Latin Alphabet

  • The Latin Alphabet is the same as the English Alphabet, except that it had only 21 letters. ‘J’, ‘U’ and ‘W’ are missing and ‘Y’ and ‘Z’ were added later. ‘V’ was used for both ‘V’ and ‘U’.
  • The Latin Alphabet was based on the Etruscan and Greek Alphabet, and was used to write the Latin Language.

Script

  • ‘Scriptura Monumentalis’
    • was the script used for Inscriptions and was written in capitals.
  • ‘Scriptura Actuaria’
    • was the script used for writing public notices.
  • ‘Cursive Writing’
    • was the informal joined-up writing used in everyday correspondence.
    • ‘Old Roman Cursive’ was used between the first century BCE and third century CE.
    • ‘New Roman Cursive’ was used from the third century CE to the seventh century CE.
  • ‘Times New Roman’
    • was a script invented in 1931 for the Times Newspaper, and has nothing to do with the Roman Period.

The English Alphabet

  • The 26 letters of the English Alphabet are all derived from the Roman Alphabet, with the addition of the letters ‘J’, ‘U’ and ‘W’.
  • The characters are Roman square capitals.
  • English Place Names with Roman Origins

Western European Alphabets

  • French Alphabet
    • consists of the same 26 letters as the English Alphabet, with two additional ligatures ‘oe’ and ‘ae’, acute accents to alter the sound of a vowel and the cedilla ç.
  • German Alphabet
    • consists of the same 26 letters as the English Alphabet, whilst using the diacritic letters, ä, ö and ü, using the Umlaut ¨, and one ligature ‘ß’.
  • Spanish Alphabet
    • consists of 27 letters, the same 26 letters as the English Alphabet plus the letter ñ.
  • Portuguese Alphabet
    • consists of the same 26 letters as the English Alphabet, but uses acute accents, the circumflex and the tilda to alter the sound of vowels, as well as the cedilla ç,
  • Italian Alphabet
    • consists of 21 letters, the same as the English Alphabet but without J, K, W, X or Y.
  • Dutch Alphabet
    • consists of the same 26 letters as the English Alphabet, with the digraph ij acting as a single letter.
  • Maltese Alphabet
    • consists of 30 letters, the same 26 letters as the English Alphabet, with 4 additional letters, an additional vowel ie, and three diacritic consonants g, gh, h each topped with a dot.

Roman Numerals

 

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