Aa A B C D E F G · a b c d e f g

Latin

The most widely used script on Earth — grown from about twenty-one letters to twenty-six, and now carried on every continent.

ISO 15924Latn · 215

TypologyAlphabet — separate letters for consonants and vowels

LineagePhoenician → Greek → Etruscan → Latin · Proto-Sinaitic Wing, Floor 2

Ancestor ofThe orthographies of most of the world's languages

DatesOld Latin c. 700 BCE; classical 26-letter set completed in the modern era

RegionOriginated in Rome; now used on every continent

DirectionLeft to right →

UsersBillions — the most widely used writing system

Status Living

Noto fontNoto Sans · Noto Serif

Curatorial note

Latin is Greek at two removes. The Etruscans borrowed the Greek alphabet, and the Romans borrowed it from the Etruscans — which is why C, not G, sits third: Etruscan did not distinguish the sounds g and k, so the letter that had been Greek gamma settled into the third slot as a plain /k/.

The classical alphabet had about twenty-one letters and only one case: the monumental capitals cut on stone. Lowercase is a much later invention — Carolingian minuscule, around 800 CE. J, U and W are medieval splits from I and V; Y and Z were re-borrowed from Greek to spell Greek loanwords.

You are reading the alphabet of a small Italian town that never stopped being copied.

So the familiar twenty-six letters accreted over two thousand years. The line is not a single leap but a long chain of borrowings and refinements — traced in full in the Hall of Lineages.

From twenty-one to twenty-six

Five letters that arrived late

GG · invented c. 230 BCESplit from C to mark the /g/ sound; took the slot of dropped Z

YY · borrowed backRe-taken from Greek upsilon for Greek loanwords, 1st c. BCE

ZZ · re-admittedDropped early, restored from Greek zeta for Greek words

JJ · medievalA swash form of I, split off as a consonant letter

WW · medievalDoubled V, for Germanic /w/

21 → 23 → 26 About twenty-one classical letters; then +Y +Z re-borrowed from Greek to reach twenty-three; then J, U and W distinguished in the Middle Ages to reach twenty-six.

The twenty-six letters

A to Z

A afrom Greek Alpha← Phoenician ʾālep

B bfrom Greek Beta← bēt

C cfrom Greek Gamma← gīml

D dfrom Greek Delta← dālet

E efrom Greek Epsilon← hē

F ffrom Greek digamma← wāw

G gfrom Cinvented c. 230 BCElate addition

H hfrom Greek Eta← ḥēt

I ifrom Greek Iota← yōd

J jfrom Ia swash form split offmedieval

K kfrom Greek Kappa← kāp

L lfrom Greek Lambda← lāmed

M mfrom Greek Mu← mēm

N nfrom Greek Nu← nūn

O ofrom Greek Omicron← ʿayin

P pfrom Greek Pi← pē

Q qfrom Greek Qoppa← qōp

R rfrom Greek Rho← rēš

S sfrom Greek Sigma← šīn

T tfrom Greek Tau← tāw

U ufrom Vvowel/consonant splitmedieval

V vfrom Greek upsilon← wāw

W wdoubled Vfor Germanic /w/medieval

X xfrom Greek Chi / Xifor the /ks/ cluster

Y yfrom Greek upsilonfor Greek loanwordslate addition

Z zfrom Greek zetafor Greek wordsre-admitted

The ancient alphabet had no lowercase — minuscule letterforms are a medieval development. Greek names are given in their conventional English forms; the Phoenician sources are the mainstream reconstructions.

Specimen — Noto Serif

Waterfall on baseline grid

56SENATVS·POPVLVSQVE·ROMANVS

40VENI VIDI VICI

26ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

18abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Classical inscriptions used interpuncts between words and wrote V for both U and V; the top line is shown in that authentic form.

In the building

F1Alphabet Hall F2Proto-Sinaitic Wing F3Living Collection F4Specimen Press — set this script live

In the Reading Room

WI·MCH · Paper · Forthcoming

Majuscule and Minuscule

How the Roman capitals grew a second case: the thousand-year road from monumental stone-cut letters to the lowercase you are reading now.

Plaque sources: The Unicode Standard (Basic Latin, Latin-1 Supplement) · ISO 15924 (Latn · 215) · B. Bischoff, Latin Palaeography · standard histories of the Roman alphabet · ScriptSource (SIL). Dates for late letters are conventional. Compiled 2026-07.