Rich Language looks at Alphabet 1

Alphabet 1

This is part one of the Alphabet series, and is currently the only part.

In modern times, a language is nothing without its script. The written word of English begins with the alphabet, a quirky array of lines and curves with which we depict phonemes, syllables, words, and eventually whole sentences.

Our alphabet is typically known as the Roman or Latin alphabet. Its popularity is undisputed, being used in one form or another by over twenty thriving languages. The Cyrillic alphabet, used primarily by the Russian language, is in a distant second position being used by fewer than ten live languages. The Cyrillic and Roman alphabets share a heritage, both having descended from the Greek alphabet.

The Roman alphabet descended from western Greek via the Etruscan alphabet. Similarities with the Greek alphabet remain, particularly in the letters A, B, E, Z, T, I, and X, although phonetically there are some considerable differences. The Roman alphabet also contains some Greek letterforms which are no longer found in Greek, such as F, Q, and M, although again these do not phonetically match.

Keeping the alphabet simple

English is one of the few Roman alphabet languages to have eliminated accents (diacritic marks) from its alphabet. Speakers of the Romance languages (such as French, Italian, and Spanish) will be familiar with acute and grave accents, the circumflex, the cedilla, and the diæresis, which are all used to affect the pronunciation of words. Very few words in the English language have accents, and these are generally "loan words" from other languages. Examples would include noël, résumé, and touché. As is typical of English, however, these words are becoming more common in the anglicized form, with many words, like debut, having already made the transition.

The grave accent retains a tiny foothold on the English language with a use in some words ending in 'ed', like stained (e.g. stainèd), which forces the 'ed' to be pronounced as a separate syllable. This usage is considered to be extremely archaic and is nowadays restricted to poetic usage only.

Further information on the Roman alphabet:

• The History of Script and Literacy in Europe - an incredibly detailed history of the Roman script in Europe, with many pictures and examples of the changes to the script over the years
• Wikipedia entry for the "Latin alphabet"
• Wikipedia entry for the "Greek alphabet"

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