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English Alpha bet

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English Alpha bet
An English-languagepangramwritten with theFF DaxRegular typeface
Script type
Time period
c. 16th century– present
LanguagesEnglish
Related scripts
Parent systems
Child systems
ISO 15924
ISO 15924Latn(215),​Latin
Unicode
Unicode alias
Latin
U+0000–U+007EBasic Latin
This article containsphonetic transcriptionsin theInternational Phonetic Alphabet(IPA).For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA.For the distinction between[ ],/ /and ⟨⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Modern Englishis written with aLatin-script Alpha betconsisting of 26letters,with each having bothuppercase and lowercaseforms. The wordAlpha betis acompoundofAlphaandbeta,the names of the first two letters in theGreek Alpha bet.Old Englishwas first written down using theLatin Alpha betduring the 7th century. During the centuries that followed, various letters entered or fell out of use. By the 16th century, the present set of 26 letters had largely stabilised:

There are 5 vowel letters and 19 consonant letters—as well as Y and W, which may function as either type.

Written English has a large number ofdigraphs,such as⟨ch⟩,⟨ea⟩,⟨oo⟩,⟨sh⟩,and⟨th⟩.Diacriticsare generally not used to write native English words, which is unusual among orthographies used to write thelanguages of Europe.

Letter names[edit]

English Alpha bet from 1740, with some unusual letter names. Note the use oflong s.
English Alpha bet
AReceived PronunciationBritish Englishspeaker reciting the English Alpha bet
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The names of the letters are commonly spelled out in compound words and initialisms (e.g.,tee-shirt, deejay, emcee, okay,etc.), derived forms (e.g.,exed out, effing, to eff and blind, aitchless,etc.), and objects named after letters (e.g.,enandemin printing, andwyein railroading). The spellings listed below are from theOxford English Dictionary.Plurals of consonant names are formed by adding-s(e.g.,bees,efsoreffs,ems) or-esin the cases ofaitches,esses,exes.Plurals of vowel names also take-es(i.e.,aes,ees,ies,oes,ues), but these are rare. For a letter as a letter, the letter itself is most commonly used, generally in capitalised form, in which case the plural just takes-sor-'s(e.g.Csorc'sforcees).

Letter Name Name pronunciation Freq.
Modern
English[1] 		Latin Modern
English 		Latin Old
French 		Middle
English
A a ā /ˈeɪ/,/ˈæ/[a] /aː/ /aː/ /aː/ 8.17%
B bee bē /ˈbiː/ /beː/ /beː/ /beː/ 1.49%
C cee cē /ˈsiː/ /keː/ /tʃeː/ > /tseː/
> /seː/ 		/seː/ 2.78%
D dee dē /ˈdiː/ /deː/ /deː/ /deː/ 4.25%
E e ē /ˈiː/ /eː/ /eː/ /eː/ 12.70%
F ef,eff ef /ˈɛf/ /ɛf/ /ɛf/ /ɛf/ 2.23%
G gee gē /ˈdʒiː/ /ɡeː/ /dʒeː/ /dʒeː/ 2.02%
H aitch hā /ˈeɪtʃ/ /haː/ > /ˈaha/
> /ˈakːa/ 		/ˈaːtʃə/ /aːtʃ/ 6.09%
haitch[b] /ˈheɪtʃ/
I i ī /ˈaɪ/ /iː/ /iː/ /iː/ 6.97%
J jay – /ˈdʒeɪ/ – – [c] 0.15%
jy[d] /ˈdʒaɪ/
K kay kā /ˈkeɪ/ /kaː/ /kaː/ /kaː/ 0.77%
L el,ell[e] el /ˈɛl/ /ɛl/ /ɛl/ /ɛl/ 4.03%
M em em /ˈɛm/ /ɛm/ /ɛm/ /ɛm/ 2.41%
N en en /ˈɛn/ /ɛn/ /ɛn/ /ɛn/ 6.75%
O o ō /ˈoʊ/ /oː/ /oː/ /oː/ 7.51%
P pee pē /ˈpiː/ /peː/ /peː/ /peː/ 1.93%
Q cue,kew,
kue,que 		qū /ˈkjuː/ /kuː/ /kyː/ /kiw/ 0.10%
R ar er /ˈɑːr/ /ɛr/ /ɛr/ /ɛr/ > /ar/ 5.99%
or[f] /ˈɔːr/
S ess es /ˈɛs/ /ɛs/ /ɛs/ /ɛs/ 6.33%
es-[g]
T tee tē /ˈtiː/ /teː/ /teː/ /teː/ 9.06%
U u ū /ˈjuː/ /uː/ /yː/ /iw/ 2.76%
V vee – /ˈviː/ – – – 0.98%
W double-u – /ˈdʌbəl.juː/[h] – – – 2.36%
X ex ex /ˈɛks/ /ɛks/ /iks/ /ɛks/ 0.15%
ix /ɪks/
Y wy,wye hȳ /ˈwaɪ/ /hyː/ ui, gui? /wiː/ 1.97%
/iː/
ī graeca /iː ˈɡraɪka/ /iː ɡrɛːk/
Z zed[i] zēta /ˈzɛd/ /ˈzeːta/ /ˈzɛːdə/ /zɛd/ 0.07%
zee[j] /ˈziː/

Etymology[edit]

The names of the letters are for the most part direct descendants, via French, of the Latin (and Etruscan) names. (SeeLatin Alpha bet: Origins.)

The regular phonological developments (in rough chronological order) are:

  • palatalization before front vowels of Latin/k/successively to/tʃ/,/ts/,and finally to Middle French/s/.Affects C.
  • palatalization before front vowels of Latin/ɡ/to Proto-Romance and Middle French/dʒ/.Affects G.
  • fronting of Latin/uː/to Middle French/yː/,becoming Middle English/iw/and then Modern English/juː/.Affects Q, U.
  • the inconsistent lowering of Middle English/ɛr/to/ar/.Affects R.
  • theGreat Vowel Shift,shifting all Middle English long vowels. Affects A, B, C, D, E, G, H, I, K, O, P, T, and presumably Y.

The novel forms areaitch,a regular development of Medieval Latinacca;jay,a new letter presumably vocalised like neighboringkayto avoid confusion with establishedgee(the other name,jy,was taken from French);vee,a new letter named by analogy with the majority;double-u,a new letter, self-explanatory (the name of Latin V wasū);wye,of obscure origin but with an antecedent in Old Frenchwi;izzard,from the Romance phrasei zedori zeto"and Z" said when reciting the Alpha bet; andzee,an American levelling ofzedby analogy with other consonants.

Some groups of letters, such aspeeandbee,oremanden,are easily confused in speech, especially when heard over the telephone or a radio communications link.Spelling Alpha betssuch as theICAO spelling Alpha bet,used byaircraftpilots, police and others, are designed to eliminate this potential confusion by giving each letter a name that sounds quite different from any other.

Ampersand[edit]

Theampersand(&) has sometimes appeared at the end of the English Alpha bet, as in Byrhtferð's list of letters in 1011.[2]&was regarded as the 27th letter of the English Alpha bet, as taught to children in the US and elsewhere. An example may be seen in M. B. Moore's 1863 bookThe Dixie Primer, for the Little Folks.[3]Historically, the figure is aligaturefor the lettersEt.In English and many other languages, it is used to represent the wordand,plus occasionally the Latin wordet,as in the abbreviation&c(et cetera).

Archaic letters[edit]

OldandMiddle Englishhad a number of non-Latin letters that have since dropped out of use. Some of these either took the names of the equivalentrunes,since there were no Latin names to adopt, or were runes themselves (thorn,wyn).

  • Æ æAshoræsc/ˈæʃ/,used for the vowel/æ/,which disappeared from the language and then reformed. Replaced byae[k]andenow.
  • Ð ðEdh,eðoreth/ˈɛð/,used for the consonants/ð/and/θ/(which did not become phonemically distinct until after the letter had fallen out of use). Replaced bythnow.
  • Þ þThornorþorn/ˈθɔːrn/,used for the consonants/ð/and/θ/(which did not become phonemically distinct until after the letter had fallen out of use). Replaced bythnow.
  • Œ œEthel,ēðel,œ̄þel,etc./ˈɛðəl/,used for the vowel/œ/,which disappeared from the language quite early. Replaced byoe[l]andenow.
  • Ƿ ƿWyn,ƿen(Kentish) orwynn/ˈwɪn/,used for the consonant/w/.(The letter 'w' had not yet been invented.) Replaced bywnow.
  • Ȝ ȝYogh,ȝoghoryoch/ˈjɒɡ/or/ˈjɒx/,used for various sounds derived from/ɡ/,such as/j/and/x/.Replaced byy,j[m],gh,andch[n]now.
  • ſlong s,an earlier form of thelowercase"s" that continued to be used alongside the modern lowercase s into the 1800s. Replaced by lowercasesnow.
  • ꝛr rotunda,an alternative form of the lowercase "r".

Diacritics[edit]

Main article:English terms with diacritical marks

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).[4]Diacritics used fortonal languagesmay be replaced withtonal numbersor omitted.

Loanwords[edit]

Diacriticmarks mainly appear in loanwords such asnaïveandfaçade.Informal English writing tends to omit diacritics because of their absence from the keyboard, while professional copywriters and typesetters tend to include them.

As such words become naturalised in English, there is a tendency to drop the diacritics, as has happened with many older borrowings from French, such ashôtel.Words that are still perceived as foreign tend to retain them; for example, the only spelling ofsoupçonfound in English dictionaries (theOEDand others) uses the diacritic. However, diacritics are likely to be retained even in naturalised words where they would otherwise be confused with a common native English word (for example,résumérather thanresume).[5]Rarely, they may even be added to a loanword for this reason (as inmaté,from Spanishyerba matebut following the pattern ofcafé,from French, to distinguish frommate).

Native English words[edit]

Occasionally, especially in older writing, diacritics are used to indicate thesyllablesof a word:cursed(verb) is pronounced with one syllable, whilecur sắc d(adjective) is pronounced with two. For this,èis used widely in poetry, e.g., in Shakespeare's sonnets.J. R. R. Tolkienusedë,as inO wingëd crown.

Similarly, while inchicken coopthe letters-oo-represent a single vowel sound (adigraph), they less often represent two which may be marked with a diaresis as inzoölogist[6]andcoöperation.This use of thediaeresisis rare but found in some well-known publications, such asMIT Technology ReviewandThe New Yorker.Some publications, particularly in UK usage, have replaced the diaeresis with a hyphen such as in co-operative.[citation needed]

In general, these devices are not used even where they would serve to alleviate some degree of confusion.

Punctuation marks within words[edit]

Apostrophe[edit]

Theapostrophe(ʼ) is not usually considered part of the English Alpha bet nor used as a diacritic, even in loanwords. But it is used for two important purposes in written English: to mark the "possessive"[o]and to markcontractedwords. Current standards require its use for both purposes. Therefore, apostrophes are necessary to spell many words even in isolation, unlike most punctuation marks, which are concerned with indicating sentence structure and other relationships among multiple words.

  • It distinguishes (from the otherwise identical regularpluralinflection-s) the Englishpossessivemorpheme "'s "(apostrophe alone after a regular plural affix, giving-s'as the standard mark for plural + possessive). Practice settled in the 18th century; before then, practices varied but typically all three endings were written-s(but without cumulation). This meant that only regular nouns bearing neither could be confidently identified, and plural and possessive could be potentially confused (e.g., "the Apostles words";"those things over there are my husbands"[7])—which undermines the logic of "marked"forms.
  • Many common contractions have near-homographsfrom which they are distinguished in writing only by an apostrophe, for exampleit's(it isorit has) as opposed toits,the possessive form of "it", orshe'd(she wouldorshe had) as opposed toshed.

In aChronicle of Higher Educationblog,Geoffrey Pullumargued that apostrophe is the 27th letter of the Alpha bet, arguing that it does not function as a form ofpunctuation.[8]

Hyphen[edit]

Hyphensare often used in Englishcompound words.Written compound words may be hyphenated, open or closed, so specifics are guided bystylistic policy.Some writers may use aslashin certain instances.

Frequencies[edit]

Main article:Letter frequency

The letter most commonly used in English is E. The least used letter is Z. The frequencies shown in the table may differ in practice according to the type of text.[9]

Phonology[edit]

Main article:English phonology

The letters A, E, I, O, and U are considered vowel letters, since (except when silent) they representvowels,although I and U represent consonants in words such as "onion" and "quail" respectively.

The letter Y sometimes represents a consonant (as in "young" ) and sometimes a vowel (as in "myth" ). Very rarely, W may represent a vowel (as in "cwm", aWelshloanword).

The consonant sounds represented by the letters W and Y in English (/w/ and /j/ as in went /wɛnt/ and yes /jɛs/) are referred to assemi-vowels(orglides) by linguists, however this is a description that applies to thesoundsrepresented by the letters and not to the letters themselves.

The remaining letters are considered consonant letters, since when not silent they generally representconsonants.

History[edit]

See also:History of the Latin Alpha betandEnglish orthography

Old English[edit]

Main article:Old English Latin Alpha bet

TheEnglish languageitself was initially written in theAnglo-Saxon futhorcrunic Alpha bet, in use from the 5th century. This Alpha bet was brought to what is now England, along with the proto-form of the language itself, byAnglo-Saxonsettlers. Very few examples of this form of writtenOld Englishhave survived, mostly as short inscriptions or fragments.

TheLatin script,introduced by Christian missionaries, began to replace the Anglo-Saxon futhorc from about the 7th century, although the two continued in parallel for some time. As such, the Old English Alpha bet began to employ parts of the Roman Alpha bet in its construction.[10]Futhorc influenced the emerging English Alpha bet by providing it with the lettersthorn(Þ þ) andwynn(Ƿ ƿ). The lettereth(Ð ð) was later devised as a modification ofdee(D d), and finallyyogh(Ȝȝ) was created by Norman scribes from theinsulargin Old English andIrish,and used alongside theirCarolingiang.

The a-eligatureash(Æ æ) was adopted as a letter in its own right, named after a futhorc runeæsc.In very early Old English the o-e ligatureethel(Œ œ) also appeared as a distinct letter, likewise named after a rune,œðel.[citation needed]Additionally, the v–v or u-u ligaturedouble-u(W w) was in use.

In the year 1011, a monk namedByrhtferðrecorded the traditional order of the Old English Alpha bet.[2]He listed the 24 letters of the Latin Alpha bet first, including theampersand,then 5 additional English letters, starting with theTironian noteond(⁊), an insular symbol forand:

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[edit]

In theorthographyofModern English,the lettersthorn(þ),eth(ð),wynn(ƿ),yogh(ȝ),ash(æ), andethel(œ) are obsolete.Latinborrowings reintroduced homographs of æ and œ intoMiddle EnglishandEarly Modern English,though they are largely obsolete (see "Ligatures in recent usage" below), and where they are used they are not considered to be separate letters (e.g., for collation purposes), but ratherligatures.Thorn and eth were both replaced byth,though thorn continued in existence for some time, its lowercase form gradually becoming graphically indistinguishable from theminusculeyin most handwriting.Yforthcan still be seen inpseudo-archaismssuch as "Ye OldeBooke Shoppe ". The letters þ and ð are still used in present-dayIcelandic(where they now represent two separate sounds,/θ/and/ð/having become phonemically-distinct – as indeed also happened in Modern English), while ð is still used in present-dayFaroese(although only as a silent letter). Wynn disappeared from English around the 14th century when it was supplanted byuu,which ultimately developed into the modernw.Yogh disappeared around the 15th century and was typically replaced bygh.

The lettersuandj,as distinct fromvandi,were introduced in the 16th century, andwassumed the status of an independent letter. The variant lowercase formlong s(ſ) lasted intoearly modern English,and was used in non-final position up to the early 19th century. Today, the English Alpha bet is considered to consist of the following 26 letters:

Written English has a number ofdigraphs,[11]but they are not considered separate letters of the Alpha bet:

  • ch (usually makes tsh sound)
  • ci (makes s sound)
  • ck (makes k sound)
  • gh (makes f or g sound (also silent))
  • ng (makes avoiced velar nasal)
  • ph (makes f sound)
  • qu (makes kw sound)
  • rh (makes r sound)
  • sc (makes s sound (also a blend)[clarification needed])
  • sh (makes ch sound without t)
  • th (makes theta or eth sound)
  • ti (makes sh sound)
  • wh (makes w sound)
  • wr (makes r sound)
  • zh (makes j sound without d)

Ligatures in recent usage[edit]

TheligaturesofAdobe Caslon Pro

Outside of professional papers on specific subjects that traditionally use ligatures inloanwords,ligatures are seldom used in modern English. The ligaturesæandœwere until the 19th century (slightly later in American English)[citation needed]used in formal writing for certain words of Greek or Latin origin, such asencyclopædiaandcœlom,although such ligatures were not used in either classical Latin or ancient Greek. These are now usually rendered as "ae" and "oe" in all types of writing,[citation needed]although in American English, a loneehas mostly supplanted both (for example,encyclopediaforencyclopaedia,andmaneuverformanoeuvre).

Sometypefacesused to typeset English texts contain commonly used ligatures, such as for⟨tt⟩,⟨fi⟩,⟨fl⟩,⟨ffi⟩,and⟨ffl⟩.These are not independent letters – although in traditionaltypesetting,each of these ligatures would have its ownsort(type element) for practical reasons – but simplytype designchoices created to optimize the legibility of the text.

Proposed reforms[edit]

There have been a number of proposals toextend or replace the basic English Alpha bet.These include proposals for the addition of letters to the English Alpha bet, such asengorengma(Ŋ ŋ), used to replace the digraph "ng"and represent thevoiced velar nasalsound with a single letter.Benjamin Franklin's phonetic Alpha bet,based on the Latin Alpha bet, introduced a number of new letters as part of a wider proposal to reform English orthography. Other proposals have gone further, proposing entirely new scripts for written English to replace the Latin Alpha bet such as theDeseret Alpha betand theShavian Alpha bet.

See also[edit]

Notes and references[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^often inHiberno-English,due to the letter's pronunciation in theIrish language
  2. ^The usual form inHiberno-Englishand Australian English
  3. ^The letter J did not occur in Old French or Middle English. The Modern French name isji/ʒi/, corresponding to Modern Englishjy(rhyming withi), which in most areas was later replaced withjay(rhyming withkay).
  4. ^inScottish English
  5. ^In the US, an L-shaped object may be spelledell.
  6. ^inHiberno-English
  7. ^in compounds such ases-hook
  8. ^Especially in American English, the /l/ is often not pronounced in informal speech.(Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary,10th ed). Common colloquial pronunciations are/ˈdʌbəjuː/,/ˈdʌbəjə/,and/ˈdʌbjə/(as in the nickname "Dubya" ) or just/ˈdʌb/,especially in terms like
  9. ^inBritish English,Hiberno-EnglishandCommonwealth English
  10. ^inAmerican English,Newfoundland EnglishandPhilippine English
  11. ^in British English
  12. ^in British English
  13. ^in words likehallelujah
  14. ^in words likelochin Scottish English
  15. ^Linguistic analyses vary on how best to characterise the English possessive morpheme-'s:a noun case inflectional suffix distinct topossession,agenitive caseinflectional suffix equivalent to prepositional periphrasticof X(or rarelyfor X), anedge inflectionthat uniquely attaches to a noun phrase's final (rather thanhead) word, or anenclitic postposition.

References[edit]

  1. ^The Oxford English Dictionary,2nd edition.
  2. ^abMichael Everson, Evertype, Baldur Sigurðsson, Íslensk Málstöð,On the Status of the Latin Letter Þorn and of its Sorting Order
  3. ^"The Dixie Primer, for the Little Folks".Branson, Farrar & Co., Raleigh NC.
  4. ^Strizver, Ilene,"Accents & Accented Characters",Fontology,Monotype Imaging,retrieved2019-06-17
  5. ^MHRA Style Guide: A Handbook for Authors and Editors(pdf)(3rd ed.), London:Modern Humanities Research Association,2013, Section 2.2,ISBN978-1-78188-009-8,retrieved2019-06-17.
  6. ^Zoölogist, Minnesota Office of the State (1892).Report of the State Zoölogist.
  7. ^Fynes-Clinton, Jane (2007-04-26)."Little Things that Matter".The Courier-Mail.Archived fromthe originalon 2012-09-04.Retrieved2013-04-07.
  8. ^Pullum, Geoffrey K. (March 22, 2013)."Being an apostrophe".Lingua Franca.Chronicle of Higher Education.Archivedfrom the original on Oct 13, 2023.
  9. ^Beker, Henry; Piper, Fred (1982).Cipher Systems: The Protection of Communications.Wiley-Interscience.p. 397.Table also available from Lewand, Robert (2000).Cryptological Mathematics.Mathematical Association of America.p. 36.ISBN978-0883857199.and"English letter frequencies".Archived fromthe originalon 2008-07-08.Retrieved2008-06-25.
  10. ^Shaw, Phillip (May 2013)."Adapting the Roman Alpha bet for Writing Old English: Evidence from Coin Epigraphy and Single-Sheet Characters".Early Medieval Europe.21(2). Wiley Blackwell: 115–139.doi:10.1111/emed.12012.S2CID163075636– via Ebscohost.
  11. ^"Digraphs (Phonics on the Web)".phonicsontheweb.Archived fromthe originalon 2016-04-13.Retrieved2016-04-07.

Further reading[edit]

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