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Modern English is written with a Latin-script alphabet consisting of 26 letters, with each having both uppercase and lowercase forms. The word alphabet is a compound of alpha and beta, the names of the first two letters in the Greek alphabet. Old English was first written down using the Latin alphabet during the 7th century.
The history of the alphabet goes back to the consonantal writing system used to write Semitic languages in the Levant during the 2nd millennium BCE. Nearly all alphabetic scripts used throughout the world today ultimately go back to this Semitic script. [ 1 ] Its first origins can be traced back to a Proto-Sinaitic script developed in Ancient ...
The English word alphabet came into Middle English from the Late Latin word alphabetum, which in turn originated in the Greek ἀλφάβητος alphábētos; it was made from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha (α) and beta (β). [14]
History of the Latin script. The Duenos inscription, dated to the 6th century BC, shows the earliest known forms of the Old Latin alphabet. The Latin script is the most widely used alphabetic 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.
Middle English (abbreviated to ME[ 1 ]) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English period. Scholarly opinion varies, but the University of Valencia states the period when Middle ...
v. t. e. English is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, whose speakers, called Anglophones, originated in early medieval England on the island of Great Britain. [ 4 ][ 5 ][ 6 ] The namesake of the language is the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to Britain.
v. t. e. English orthography comprises the set of rules used when writing the English language, [ 1 ][ 2 ] allowing readers and writers to associate written graphemes with the sounds of spoken English, as well as other features of the language. [ 3 ] English's orthography includes norms for spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation, word breaks ...
For centuries, there have been movements to reform the spelling of the English language. Such spelling reform seeks to change English orthography so that it is more consistent, matches pronunciation better, and follows the alphabetic principle. [ 1 ] Common motives for spelling reform include making learning quicker, making learning cheaper ...