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3 days ago · An alphabet is a set of graphs or characters used to represent the phonemic structure of a language. In most alphabets, the characters are arranged in a definite order or sequence (e.g., A, B, C, etc.).
The most common diacritic marks seen in English publications are the acute (é), grave (è), circumflex (â, î, or ô), tilde (ñ), umlaut and diaeresis (ü or ï—the same symbol is used for two different purposes), and cedilla (ç). [3] Diacritics used for tonal languages may be replaced with tonal numbers or omitted.
An alphabet is a standard set of letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from another in a given language. [1]
The best-known and most widely-used alphabets are the Latin or Roman alphabet and the Cyrillic alphabet, which have been adapted to write numerous languages. Most other alphabets are used for a single language or just a few languages.
Some writing systems have two major types of allographs for each letter: an uppercase form (also called capital or majuscule) and a lowercase form (also called minuscule). Upper- and lowercase letters represent the same sound, but serve different functions in writing.
The English alphabet is a cornerstone of modern communication, the basic building block of one of the world’s most spoken languages. At first glance, the 26 letters may appear simple, straightforward, even unremarkable.
According to the British linguist Geoffrey Sampson, “Most, and probably all, ‘alphabetic’ scripts derive from a single ancestor: the Semitic alphabet, created sometime in the 2nd millennium [bce].” The Semitic script was invented by speakers of some Semitic language, possibly Phoenician, who lived in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent.
