Apangram orholoalphabetic sentence is asentence using every letter of a givenalphabet at least once. Pangrams have been used to displaytypefaces, test equipment, and develop skills inhandwriting,calligraphy, andtyping.
The best-known English pangram is "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog".[1] It has been used since at least the late 19th century[1] and was used byWestern Union to testTelex/TWX data communication equipment for accuracy and reliability.[2] Pangrams like this are now used by a number of computer programs to display computer typefaces.
Short pangrams in English are more difficult to devise and tend to use uncommon words and unnatural sentences. Longer pangrams afford more opportunity for humor, cleverness, or thoughtfulness.
The following are examples of pangrams that are shorter than "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" (which has 35 letters) and use standard written English without abbreviations or proper nouns:
"Quick nymph bugs vex fjord waltz." (27 letters; U repeated)
"Waltz, bad nymph, for quick jigs vex." (28 letters; A and I repeated)[3]
"Glib jocks quiz nymph to vex dwarf." (28 letters; I and O repeated)[2]
"Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow." (29 letters; A, O, and U repeated)[4]
Aperfect pangram contains every letter of the alphabet only once and can be considered ananagram of the alphabet. The only known perfect pangrams of the English alphabet use abbreviations or other non-dictionary words, such as "Blowzy night-frumps vex'd Jack Q." or "Mr. Jock, TV quiz PhD, bags few lynx."[3] or they include words so obscure that the phrase is challenging to understand, such as "Cwm fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz",[3] in whichcwm is aloan word fromWelsh meaning an amphitheatre-like glaciated depression,vext is an uncommon way to spellvexed, andquiz is used in anarchaic sense to mean a puzzling or eccentric person. Taken together, it means "Symbols in the bowl-like depression on the edge of a long steep sea inlet confused an eccentric person".
Other writing systems may present more options: TheIroha is a well-known perfect pangram of the Japanesesyllabary, while theHanacaraka is a perfect pangram for theJavanese script and is commonly used to order its letters in sequence.
Whereas the English language uses all 26 letters of the Latin alphabet in native and naturalized words, many other languages using the same alphabet do not. Pangram writers in these languages are forced to choose between only using those letters found in native words or incorporating exotic loanwords into their pangrams. Some words, such as theGaelic-derivedwhisk(e)y, which has been borrowed by many languages and uses the lettersk,w andy, are a frequent fixture of many foreign pangrams.
There are also languages that use other Latin characters thatdo not appear in the traditional 26 letters of the Latin alphabet. This differs further from English pangrams, with letters such asç,ä, andš.
The most commonly used one, especially to test alphabet support with fonts. This sentence includes all Czech letters with diacritics, but not all basic letters.
Nechť již hříšné saxofony ďáblů rozezvučí síň úděsnými tóny waltzu, tanga a quickstepu
May the sinful saxophones of devils echo through the hall with dreadful melodies of waltz, tango and quickstep
Used to include all basic letters, including letters that only occur in loanwords (g, q, w, x).
Dzigbe zã nyuie na wò, ɣeyiɣi didi aɖee nye sia no see, ɣeyiɣi aɖee nye sia tso esime míeyi suku. Ŋdɔ nyui, ɛ nyteƒe, míagakpɔ wò ake wuieve kele ʋ heda kpedeŋu.
Have a nice birthday tonight, it's been a long time no see, it's been a while since we were in school. Good afternoon, yes, see you again at twelve o'clock in the morning.
A two-part pangram consisting of a statement and response.
Although difficult to translate because of its non-practical use, it roughly meansa whinge of a sleazy lover
A perfect pangram not using any of the special letters used in Finnish only for foreign words (b,c,f,q,š,w,x,z,ž,å).
Albert osti fagotin ja töräytti puhkuvan melodian
Albert bought a bassoon and blew a puffing tune
An imperfect pangram not using some of the special letters used in Finnish only for foreign words (q, w, x, z, å) but which makes perfect everyday sense.
On sangen hauskaa, että polkupyörä on maanteiden jokapäiväinen ilmiö
It is rather fun that bicycles are a daily phenomenon on the countryroads
An imperfect pangram not containing the previously mentioned special letters.
has 26 letters and includes all 21 letters found in native Italian words. It does not include the five letters which are not found in any Italian words, except for some loanwords:j,k,w,y, andx.
Cantami o Diva del pelide Achille l'ira funesta
Sing to me, O Diva, of Achilles, son of Peleus, the raging wrath.
Has 39 characters without considering any apostrophe and space. It is the Italian translation of the first verse of theIliad and is used inMicrosoft Windows operating system if the language is set to Italian (Italiano).
Vejo galã sexy pôr quinze kiwis à força em baú achatado.
I see a sexy hunk forcibly stuff fifteen kiwis into a shallow trunk.
Uses all diacritics and all 23 letters from the Portuguese alphabet (before theOrthographic Agreement of 1990; the lettersk,w, andy are found mainly in loanwords).[b]
Vejo coxo gritando que fez show sem playback.
I see a hobbler yelling that he performed the show without playback.
Uses all letters from the Portuguese alphabet (including the lettersk,w, andy), but no diacritics. Loans the word show from the english language.
Încă vând gem, whisky bej și tequila roz, preț fix.
[I'm] still selling jam, beige whisky, and pink tequila, [with a] fixed price.
Contains all letters, including Romanian diacritics:ă,â,î,ș, andț. The lettersq,w, andy were introduced in the Romanian alphabet in 1982 with the first DOOM dictionary. They are used for loan words such asquodlibet,watt, andyoga. The letterk is also rarely used, mainly for names and international neologisms such askilogram andfolk.[9]
Ni pharciais fy nghas gar ffabrig pinc a'm jac codi baw hud llawn dŵr chwerw ger tŷ Mabon ar ddydd Mawrth, ond parciais fe mewn lagŵn rhydlyd
I didn't park my least favourite pink fabric car and my magical digger full of bitter water by Mabon's house on Tuesday, but I parked it in a rusty lagoon
Uses all the letters of theWelsh alphabet including the loan letterj.
Trường quê em do bố của em xây kĩ nên sạch và đẹp lắm
My countryside school is built thoroughly by my father, so it's very clean and pretty
A more grammatically correct form ofTrường quê sạch và đẹp lắm do bố xây kĩ, and contains all the letters and diacritics of theVietnamese alphabet.[10]
Non-Latin alphabetic or phonetic scripts such as Greek, Armenian, and others can also have pangrams.[11] In some writing systems, exactly what counts as a distinct symbol can be debated. For example, many languages have accents or other diacritics, but one might count "é" and "e" as the same for pangrams. A similar problem arises for older English orthography that includes thelong s ("ſ").
ڈِٹھے پار پہاڑ حضوری دے، طلسمی ژالہ باری ظلمت دی ۔ فیر جاکے ٹِبے غار حراء دے، خبر دِتتِی چاراں پاسے۔ اک ذہین زور آور نے فقیری دی۔ہس کے نالے گج وج کے ذمے داری نال دسیا ثمر صبر دا، حاصل عشق دا، جیہڑا ہے کل پیغام
Seen across the mountains of salvation, the enchanted hail of darkness. Then, at the cave of Hira's mound, the news was spread in all directions. A wise and powerful one embraced the path of a faqir. With smiles and resounding calls, With responsibility,the fruit of patience was shared, and gains of love, Which is the essence of the entire message.
Punjabi Shahmukhi pangram, written by Akhter Mehmood
Mr. Sangkhaphant Hengpithakfang – an elderly man who earns a living by selling bottles – was arrested for prosecution by police because he stole Lady Chatchada Chansamat's watch
Contains all the letters in theThai alphabet, both obsolete and non-obsolete.
نہ ژالہ باری نہ دھوپ پڑتی نہ ٹمٹماتی ہے چاندنی اب نہ کوئی ساغر نہ آگ برکھا،عجیب طرز فنا چلی اب جدا حلاوت ، خفا ظرافت،ضعیف ہر شوق، ڈر نہ صدمہ ثمر جو ذکر حبیب کا ہے یہ تجھہ کو عرفی ملا سبھی اب
No more hailstorms, no more sunshine, No moonlight flickers in the night. No goblets raised, no rain of fire — A strange new way of perishing is in sight. Sweetness is lost, wit is annoyed, Every passion weakened, no fear, no fright. The only fruit now is the name of the Beloved — This, Urfi, is all you have left in this life.
Logographic scripts, or writing systems such as Chinese that do not use an alphabet but are composed principally oflogograms, cannot produce pangrams in a literal sense (or at least, not pangrams of reasonable size). The total number of signs is large and imprecisely defined, so producing a text with every possible sign is practically impossible. However, various analogies to pangrams are feasible, including traditional pangrams in aromanization.
InJapanese, although typical orthography useskanji (logograms), pangrams can be made using everykana, orsyllabic character. TheIroha is a classic example of a perfect pangram in non-Latin script.
In Chinese, theThousand Character Classic is a 1000-character poem in which each character is used exactly once; however, it does not include allChinese characters. The single character永 (permanence) incorporates all the basic strokes used to write Chinese characters, using each stroke exactly once, as described in theEight Principles of Yong.
Amongabugida scripts, an example of a perfect pangram is theHanacaraka (hana caraka; data sawala; padha jayanya; maga bathanga) of theJavanese script, which is used to write theJavanese language inIndonesia.
Earthen pots and conches hold water. Stupid imposters don’t serve the truth. Herds of pigs play with their tails. Stormy winds blow gustily through the fences.
A self-enumerating pangram is a pangrammaticautogram, or a sentence that inventories its own letters, each of which occurs at least once. The first example was produced byRudy Kousbroek, a Dutch journalist and essayist, who publicly challengedLee Sallows, a Britishrecreational mathematician resident in the Netherlands, to produce an English translation of his Dutch pangram. In the sequel, Sallows built an electronic "pangram machine", that performed a systematic search among millions of candidate solutions. The machine was successful in identifying the following 'magic' translation:[12][13][14]
This pangram contains four As, one B, two Cs, one D, thirty Es, six Fs, five Gs, seven Hs, eleven Is, one J, one K, two Ls, two Ms, eighteen Ns, fifteen Os, two Ps, one Q, five Rs, twenty-seven Ss, eighteen Ts, two Us, seven Vs, eight Ws, two Xs, three Ys, & one Z.
The pangram "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", and the search for a shorter pangram, are the cornerstone of the plot of the novelElla Minnow Pea byMark Dunn.[17] The search successfully comes to an end when the phrase "Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs" is discovered (which has only 6 duplicated vowels).
^Per theDeutsches Wörterbuch, the lettery was common in the German language until around the 16th century, when standardisation due to the rise of the printing press largely replaced it with the letteri. It remained in use in some cases until the 19th century, during which further spelling reforms restricted it to loanwords and proper names.[7]
^After the latestOrthographic Agreement of 1990, these three once foreign letters were officially incorporated into the Portuguese alphabet.
^abcdefgAugarde, Tony (2003).The Oxford guide to word games (2nd ed.). Oxford [England]: Oxford University Press. pp. 119–122.ISBN0-19-866264-5.OCLC51437459.
^Dewdney, A.K. (October 1984). "Computer Recreations".Scientific American. pp. 18–22.
^"In quest of a pangram".Abacus (defunct mag.). Vol. 2, no. 3. New York, NY: Springer Verlag. Spring 1985. pp. 22–40.
^Weiss, E.A., ed. (1987). ""In quest of a pangram" (abridged reprint)".A Computer Science Reader. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag. pp. 200–220.ISBN0-387-96544-0.
