The exact shape of printed letters varies depending on the typeface In typography, a typeface is a set of one or more fonts, in one or more sizes, designed with stylistic unity, each comprising a coordinated set of glyphs. A typeface usually comprises an alphabet of letters, numerals, and punctuation marks; it may also include ideograms and symbols, or consist entirely of them, for example, mathematical or map-. The shape of handwritten Penmanship or handwriting is the art of writing with the hand and a writing instrument. Styles of handwriting are also called hands or scripts letters can differ significantly from the standard printed form (and between individuals), especially when written in cursive Cursive is any style of handwriting that is designed for writing notes and letters quickly by hand. In the Arabic, Latin, and Cyrillic writing systems, the letters in a word are connected, making a word one single complex stroke. The word "cursive" comes from the Latin cursivus, meaning "flowing" 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 also uses a number of digraphs A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme (distinct sound) or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined. The sound is often, but not necessarily, one which cannot be expressed using a single character in the orthography used by the language. Usually, the term &, but they are not considered to be part of the alphabet.

History

Old English

The English language was first written in the Anglo-Saxon futhorc Futhorc, a runic alphabet used by the Anglo-Saxons, was descended from the Elder Futhark of 24 runes and contained between 26 and 33 characters. It was used probably from the fifth century onward, for recording Old English and Old Frisian runic alphabet, in use from the fifth century. This alphabet was brought to what is now England, along with the proto-form of the language itself, by Anglo-Saxon Anglo-Saxons is the term usually used to describe the invading Germanic tribes in the south and east of Great Britain from the early 5th century AD, and their creation of the English nation, to the Norman conquest of 1066. The Benedictine monk, Bede, identified them as the descendants of three Germanic tribes: settlers. Very few examples of this form of written Old English have survived, these being mostly short inscriptions or fragments.

The Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was borrowed and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome, whose alphabet was then adapted and further modified by the ancient, introduced by Christian missionaries, began to replace the Anglo-Saxon futhorc from about the seventh century, although the two continued in parallel for some time. Futhorc influenced the Latin alphabet by providing it with the letters thorn Thorn, or þorn , is a letter in the Old English and Icelandic alphabets, as well as some dialects of Middle English. It was also used in medieval Scandinavia, but was later replaced with the digraph th. The letter originated from the rune ᚦ in the Elder Fuþark, called thorn in the Anglo-Saxon and thorn or thurs ("giant") in the (Þ þ) and wynn While the earliest Old English texts represent this phoneme with the digraph <uu>, scribes soon borrowed the rune wynn for this purpose. It remained a standard letter throughout the Anglo-Saxon era, eventually falling out of use (perhaps under the influence of French orthography) during the Middle English period, circa 1300 (Freeborn 1992:25) (Ƿ ƿ). The letter eth Eth is a letter used in Old English, Icelandic, Faroese (in which it is called edd), and Elfdalian. It was also used in Scandinavia during the Middle Ages, but was subsequently replaced with dh and later d. The capital eth resembles a D with a line partially through the vertical stroke. The lower case resembles an insular d with a line through the (Ð ð) was later devised as a modification of d The Semitic letter Dâlet probably developed from the logogram for a fish or a door. There are various Egyptian hieroglyphs that might have inspired this. In Semitic, Ancient Greek, and Latin, the letter represented /d/; in the Etruscan alphabet the letter was superfluous but still retained . The equivalent Greek letter is Delta, ‹Δ›.[, and finally yogh The letter yogh , was used in Middle English and Middle Scots, representing y (/j/) and various velar phonemes. It was derived from the Old English form of the letter g (Ȝ ȝ) was created by Norman scribes from the insular g in Old English and Irish Irish is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language only by a small minority of the Irish population but is also used as a second language by a larger and expanding minority[citation needed]. It also plays an important, and used alongside their Carolingian g.

The a-e ligature æsc Æ is a grapheme formed from the letters a and e. Originally a ligature representing a Latin diphthong, it has been promoted to the full status of a letter in the alphabets of some languages, including Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic. As a letter of the Old English alphabet, it was called æsc ("ash tree") after the Anglo-Saxon futhorc (ash, Æ æ) was adopted as a letter its own right, named after a futhorc rune. In very early Old English the o-e ligature œ Œ is a Latin alphabet grapheme, a ligature of o and e. In medieval and early modern Latin, it was used to represent the Greek diphthong οι, a usage which continues in English and French. In French, it is also used in some non-Latin wordsðel (ethel, Œ œ) also appeared as a distinct letter, likewise named after a rune, odal The Elder Futhark Odal rune represents the o sound. Its reconstructed Proto-Germanic name is *ôþalan. The corresponding Gothic letter is 𐍉 o, called oþal. Variations of the name include Othila and Othala. The letter may be derived from a Raetian o letter variant, ultimately cognate with Greek Ω. Additionally, the v-v ligature w (double-u) was in use.

In the year 1011, a writer named Byrhtferð ordered the Old English alphabet for numerological purposes.^[2] He listed the 24 letters of the Latin alphabet (including ampersand An ampersand (&) is a logogram representing the conjunction word "and") first, then 5 additional English letters, starting with the Tironian note Tironian notes is a system of shorthand said to have been invented by Cicero's scribe Marcus Tullius Tiro. Tiro's system consisted of about 4,000 signs,[citation needed] somewhat extended in classical times to 5,000 signs. In the Medieval period, Tironian notes were taught in monasteries and the system was extended to about 13,000 signs. The use ond (⁊) an insular symbol for and:

A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X Y Z & ⁊ Ƿ Þ Thorn or þorn , is a letter in the Old English, Old Norse, and Icelandic alphabets, as well as some dialects of Middle English. It was also used in medieval Scandinavia, but was later replaced with the digraph th. The letter originated from the rune ᚦ in the Elder Fuþark, called thorn in the Anglo-Saxon and thorn or thurs ("giant") Ð Eth is a letter used in Old English, Icelandic, Faroese (in which it is called edd), and Elfdalian. It was also used in Scandinavia during the Middle Ages, but was subsequently replaced with dh and later d. The capital eth resembles a D with a line partially through the vertical stroke. The lower case resembles an insular d with a line through the Æ Æ is a grapheme formed from the letters a and e. Originally a ligature representing a Latin diphthong, it has been promoted to the full status of a letter in the alphabets of some languages, including Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic. As a letter of the Old English alphabet, it was called æsc ("ash tree") after the Anglo-Saxon futhorc

Modern English

In the orthography English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of rules that generally governs how speech sounds are represented in writing of Modern English Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift in England, completed in roughly 1550, thorn Thorn, or þorn , is a letter in the Old English and Icelandic alphabets, as well as some dialects of Middle English. It was also used in medieval Scandinavia, but was later replaced with the digraph th. The letter originated from the rune ᚦ in the Elder Fuþark, called thorn in the Anglo-Saxon and thorn or thurs ("giant") in the (þ), eth Eth is a letter used in Old English, Icelandic, Faroese (in which it is called edd), and Elfdalian. It was also used in Scandinavia during the Middle Ages, but was subsequently replaced with dh and later d. The capital eth resembles a D with a line partially through the vertical stroke. The lower case resembles an insular d with a line through the (ð), wynn While the earliest Old English texts represent this phoneme with the digraph <uu>, scribes soon borrowed the rune wynn for this purpose. It remained a standard letter throughout the Anglo-Saxon era, eventually falling out of use (perhaps under the influence of French orthography) during the Middle English period, circa 1300 (Freeborn 1992:25) (ƿ), yogh The letter yogh , was used in Middle English and Middle Scots, representing y (/j/) and various velar phonemes. It was derived from the Old English form of the letter g (ȝ), ash Æ is a grapheme formed from the letters a and e. Originally a ligature representing a Latin diphthong, it has been promoted to the full status of a letter in the alphabets of some languages, including Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic. As a letter of the Old English alphabet, it was called æsc ("ash tree") after the Anglo-Saxon futhorc (æ), and ethel Œ is a Latin alphabet grapheme, a ligature of o and e. In medieval and early modern Latin, it was used to represent the Greek diphthong οι, a usage which continues in English and French. In French, it is also used in some non-Latin words (œ) are obsolete. Latin borrowings reintroduced homographs of ash and ethel into Middle and Early Modern English, though they are not considered to be the same letters^{[citation needed]} but rather ligatures In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more graphemes are joined as a single glyph. Ligatures usually replace consecutive characters sharing common components and are part of a more general class of glyphs called "contextual forms" where the specific shape of a letter depends on context such as surrounding letters or, 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 The ancestor of Y was the Semitic letter waw, from which also come F, U, V, and W. See F for details 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 Icelandic ( íslenska ) is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese. Wynn disappeared from English around the fourteenth century when it was supplanted by uu, which ultimately developed into the modern w. Yogh disappeared around the fifteenth century and was typically replaced by gh.

The letters u The letter U ultimately comes from the Semitic letter Waw by way of the letter Y. See the letter Y for details and j J originated as a swash character to end some Roman numerals in place of i. There was an emerging distinctive use in Middle High German. Gian Giorgio Trissino was the first to explicitly distinguish I and J as representing separate sounds, in his Ɛpistola del Trissino de le lettere nuωvamente aggiunte ne la lingua italiana ("Trissino's, as distinct from v V is the twenty-second letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English ( / and i In Semitic, the letter was probably originally a pictogram for an arm with hand, derived from a similar hieroglyph that represented a voiced pharyngeal fricative in Egyptian, but was reassigned to /j/ (as in English "yes") by Semites, because their word for "arm" began with that sound. This letter could also be used to, were introduced in the sixteenth 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:

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

The variant lowercase form long s The long, medial or descending s is a form of the minuscule letter s formerly used where s occurred in the middle or at the beginning of a word, for example ſinfulneſs ("sinfulness"). The modern letterform was called the terminal or short s (ſ) lasted into early modern English Early Modern English is the stage of the English language used from about the end of the Middle English period (the latter half of the 15th century) to 1650. Thus, the first edition of the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare both belong to the late phase of Early Modern English, although the King James Bible intentionally keeps, and was used in non-final position up to the early nineteenth century.

The ligatures æ Æ is a grapheme formed from the letters a and e. Originally a ligature representing a Latin diphthong, it has been promoted to the full status of a letter in the alphabets of some languages, including Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic. As a letter of the Old English alphabet, it was called æsc ("ash tree") after the Anglo-Saxon futhorc and œ Œ is a Latin alphabet grapheme, a ligature of o and e. In medieval and early modern Latin, it was used to represent the Greek diphthong οι, a usage which continues in English and French. In French, it is also used in some non-Latin words are still used in formal writing for certain words of Greek or Latin origin, such as encyclopædia An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge and cœlom By the broadest definition, a body cavity is any fluid filled space in a multicellular organism. However, the term usually refers to the space, located between an animal’s outer covering and the outer lining of the gut cavity, where internal organs develop. "The body cavity" of the human body cavities normally refers to the ventral. Lack of awareness and technological limitations (such as their absence from the standard qwerty QWERTY is the most used modern-day keyboard layout on English-language computer and typewriter keyboards. It takes its name from the first six characters seen in the far left of the keyboard's top row of letters. The QWERTY design is based on a layout designed by Christopher Latham Sholes in 1873 for the Sholes and Glidden typewriter and sold to keyboard) have made it common to see these rendered as "ae" and "oe", respectively, in modern, non-academic usage. These ligatures are not used in American English, where a lone e has mostly supplanted both (for example, encyclopedia for encyclopædia, and fetus for fœtus).

Diacritics

Diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign) is an ancillary glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός (diakritikós, "distinguishing"). Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the marks mainly appear in loanwords such as naïve and façade. As such words become naturalised there is a tendency to drop the diacritics, as is now often the case with the two mentioned. Words that are still perceived as foreign tend to retain them; for example, the only spelling of soupçon found in English dictionaries (the OED The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is a dictionary of the English language. Two fully-bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. As of December 2008[update], the editors had completed one quarter of a third edition 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 Yerba mate or yerba-mate (Spanish: yerba mate, Portuguese: erva-mate), Ilex paraguariensis, is a species of holly (family Aquifoliaceae) native to subtropical South America in northeastern Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay and southern Brazil. It was first scientifically classified by Swiss botanist Moses Bertoni, who settled in Paraguay in 189, but following the pattern of café, from French).

Occasionally, especially in older writing, diacritics are used to indicate the syllables A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants) of a word: cursed (verb) is pronounced with one syllable, while cursèd (adjective) is pronounced with two. Similarly, while in chicken coop the letters -oo- represent a single vowel sound (a digraph), in zoölogist and coöperation, they represent two. An acute, grave or diaerisis may also be placed over an 'e' at the end of a word to indicate that it is not silent, and to show how it should be pronounced instead. These devices, are, however, optional, and are in practice now rarely used even where they would serve to alleviate some degree of confusion.

Ampersand

The ampersand (&) has sometimes appeared at the end of the English alphabet, as in Byrhtferð's list of letters in 1011.^[2] Properly speaking the figure is a ligature for the letters Et. In English it is used to represent the word and and occasionally the Latin word et, as in the abbreviation &c (et cetera).

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.

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. Attested plural forms of the vowels are aes, ees, and oes. Plurals of consonants end in -s or, in the cases of aitch, ess, and ex, in -es. 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 (As, Bs, 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 NATO phonetic 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.

Phonology

The letters A, E, I, O, U are considered to be vowels; the remaining letters are considered to be consonants. However, W, Y may occasionally function as a vowel as well. (See Words without vowels.)

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