TheLatin script is the most widely usedalphabetic writing system in the world.^[1] It is the standard script of the English language and is often referred to simply as "the alphabet" in English. It is atrue alphabet which originated in the 7th century BC in Italy and has changed continually over the last 2,500 years. It has roots in theSemitic alphabet and its offshoot alphabets, thePhoenician,Greek, andEtruscan. The phonetic values of some letterschanged, some letters were lost and gained, and several writing styles ("hands") developed. Two such styles, theminuscule andmajuscule hands, were combined into one script with alternate forms for the lower and uppercase letters. Modern uppercase letters differ only slightly from their classical counterparts, and there are few regional variants.

The Latin alphabet started out as uppercaseserifed letters known asRoman square capitals. The lowercase letters evolved through cursive styles that developed to adapt the inscribed alphabet to being written with a pen. Over the ages many dissimilar stylistic forms of each letter evolved but, when not becoming a recognised subform to transliterate exotic tongues, denoted the same letter. After the evolution from the Western Greek Alphabet throughOld Italic alphabet, G developed from C, the consonantal I (namely J) from a flourished I, V and U split likewise and the Germanic-centred ligature of VV became W, the letter thornÞ was introduced from therunic alphabet but was lost in all except Icelandic, and s would be normally written as along s (ſ), and when coming beforez, it formed the ligatureß, which has survived in German to this day as a separate letter. S would settle as it appears today aterminal s (as it always had been at a word's end) after the 7th century AD – the internal forms were widely deprecated by the 19th century.

However, thanks toclassical revival,Roman capitals were reintroduced byhumanists making old Latin inscriptions easily legible while many medievalmanuscripts are unreadable to an untrained modern reader, due to unfamiliar letterforms, narrow spacing andabbreviation marks save for the apostrophe andCarolingian minuscule letters (lower caps).

Thephonetic value of some letters has changed in live languages whether or not fromLatin origins, each seeing diverse softenings, drifts or phonetic complications such as inItalian,English,Dutch andFrench. Vowels have also evolved with notably great vowel shifts inEnglish andPortuguese. Orthography does not fully match phonetics – an illustration being that⟨o⟩ became used rather than⟨u⟩ when beforei, m, n, v, w for legibility, namely to avoid a succession of vertical strokes, in English.^[2] Within each language there arehomophonic heterographs (words written differently but sounding the same) and the adoption ofdigraphs for new sounds, such as⟨sh⟩ for thevoiceless postalveolar fricative in English, being⟨ch⟩ in French, yet⟨ch⟩ in Italian denotes k or the very basic words that began qu and their derivations. A theme for digraphs is widespread use of h as a second letter, avoiding diacritics onto, under, or over the first letter (unavailable in most basicprinting presses) as in Romance languages h is usually a voiceless remnant.

It is generally held that theLatins derived their alphabet from theEtruscan alphabet. The Etruscans, in turn, derived their alphabet from the Greek colony ofCumae in Italy, who used a Western variant of the Greek alphabet, which was in turn derived from thePhoenician alphabet, itself derived fromEgyptian hieroglyphs. The Latins ultimately adopted 21 of the original 26 Etruscan letters.

Gaius Julius Hyginus, who recorded much Roman mythology, mentions inFab. 277 the legend that it wasCarmenta, theCimmerian Sibyl, who altered fifteen letters of the Greek alphabet to become the Latin alphabet, which her sonEvander introduced into Latium, supposedly 60 years before theTrojan War, but there is no historically sound basis to this tale.

TheParcae,Clotho,Lachesis, andAtropos invented seven Greek letters – A B H T I Y. Others say that Mercury invented them from the flight of cranes, which, when they fly, form letters.Palamedes, too, son ofNauplius, invented eleven letters;Simonides, too, invented four letters – O E Z PH;Epicharmus of Sicily, two – P and PS. The Greek letters Mercury is said to have brought to Egypt, and from Egypt Cadmus took them to Greece. Cadmus in exile from Arcadia, took them to Italy, and his mother Carmenta changed them to Latin to the number of 15. Apollo on the lyre added the rest.^[3]

Below is a table synoptically showing selected Proto-Sinaitic signs and the proposed correspondences with Phoenician letters. Also shown are the sound values, names, and descendants of the Phoenician letters.^[4]

Possible correspondences between Hieroglyphs, Phoenician and Latin alphabets

Hieroglyph	Proto-Sinaitic	IPA value	Reconstructed name	Proto-Canaanite	Phoenician	Archaic Greek	Modern Greek (for reference)	Etruscan	Latin
		/ʔ/	ʾalp "ox"				Α	𐌀	A
		/b/	bayt "house"				Β	𐌁	B
		/g/	gaml "throwstick"				Γ	𐌂	CG
		/d/	dag "fish"				Δ	𐌃	D
		/h/	haw/hillul "praise"				Ε	𐌄	E
		/w/	waw/uph "fowl"				Ϝ	𐌅	F
							Υ	𐌖	UVWY
		/z/	zayn/zayt "sword"				Z	𐌆	Z
		/ð/	ḏiqq "manacle"
		/ħ/	ḥaṣr "courtyard"				Η	𐌇	H
		/x/	ḫayt "thread"
		/j/	yad "hand"				Ι	I	IJ
		/k/	kap "palm"				Κ	𐌊	K
		/l/	lamd "goad"				Λ	𐌋ϟ	L
		/m/	maym "water"				Μ	𐌌	M
		/n/	naḥaš "snake"				Ν	𐌍	N
		/ʕ/	ʿayn "eye"				Ο	𐌏	O
	𓎛	/ɣ/	ġabiʿ "calyx"
		/p/	pʿit "corner"				Π	𐌐	P
		/kˤ/ or /q/	qoba "needle/nape/monkey"				Φ	𐌘	Q
		/r/	raʾš "head"				Ρ	𐌓	R
		/ʃ/	šimš "sun"				Σ	𐌔	S
		/ɬ/	śadeh "field, land"
		/θ/	ṯann "bow"				Τ	𐌕	T
		/t/	tāw "mark"
N/A							Χ	𐌗	X

The original Latin alphabet was:

The oldest Latin inscriptions do not distinguish between/ɡ/ and/k/, represented both by C, K and Q according to position. This is explained by the fact that theEtruscan language did not make this distinction. K was used before A; Q was used (if at all) before O or V; C was used elsewhere. C derived from Greek Gamma (Γ) and Q from GreekKoppa (Ϙ). In later Latin, K survived only in a few forms such asKalendae; Q survived only before V (representing/kw/), and C was used everywhere else. G was later invented to distinguish between/ɡ/ and/k/; it was originally simply a C with an additional stroke.

• C stood for both/k/ and/ɡ/.
• I stood for both/i/ and/j/.
• V stood for both/u/ and/w/.

K was marginalized in favour ofC, which afterward stood for both /ɡ/ and /k/.

Probably during the 3rd century BC, theZ was dropped and a new letterG was placed in its position – according toPlutarch, bySpurius Carvilius Ruga – so that afterward, C = /k/, G = /ɡ/.

Old Latin could be written fromright to left (as were Etruscan and early Greek) orboustrophedon, while writing after the first century BC was almost always left-to-right.^[5]

An attempt by the emperorClaudius to introduce threeadditional letters was short-lived, but after the conquest ofGreece in the 1st century BC the letters Y and Z were, respectively, adopted and readopted from the Greek alphabet and placed at the end. Now the new Latin alphabet contained 23^[6] letters:

The Latin names of some of the letters are disputed. In general, however, the Romans did not use the traditional (Semitic-derived) names as in Greek, but adopted the simplified names of the Etruscans, which derived from saying the sounds of the letters: the vowels stood for themselves, the names of thestop consonant letters were formed by adding the neutral vowele, which in Latin became/eː/ (except for K and Q, which were distinguished from C by appending the vowel which followed them in Etruscan orthography), and the names of thecontinuant consonants were formed by preceded the sound with/e/. X was named/eks/ rather than/kseː/, as/ks/ could not begin a word in Latin (and possibly Etruscan). When the letter Y was introduced into Latin, it was probably calledhy/hyː/ as in Greek (the nameupsilon being not yet in use), but was changed toi Graeca ("Greek i") as Latin speakers had difficulty distinguishing the sounds/i/ and/y/. Z was given its Greek name,zeta, when it was borrowed.^[7] For the Latin sounds represented by the various letters seeLatin spelling and pronunciation; for the names of the letters in English seeEnglish alphabet and for the sounds in English seeEnglish phonetics.

Roman cursive script, also calledmajuscule 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 byemperors issuing commands. A more formal style of writing was based onRoman 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 AD, but it probably existed earlier than that.

The Latin alphabet spread fromItaly, along with theLatin language, to the lands surrounding theMediterranean Sea with the expansion of theRoman Empire. The eastern half of the Roman Empire, includingGreece,Asia Minor, theLevant, andEgypt, continued to useGreek as alingua franca, but Latin was widely spoken in the western half of the Empire, and as the westernRomance languages, includingFrench,Italian,Portuguese,Spanish andCatalan, evolved out of Latin they continued to use and adapt the Latin alphabet. In the East, it evolved forming theRomanian language.

Some of the letters had variant shapes inepigraphy:

• ⟨Ꟶ⟩ was used occasionally instead of⟨H⟩ inRoman Gaul.
• ⟨ꟾ⟩ was sometimes used to mark a long⟨I⟩.
• ⟨ꟷ⟩ was used inSub-Roman Britain for the⟨I⟩ in some grammatical roles.

Thelower case (minuscule) letters developed in theMiddle Ages fromNew Roman Cursive writing, first as theuncial script, and later as minuscule script. The old Roman letters were retained for formal inscriptions and for emphasis in written documents. The languages that use the Latin alphabet generally use capital letters to begin paragraphs and sentences and for 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 capitalised; whereas Modern English of the 18th century had frequently all nouns capitalised, in the same way that ModernGerman is today.

The use of the letters I and V for both consonants and vowels proved inconvenient as the Latin alphabet was adapted to Germanic and Romance languages.W originated as a doubledV (VV) used to represent the sound[w] found inOld English as early as the 7th century. It came into common use in the later 11th century, replacing the runicWynn letter which had been used for the same sound. In the Romance languages, the minuscule form of V was a roundedu; from this was derived a rounded capital U for the vowel in the 16th century, while a new, pointed minusculev was derived from V for the consonant. In the case of I, a word-finalswash form,j, came to be used for the consonant, with the un-swashed form restricted to vowel use. Such conventions were erratic for centuries. J was introduced into English for the consonant in the 17th century (being rare as a vowel), but it was not universally considered a distinct letter in the alphabetic order until the 19th century.

The names of the letters were largely unchanged, with the exception of H. As the sound/h/ disappeared from the Romance languages, the original Latin namehā became difficult to distinguish from A. Emphatic forms such as[aha] and[axxa] were used, developing eventually intoacca, the direct ancestor of Englishaitch.^[8]

With the spread ofprinting, several styles of Latintypography emerged withtypefaces based on variousminuscules of the Middle Ages depending on the region. In Germany, starting withJohannes Gutenberg the commonly usedtypefaces were based onblackletter scripts, a tradition that lasted until the 20th century, an example of the later typefaces used isfraktur.

InItaly, due to therevival of classical culture, the heavy gothic styles were soon displaced byVenetian Latin types, also calledantiqua, which were based on theinscriptional capitals onRoman buildings andmonuments. However,humanist scholars of the early 15th century mistookCarolingian minuscule as the authentic writing style of the Romans and redesigned the small Carolingian letter, lengthening ascenders and descenders, and adding incised serifs and finishing strokes to integrate them with the Roman capitals. By the timemoveable type reached Italy several decades later, the humanistic writing had evolved into a consistent model known ashumanistic minuscule, which served as the basis for Venetian typeface.

In addition to the aforementioned square capitals used in architecture, in the Roman empire and in the Middle Ages for rapidly written vernacular documentsroman cursive or even a form of shorthand, calledtironian notes, were used.

Whereas the meticulously drawn textualis quadrata was the most common script for religious works, starting from the 13th century a common style of handwriting for vernacular work, which were written at speed, wassecretary hand, acursive script, which features amongst several ligatures and contraction distinctive strong "elephant's ear" ascenders and descenders^[9]

In the 16th–17th centuries secretary hand was slowly replaced byitalic scripts, a semi-cursive group of scripts. Early italic hand, dating from the 15th century, was based onhumanist minuscule with pronounced serifs, asingle story a,open tailed g, slight forward slope and in the late renaissance could have been written withflourishes andswashes. Italic hand developed into Cancelleresca (chancery) corsiva (also an italic script) used forVatican documents from the middle of the 16th century, which featured a more prominent slope and lavish swashes (often curled) on capitals.

Additionally this script led to theitalic type in typography, which could be used within a text written inRoman type (e.g. "Thetaxonomic name of the red fox isVulpes vulpes") and thanks toEdward Johnston this script has enjoyed a revival in the 20th century.

Note: "Italic hand" (a semi-cursive script), "Italian hand" (a copperplate cursive script) and "Italictype" (a typeface) are different concepts.

From the italic scripts after the 16th century, more cursive forms evolved, known asCopperplate script due to way the calligraphy books were printed. These scripts reached their height in the 18–19th century. The main examples were the Italian hand and the English round-hand, which in Britain were taught to men and women respectively, these scripts feature flowing letters which could be written with a single pen lift (with the exception of x and the marks added after writing the word which were dots on i and j and the bar of the ascender of t) with straight or looped ascenders and descenders. In Italy, Italian hand is instead known as "posata" (posed).

Several national styles of cursive were developed, such asSpencerian Script in the US. Despite the recent decline, in several countries cursive scripts are still taught in schools today^{[example needed]}, often modified to be more similar to roman type letters (tailless z, w-like instead of a 90° CW turned s for w, capitals without "belly" or swashes, forward-facing capital F etc.).

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With the spread ofWestern Christianity the Latin alphabet spread to the peoples ofnorthern Europe who spokeGermanic languages, displacing their earlierRunic alphabets, as well as to the speakers ofBaltic languages, such asLithuanian andLatvian, and several (non-Indo-European)Uralic languages, most notablyHungarian,Finnish andEstonian. During theMiddle Ages the Latin alphabet also came into use among the peoples speakingWest Slavic languages, including the ancestors of modernPoles,Czechs,Croats,Slovenes, andSlovaks, as these peoples adopted Roman Catholicism. Speakers ofEast Slavic languages generally adopted bothOrthodox Christianity andCyrillic script.

As late as 1492, the Latin alphabet was limited primarily to the languages spoken in western, northern andcentral Europe. The Orthodox Christian Slavs of eastern andsoutheastern Europe mostly used the Cyrillic alphabet, and the Greek alphabet was still in use by Greek-speakers around the eastern Mediterranean. TheArabic alphabet was widespread within Islam, both amongArabs and non-Arab nations like theIranians,Indonesians,Malays, andTurkic peoples. Most of the rest of Asia used a variety ofBrahmic alphabets or theChinese script.

By the 18th century, the standard Latin alphabet, cemented by the rise of theprinting press, comprised the 26 letters we are familiar with today, albeit inRomance languages the letter⟨w⟩ was until the 19th century very rare.

Duringcolonialism, the alphabet began its spread around the world, being employed for previously unwritten languages, notably in the wake ofChristianization, being used inBible translations. It spread tothe Americas,Australia, and parts ofAsia,Africa, and the Pacific, along with theSpanish,Portuguese,English,French, andDutch languages.

In the late 18th century, theRomanians adopted the Latin alphabet; althoughRomanian is a Romance language, the Romanians were predominantly Orthodox Christians, and until the 19th century the Church used theRomanian Cyrillic alphabet.Vietnam, under French rule, adapted the Latin alphabet forVietnamese, which had previously used Chinese characters. The Latin alphabet is also used for manyAustronesian languages, includingTagalog and the otherlanguages of the Philippines, and the officialMalaysian andIndonesian, replacing earlier Arabic and Brahmic scripts.

In 1928, as part ofKemal Atatürk's reforms,Turkey adopted the Latin alphabet for theTurkish language, replacing the Arabic alphabet. Most ofTurkic-speaking peoples of the formerUSSR, includingTatars,Bashkirs,Azeri,Kazakh,Kyrgyz and others, used theUniform Turkic alphabet in the 1930s. In the 1940s all those alphabets were replaced by Cyrillic. After the collapse of theSoviet Union in 1991, several of the newly independent Turkic-speaking republics adopted the Latin alphabet, replacing Cyrillic.Azerbaijan,Uzbekistan, andTurkmenistan have officially adopted the Latin alphabet forAzeri,Uzbek, andTurkmen, respectively. In the 1970s, thePeople's Republic of China developed an official transliteration ofMandarin Chinese into the Latin alphabet, calledPinyin, used to aid children and foreigners in learning the pronunciation of Chinese characters. Aside from that, Chinese characters are used for reading and writing.

West Slavic and someSouth Slavic languages use the Latin alphabet rather than theCyrillic, a reflection of the dominant religion practiced among those peoples. Among these,Polish uses a variety of diacritics and digraphs to represent special phonetic values, as well asl with stroke – ł – for a w-like sound.Czech usesdiacritics as in Dvořák – the termháček ("little hook") is Czech.Croatian and the Latin version ofSerbian use carons, or háčeks, in č, š, ž, anacute in ć and abar in đ. The languages ofEastern Orthodox Slavs generally use Cyrillic instead which is much closer to the Greek alphabet.Serbian, however, actively uses both alphabets.

• History of the alphabet
• Scribal abbreviation

• History of writing
• Latin script
• Palaeography

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