What is an Alphabet?

An alphabet is a series of characters, usually known as letters, used to spell out words in a language. Each letter in an alphabet stands for a sound.

The Latin Alphabet and Japanese alphabets Katakana and Hiragana are both examples of this.

Latin Alphabet

The Latin Alphabet is an alphabet originally used to write Latin. Use of the Latin Alphabet spread with the expansion of the Roman Empire and was adopted by many cultures. It is still used today, in fact, you are reading words written in the Latin Alphabet right now.¹

Languages that use the Latin Alphabet also use capital letters to begin sentences and denote proper nouns.

Versions of the Latin Alphabet is used by languages both directly descended from Latin (Spanish) and those which are not (German). A few odd letters from the Roman Alphabet were used in a modified form in the Cyrillic Alphabet, used by the Russian language.

In Japanese, Romanji is an alphabet used to transliterate Japanese words into the Roman Alphabet. Examples : karate, karaoke.

Alphabetical Order

Alphabetical Order is a sorting system for words based on the order of words in an alphabet. The alphabetical order for each language depends on the order of the letters in it's alphabet.

List of Alphabets

(other than the Latin Alphabet)

Cryptography and Alphabets

Main article: Cipher

A simple technique of Cryptography uses alphabets by creating a system where one letter of the alphabet is exchanged for another. This technique is known as a cipher.