Everything about English Alphabet totally explained
The modern
English alphabet consists of 26 letters derived from the
Latin alphabet:
The exact shape of printed letters varies depending on the
typeface. The shape of
handwritten letters can differ significantly from the standard printed form (and between individuals), especially when written in
cursive style. See the individual letter articles for information about letter shapes and origins (follow the links on any of the uppercase letters above).
History
» See also: History of the Latin alphabet.
Old English
The
English language was first written in the
Anglo-Saxon futhorc runic alphabet, in use from the
5th century. This alphabet was brought to what is now England, along with the proto-form of the language itself, by
Anglo-Saxon settlers. Very few examples of this form of written Old English have survived, these being mostly short inscriptions or fragments.
The
Latin alphabet, introduced by Christian missionaries, began to replace the Anglo-Saxon futhorc from about the
7th century onwards, although the two continued in parallel for some time. Futhorc influenced the Latin alphabet by providing it with the letters
thorn (
Þ,
þ) and
wynn (
Ƿ,
ƿ). The letter
eth (
Ð,
ð) was later devised as a modification of
d, and finally
yogh () was created by Norman scribes from the
insular g in Old English and
Irish, and used alongside their
Carolingian g.
The
ligature Æ (
æ), for
ae, was adopted as a letter its own right, named
æsc ("ash") after a futhorc rune. In very early Old English
Π(
œ), for
oe, also appeared as a distinct letter named
œðel ("ethel"), again after a rune. Additionally, the ligature
w (
double-u), for
vv, was in use.
In the year 1011, a writer named Byrhtferð ordered the Old English alphabet for numerological purposes. He listed the 24 letters of the Latin alphabet (including
ampersand) first, then 5 additional English letters, starting with the
Tironian nota ond, ⁊, an insular symbol for
and:
» A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X Y Z & ⁊ Ƿ Þ Ð Æ
Modern English
In
Modern English orthography,
thorn (
þ),
eth (
Ð),
wynn (
Ƿ) and
yogh are obsolete. Thorn and eth are now both represented by
th, though thorn continued in existence for some time, its lower case form gradually becoming graphically indistinguishable from the minuscule
y in most handwritings.
Y for
th can still be seen in pseudo-archaisms such as
Ye Olde Booke Shoppe. The letters
Þ and
Ð are still used in present-day
Icelandic. Wynn disappeared from English around the 14th century when it was supplanted by
uu, which ultimately developed into the modern
w. Yogh disappeared around the 15th century and was typically replaced by
gh.
The letters
u and
j, as distinct from
v and
i, were introduced in the
16th century, and
w assumed the status of an independent letter, so that the English alphabet is now considered to consist of the following 26 letters:
» A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
The variant lower-case form
long s (
ſ) lasted into
early modern English, and was used in non-final position up to the early nineteenth century.
The ligatures
Æ (æ) and
Œ (œ) mentioned earlier are still used in formal writing for certain words of Greek or Latin origin, such as "
encyclopædia" and "
cœlom". Lack of awareness combined with technological limitations (such as the
QWERTY-format keyboard commonly used in typography, which doesn't have keys representing either ligature) has made it common to see these two letters rendered as "ae" and "oe" respectively in modern, non-academic usage. These ligatures are not used in American English (and related variants), where, for the most part, a lone "e" has supplanted both "æ" (as in the aforementioned spelling "encyclopædia") and "œ" (for example, "fetus" instead of "fœtus.")
Diacritics
Diacritic marks are never used in the modern spellings of native English words, but may appear in foreign and loan-words such as
naïve and
façade. As such words become naturalised there's a tendency to drop the diacritics, as is now often the case with the two mentioned. Words that are still perceived as foreign tend to retain them; for example, the only spelling of
soupçon found in English dictionaries (the
OED and others) uses the diacritic. Diacritics are also more likely to be retained where there would otherwise be confusion with another word (for example,
résumé rather than
resume).
Occasionally, especially in older writing, diacritics are used to indicate the
syllables of a word:
cursed (verb) is pronounced with one syllable, while
cursèd (adjective) is pronounced with two. Similarly, while in
chicken coop the letters
-oo- represent a single vowel sound (a
digraph), in
zoölogist, they represent two. These devices, are, however, optional, and are in practice now very rarely used even where they'd serve to alleviate some degree of confusion.
Ampersand
The
ampersand (&,
&) has sometimes appeared at the end of the English alphabet, as in Byrhtferð's list of letters in 1011.
Properly speaking the figure is a
ligature for the letters
Et. In English it's used to represent the word
and and occasionally the Latin word
et, as in the abbreviation
&c (et cetera).
Apostrophe
The
apostrophe, while not considered part of the English alphabet, is used to abbreviate English words. A few pairs of words, such as
its and
it's (it is or it has),
were and
we're (we are), and
shed and
she'd (she would or she had) are distinguished in writing only by the presence or absence of an apostrophe. The apostrophe also distinguishes the
possessive endings
-'s and
-s' from the common
plural ending
-s.
Letter names
The names of the letters are rarely spelled out, except in compound words like
tee-shirt, deejay, emcee, okay, aitch-less, wye-level, etc., derived forms like
exed out, effing, to eff and blind, and in the names of objects named after letters, such as
em (space) in printing and
wye (junction) in railroading. The forms listed below are from the
Oxford English Dictionary: vowels stand for themselves, and consonants are
C+ee or
e+C, with the exceptions of
aitch, jay, kay, cue, ar, ess (but
es-),
wye, zed. Attested plural forms of the vowels are
aes, ees, and
oes. Plurals of consonants end in
-s, or in
-es in the cases of
aitch, ess, ex. Of course, all letters may stand for themselves, generally in capitalized form (
okay or
OK, emcee or
MC), and plurals may be based on these (
A's, B's, etc.)
Some groups of letters, such as
pee and
bee, or
em and
en, are easily confused in speech, especially when heard over the telephone or a radio communications link.
Spelling alphabets such as the
NATO phonetic alphabet, used by
aircraft pilots, police and others, are designed to eliminate this potential confusion by giving each letter a name that sounds quite different from any other.
Phonology
The letters A, E, I, O, U are considered to be
vowels; the remaining letters are considered to be
consonants. However, Y is very frequently used as a vowel, and W may occasionally function as a vowel as well. (See
Words without vowels.)
Letter frequencies
The letter most frequently used in
English is E. The least frequently used letters are J, Q, X, and Z.
The list below shows the frequency of letter use in English.
A – 8.17%
B – 1.49%
C – 2.78%
D – 4.25%
E – 12.70%
F – 2.23%
G – 2.02%
|
H – 6.09%
I – 6.97%
J – 0.15%
K – 0.77%
L – 4.03%
M – 2.41%
N – 6.75%
|
O – 7.51%
P – 1.93%
Q – 0.10%
R – 5.99%
S – 6.33%
T – 9.06%
U – 2.76%
|
V – 0.98%
W – 2.36%
X – 0.15%
Y – 1.97%
Z – 0.07%
|
Further Information
Get more info on 'English Alphabet'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://english_alphabet.totallyexplained.com">English alphabet Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
