The Latin alphabet (Latin letter or Latin) is the basis of writing in many languages of the world, in particular the Romance and Germanic groups. Includes 26 letters, which in different parts of the planet can be called very differently.
The writing based on the Latin alphabet is used in all languages of the Baltic, Celtic, Germanic and Romance groups, as well as in some of the Iranian, Semitic, Turkic, Finno-Ugric and Slavic groups, in the Basque and Albanian languages. Also, this writing style can be found in the dialects of Indochina, in particular in Vietnam, the Philippines, Africa, Oceania, Australia and the Americas.
Latin alphabet: the history of origin and development
This writing is far from as ancient as many tend to believe. Her "grandfather" can be safely called the Greek (or South Italian) alphabet, on the basis of which the Etruscan alphabet was subsequently founded . And it was from the latter around the 7th century BC and there was a Latin, originally consisting of only 21 letters.
History is changing, and various metamorphoses also occur with the alphabet.
For example, there was a time when the letter “Z” was completely excluded, considering it completely unnecessary. “C” originally designated two sounds “k” and “g”, and only in 234 it was decided to create a separate letter “G”. In the first century BC, when there are a lot of borrowing words from the Greek language, a new letter “Y” is introduced and the already forgotten “Z” is restored.
As a result, the now familiar set of letters took shape only in 800 AD. Although it should be noted that there are still disputes regarding “W”: some linguists consider it separate, while others are inclined to believe that this is just a combination of two “V”, so you can sometimes find the alphabet, in which 25 letters are given instead of 26.
To date, the Latin alphabet with transcription (special signs, symbols that help to correctly reproduce the word in accordance with the rules for reading this language) can be found in any dictionary.
In the next section, I would like to talk about how the letters of the Latin alphabet are pronounced correctly.
Latin alphabet: pronunciation
It is impossible not to dwell on the fact that all sounds, as in Russian, are divided into vowels and consonants consisting only of voice , which are also formed with the help of some other important organs of articulation, for example, teeth, tongue, palate or lips.
Latin vowels include:
A / a /, E / e /, I / and /, O / o /, U / y /
The following are consonants in the Latin alphabet:
B / be /, C / ke /, D / de /, F / ef /, G / ge /, H / ha /, K / ka /, L / el /, M / em /, N / en /, P / pe /, Q / ku /, R / er /, S / es /, T / te /, X / ex /, Y / / /, Z / zeta /.
The Latin alphabet: its popularity and relevance in modern society
At the moment, we can confidently say that on the earth there is practically no adult who would not be familiar with him.
Best of all, of course, the Latin alphabet is known to schoolchildren and students, since they widely use it, studying, for example, physics, algebra, geometry, chemistry, or foreign languages.
But did you know that the Latin alphabet can rightfully be called a source of international communication? Why?
It's just that you can’t do without it. The main reasons, I would say, are two:
Firstly, as I mentioned earlier, most of the languages of the world are based on the Latin alphabet, both real and artificially created (for example, ido, interlingua, Esperanto).
Secondly, there are a number of languages whose writing style is so complicated that it has to be simplified with the help of so-called auxiliary writing. By the way, in China and Japan, Latin is studied as such an auxiliary letter, and is a compulsory subject for study, both at school and in universities.