005) [1941]. Alpha beta : how 26 letters shaped the Western world. [New York]: Barnes and Noble. ISBN 978-0-7607-6610-1. OCLC 60936567.
- Millard, AR (1986), "The Infancy of the Alphabet", World Archaeology, 17 (3): 390–398, doi:10.1080/00438243.1986.9979978
- Powell, Barry B. (1991). Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet. ISBN 978-0-521-58907-9 | ISBN 0-521-58907-X.
- Robinson, A (2003). "The Origins of Writing" in Crowley, David and Paul Heyer Communication in History : Technology, Culture, Society (Fourth Ed). [Boston]: Allyn and Bacon pp 34–40.
- Sacks, David (2003). Language Visible: unraveling the mystery of the alphabet from A to Z (First ed.). New York: Broadway Books. ISBN 978-0-7679-1172-6. OCLC 51210302.
External links
- Unicode Code Charts
This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Letter alphabet news newspapers books scholar JSTOR October 2009 Learn how and when to remove this message This page uses notation for orthographic or other linguistic analysis For the meaning of how and are used here see this page In a writing system a letter is a grapheme that generally corresponds to a phoneme the smallest functional unit of speech though there is rarely total one to one correspondence between the two An alphabet is a writing system that uses letters Definition and usageA letter is a type of grapheme the smallest functional unit within a writing system Letters are graphemes that broadly correspond to phonemes the smallest functional units of sound in speech Similarly to how phonemes are combined to form spoken words letters may be combined to form written words A single phoneme may also be represented by multiple letters in sequence collectively called a multigraph Multigraphs include digraphs of two letters e g English ch sh th and trigraphs of three letters e g English tch The same letterform may be used in different alphabets while representing different phonemic categories The Latin H Greek eta H and Cyrillic en N are homoglyphs but represent different phonemes Conversely the distinct forms of S the Greek sigma S and Cyrillic es S each represent analogous s phonemes Ancient inscription on a vase featuring Greek letters Letters are associated with specific names which may differ between languages and dialects Z for example is usually called zed outside of the United States where it is named zee Both ultimately derive from the name of the parent Greek letter zeta Z In alphabets letters are arranged in alphabetical order which also may vary by language In Spanish n is considered to be a separate letter from n though this distinction is not usually recognised in English dictionaries In computer systems each has its own code point U 006E n LATIN SMALL LETTER N and U 00F1 n LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH TILDE respectively Letters may also function as numerals with assigned numerical values for example with Roman numerals Greek and Latin letters have a variety of modern uses in mathematics science and engineering People and objects are sometimes named after letters for one of these reasons The letter is an abbreviation e g G man as slang for a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent arose as short for Government Man Alphabetical order used as a counting system e g Plan A Plan B etc alpha ray beta ray gamma ray etc The shape of the letter e g A clamp A frame D ring F clamp G clamp H block H engine O ring R clip S or Z twist U engine U bend V engine W engine X engine Z drive a river delta omega block Other reasons e g X ray after x the unknown in algebra because the discoverer did not know what they were The word letter entered Middle English c 1200 borrowed from the Old French letre It eventually displaced the previous Old English term bōcstaef bookstaff Letter ultimately descends from the Latin littera which may have been derived from the Greek diphthera writing tablet via Etruscan Until the 19th century letter was also used interchangeably to refer to a speech segment HistoryThe American manual alphabet an example of letters in fingerspelling Before alphabets phonograms graphic symbols of sounds were used There were three kinds of phonograms verbal pictures for entire words syllabic which stood for articulations of words and alphabetic which represented signs or letters The earliest examples of which are from Ancient Egypt and Ancient China dating to c 3000 BCE The first consonantal alphabet emerged around c 1800 BCE representing the Phoenicians Semitic workers in Egypt Their script was originally written and read from right to left From the Phoenician alphabet came the Etruscan and Greek alphabets From there the most widely used alphabet today emerged Latin which is written and read from left to right The Phoenician alphabet had 22 letters nineteen of which the Latin alphabet used and the Greek alphabet adapted c 900 BCE added four letters to those used in Phoenician This Greek alphabet was the first to assign letters not only to consonant sounds but also to vowels The Roman Empire further developed and refined the Latin alphabet beginning around 500 BCE During the fifth and sixth centuries the development of lowercase letters began to emerge in Roman writing At this point paragraphs uppercase and lowercase letters and the concept of sentences and clauses still had not emerged these final bits of development emerged in the late 7th and early 8th centuries Finally many slight letter additions and drops were made to the common alphabet used in the western world Minor changes were made such as the removal of certain letters such as thorn TH th wynn Ƿ ƿ and eth D d TypesUppercase and lowercase Transliterations and iconography of the Semitic script the first consonantal alphabet A letter can have multiple variants or allographs related to variation in style of handwriting or printing Some writing systems have two major types of allographs for each letter an uppercase form also called capital or majuscule and a lowercase form also called minuscule Upper and lowercase letters represent the same sound but serve different functions in writing Capital letters are most often used at the beginning of a sentence as the first letter of a proper name or title or in headers or inscriptions They may also serve other functions such as in the German language where all nouns begin with capital letters The terms uppercase and lowercase originated in the days of handset type for printing presses Individual letter blocks were kept in specific compartments of drawers in a type case Capital letters were stored in a higher drawer or upper case Engravings of decorated Latin letters from the 18th century note the lack of a J and a U Diacritics In most alphabetic scripts diacritics or accents are routinely used English is unusual in not using them except for loanwords from other languages or personal names for example naive Bronte The ubiquity of this usage is indicated by the existence of precomposed characters for use with computer systems for example a a a a a Ascenders as in h and descenders as in p make the height of lower case letters vary Examples in writing systemsVenn diagram of letters in the Greek Cyrillic and Latin alphabets Certain letters appear in two or more of these alphabets although they may not represent the same sound In the following table letters from multiple different writing systems are shown to demonstrate the variety of letters used throughout the world Example alphabet Letters in example alphabetAssamese অ আ ই ঈ উ ঊ ঋ এ ঐ ও ঔ ক খ গ ঘ ঙ চ ছ জ ঝ ঞ ট ঠ ড ঢ ণ ত থ দ ধ ন প ফ ব ভ ম য ৰ ল ৱ শ ষ স হ ক ষ ড ঢ য ৎ Bengali অ আ ই ঈ উ ঊ ঋ এ ঐ ও ঔ ক খ গ ঘ ঙ চ ছ জ ঝ ঞ ট ঠ ড ঢ ণ ত থ দ ধ ন প ফ ব ভ ম য ল শ ষ স হ ক ষ ড ঢ য ৎ Arabic Alphabetical from right to left ﺍ ﺏ ﺕ ﺙ ﺝ ﺡ ﺥ ﺩ ﺫ ﺭ ﺯ ﺱ ﺵ ﺹ ﺽ ﻁ ﻅ ﻉ ﻍ ﻑ ﻕ ﻙ ﻝ ﻡ ﻥ هـ ﻭ ﻱArmenian Ա Բ Գ Դ Ե Զ Է Ը Թ Ժ Ի Լ Խ Ծ Կ Հ Ձ Ղ Ճ Մ Յ Ն Շ Ո Չ Պ Ջ Ռ Ս Վ Տ Ր Ց Ւ Փ Ք Օ ՖSyriac Alphabetical from right to left ܐ ܒ ܓ ܕ ܗ ܘ ܙ ܚ ܛ ܝ ܟܟ ܠ ܡܡ ܢܢ ܣ ܥ ܦ ܨ ܩ ܪ ܫ ܬCyrillic script A B V G D E Yo Zh Z I J K L M N O P R S T U F H C Ch Sh Sh Y E Yu YaGeorgian script ა ბ გ დ ე ვ ზ თ ი კ ლ მ ნ ო პ ჟ რ ს ტ უ ფ ქ ღ ყ შ ჩ ც ძ წ ჭ ხ ჯ ჰGreek A B G D E Z H 8 I K L M N 3 O P R S T Y F X PS WHebrew alphabet Alphabetical from right to left א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש תLatin alphabet 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 ZHangul ㄱ ㄲ ㄴ ㄷ ㄸ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅃ ㅅ ㅆ ㅇ ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ ㅏ ㅐ ㅑ ㅒ ㅓ ㅔ ㅕ ㅖ ㅗ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅛ ㅜ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅠ ㅡ ㅢ ㅣBurmese က ခ ဂ ဃ င စ ဆ ဇ ဈ ည ဋ ဌ ဍ ဎ ဏ တ ထ ဒ ဓ န ပ ဖ ဗ ဘ မ ယ ရ လ ဝ သ ဟ ဠ အBopomofo ㄅ ㄆ ㄇ ㄈ ㄉ ㄊ ㄋ ㄌ ㄍ ㄎ ㄏ ㄐ ㄑ ㄒ ㄓ ㄔ ㄕ ㄖ ㄗ ㄘ ㄙ ㄚ ㄛ ㄜ ㄝ ㄞ ㄟ ㄠ ㄡ ㄢ ㄣ ㄤ ㄥ ㄦ ㄧ ㄨ ㄩ ㄭOgham ᚁ ᚂ ᚃ ᚄ ᚅ ᚆ ᚇ ᚈ ᚉ ᚊ ᚋ ᚌ ᚍ ᚎ ᚏ ᚐ ᚑ ᚒ ᚓ ᚔ ᚕ ᚖ ᚗ ᚘ ᚙ ᚚ Ethiopic ሀ ለ ሐ መ ሠ ረ ሰ ሸ ቀ በ ተ ቸ ኀ ነ ኘ አ ከ ኸ ወ ዐ ዘ ዠ የ ደ ጀ ገ ጠ ጨ ጰ ጸ ፀ ፈ ፐTifinagh Amazigh alphabet ⴰ ⴱ ⵛ ⴷ ⴹ ⴻ ⴼ ⴳ ⵀ ⵃ ⵉ ⵊ ⴽ ⵍ ⵎ ⵏ ⵓ ⵄ ⵖ ⵅ ⵇ ⵔ ⵕ ⵙ ⵚ ⵜ ⵟ ⵡ ⵢ ⵣ ⵥMeetei Mayek ꯀ ꯁ ꯂ ꯃ ꯄ ꯅ ꯆ ꯈ ꯉ ꯊ ꯋ ꯌ ꯍ ꯎ ꯏ ꯐ ꯑ ꯒ ꯓ ꯔ ꯕ ꯖ ꯗ ꯘ ꯙ ꯚ ꯛ ꯜ ꯝ ꯞ ꯟ ꯠ ꯡ ꯢ See alsoLanguage portalHistory portalAbecedarium Inscription consisting of the letters of an alphabet Constructed script Writing system specifically created by an individual or groupPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Character computing Primitive data type Collation Assembly of written information into a standard order Diacritic Modifier mark added to a letter Glyph Purposeful written mark History of the alphabet Ligature writing Glyph combining two or more letterforms Orthography Set of conventions for written language Typeface Set of characters that share common design features Typography Art of arranging typeReferencesInline citations Rogers 2005 p 13 14 Rogers 2005 p 35 Harper Douglas Origin and meaning of letter Online Etymology Dictionary Archived from the original on 2017 11 03 Abercrombie David 1949 What is a letter Lingua 2 54 63 doi 10 1016 0024 3841 49 90006 6 Taylor Isaac 1899 The history of the alphabet an account of the origin and development of letters New York C Scribner s Sons Mason William Albert 1920 A history of the art of writing New York The Macmillan company via HathiTrust Taylor Isaac 1879 Greeks and Goths a study on the runes London Macmillan and co via HathiTrust Rogers 2005 p 10 11 Flippo Hyde February 14 2020 Capitalization in German ThoughtCo Archived from the original on 2021 11 19 Retrieved 2022 03 15 Hansard Thomas Curson 1825 Typographia an Historical Sketch of the Origin and Progress of the Art of Printing p 406 Retrieved 12 August 2015 Drogin Marc 1980 Medieval Calligraphy Its History and Technique Courier Corporation p 37 ISBN 9780486261423 Archived from the original on 2022 01 23 Retrieved 2022 03 14 General references Rogers Henry 2005 Writing Systems Blackwell Publishing ISBN 978 0631234647 Further readingClodd Edward 1904 The Story of the Alphabet New York McClure Phillips amp Co Daniels Peter T and William Bright eds 1996 ISBN 0 19 507993 0 Fromkin Victoria Robert Rodman and Nina Hyams 2014 An Introduction to Language Tenth Ed Boston Wadsworth Cengage ISBN 978 1 1333 1068 6 Man John 2005 1941 Alpha beta how 26 letters shaped the Western world New York Barnes and Noble ISBN 978 0 7607 6610 1 OCLC 60936567 Millard AR 1986 The Infancy of the Alphabet World Archaeology 17 3 390 398 doi 10 1080 00438243 1986 9979978 Powell Barry B 1991 Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet ISBN 978 0 521 58907 9 ISBN 0 521 58907 X Robinson A 2003 The Origins of Writing in Crowley David and Paul Heyer Communication in History Technology Culture Society Fourth Ed Boston Allyn and Bacon pp 34 40 Sacks David 2003 Language Visible unraveling the mystery of the alphabet from A to Z First ed New York Broadway Books ISBN 978 0 7679 1172 6 OCLC 51210302 External linksWikimedia Commons has media related to Letters Look up letter in Wiktionary the free dictionary Unicode Code Charts
