# What is the Latin alphabet?



## BlueWolf

Almost everywhere you check this topic, you'll read something like this:_

The default Latin alphabet is the Roman, supplemented with G, J, U, W, Y, Z, and lower-case variants:_
_

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
_ 

_Additional letters may be formed. [...]_
_However, these glyphs are not always considered independent letters of the alphabet._


_[From Wikipedia]
_​ 

Now, I know this alphabet formed by 26 letters is the one used in English, but why is it considered the "default Latin alphabet"? The letter W is simply formed by two V's, why should it be considered part of the standard Latin alphabet? Letters like æ_, _ç, ñ, ð, etc. aren't, why should W? Just because it's used in English?


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## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> The letter W is simply formed by two V's, why should it be considered part of the standard Latin alphabet?


By the same line of reasoning, the letter G is just a C with a little vertical line added to it. 
"W" works as an independent letter in the (not many) languages that use it regularly.



BlueWolf said:


> Letters like æ_, _ç, ñ, <eth>, etc. aren't, why should W? Just because it's used in English?


The ligatures are rare, in the sense that they're used in very few languages. As for ç and ñ, they can be seen as accented versions of c and n. (I know that ñ is considered a letter of its own in Spanish, but graphically it's still n + ~).


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## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> By the same line of reasoning, the letter G is just a C with a little vertical line added to it.



I know that, but G was actually used by Latins as well as Y and Z (even if they came after), W wasn't.



> "W" works as an independent letter in the (not many) languages that use it regularly.



Well, Ñ is as well. And since they aren't so many, why is it "default Latin alphabet"?



> The ligatures are rare, in the sense that they're used in very few languages. As for ç and ñ, they can be seen as accented versions of c and n. (I know that ñ is considered a letter of its own in Spanish, but graphically it's still n + ~).



But W is a ligature! Between two V's.


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## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> I know that, but G was actually used by Latins as well as Y and Z (even if they came after), W wasn't.


But J and U weren't either, and K seldom was -- are you going to remove them from the alphabet?



BlueWolf said:


> Well, Ñ is as well. And since they aren't so many, why is it "default Latin alphabet"?
> 
> [...]
> 
> But W is a ligature! Between two V's.


W could be considered a ligature, but not Ñ, I think. 
What matters (I suppose; I'm not going to be dogmatic about this) is that "W" is used by an appreciable fraction of the languages that are written with the Latin alphabet nowadays, while the other ligatures are not.


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## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> But J and U weren't either, and K seldom was -- are you going to remove them from the alphabet?



But J and U are modificated version of I and V, and they are used in almost all the languages (differently to W) and they was created to distinguish between the couple of sounds that I and V had. 
W on the other hand is a necessity of Germanic languages only.



> W could be considered a ligature, but not Ñ, I think.



No, Ñ isn't, but as Ñ is a modificated N, W are two V's. Doesn't they have (under this point of view) the same status?



> What matters (I suppose; I'm not going to be dogmatic about this) is that "W" is used by an appreciable fraction of the languages that are written with the Latin alphabet nowadays, while the other ligatures are not.



Letters like Ç, Č, Š, Ž are used in many languages. I don't see why W would have a special status.


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## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> But J and U are modificated version of I and V, and they are used in almost all the languages (differently to W) and they was created to distinguish between the couple of sounds that I and V had.
> W on the other hand is a necessity of Germanic languages only.


It's not just Germanic languages (actually, several Germanic languages do not use the letter W regularly): also some Celtic languages, Polish (a Slavic language), and several African languages. Plus, it's widely used in the transcription of languages not written with the Latin alphabet, such as Chinese and Japanese.



BlueWolf said:


> No, Ñ isn't, but as Ñ is a modificated N, W are two V's. Doesn't they have (under this point of view) the same status?
> 
> [...]
> 
> Letters like Ç, C<caron>, S<caron>, Z<caron> are used in many languages. I don't see why W would have a special status.


It makes sense to me that Ñ, Ç, etc., would be considered compound characters, rather than "atomic" letters, for the sake of graphic simplicity. If you included all those symbols in the Latin alphabet, how many letters would it end up having?...


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## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> It makes sense to me that Ñ, Ç, etc., would be considered compound characters, rather than "atomic" letters, for the sake of graphic simplicity. If you included all those symbols in the Latin alphabet, how many letters would it end up having?...



I didn't mean to say "Let's add all the letters used in the languages that use a variant of Latin language". But I mean, there's a reason because it's called Latin Alphabet. The languages which use it say "This is a thing we inherit by our common Latin origins." 
The letter W, on the other hand, was born by some Germanic languages. And when you say:


> It's not just Germanic languages (actually, several Germanic languages do not use the letter W regularly): also some Celtic languages, Polish (a Slavic language), and several African languages. Plus, it's widely used in the transcription of languages not written with the Latin alphabet, such as Chinese and Japanese.


In all these cases, it's used because many of those languages _didn't_ derived their alphabet from Latin. Roman Empire never included those areas. They use that alphabet, because the "power" (Germanic) used it. Afrikaans is from English. Chinese and Japanese use the English alphabet because it's the dominant power (and language) (and even because they need letter to be able to transcribe their language ). Finnish uses W, but it's not an Indo-European language, it simply took it from its neighbours (Germanic).


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## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> I didn't mean to say "Let's add all the letters used in the languages that use a variant of Latin language". But I mean, there's a reason because it's called Latin Alphabet. The languages which use it say "This is a thing we inherit by our common Latin origins."


Yes, we inherited it from the Romans, but we've also modified it, for example adding subscript letters, and splitting I and V into I/J and U/V. Why not accept one more little addition? You wouldn't want to make these fellas cry, would you? 



BlueWolf said:


> The letter W, on the other hand, was born by some Germanic languages. And when you say:
> 
> In all these cases, it's used because many of those languages _didn't_ derived their alphabet from Latin. Roman Empire never included those areas. They use that alphabet, because the "power" (Germanic) used it. Afrikaans is from English. Chinese and Japanese use the English alphabet because it's the dominant power (and language) (and even because they need letter to be able to transcribe their language ). Finnish uses W, but it's not an Indo-European language, it simply took it from its neighbours (Germanic).


One correction: Afrikaans got the "W" from Dutch, its parent language. And when I mentioned African languages, I was also thinking of Swahili, Wolof, etc., which also use the Latin alphabet. Yes, it's due to their European colonial heritage, but then we can also say that the Latin alphabet is part of _our_ Roman colonial heritage.


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## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> Yes, we inherited it from the Romans, but we've also modified it, for example adding subscript letters, and splitting I and V into I/J and U/V. Why not accept one more little addition? You wouldn't want to make these fellas cry, would you?



I didn't know that association.
But I'm not agree about that because while J and U had invented to distinguish some sounds _in Latin_ (and in fact you can (and many do) write Latin with J and U), where do you see W in Latin? W has nothing to do with Latin world.

P.S. About that what's W's name? Double u/v.


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## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> I didn't know that association.
> But I'm not agree about that because while J and U had invented to distinguish some sounds _in Latin_ (and in fact you can (and many do) write Latin with J and U), where do you see W in Latin? W has nothing to do with Latin world.


J and U were not invented to distinguish different Latin sounds. Latin never needed them, because the pronunciations of I and V were predictable from their position in a word. The letters were split because of languages other than Latin, such as French, where the pronunciation of I and V had ceased to be predictable.



BlueWolf said:


> P.S. About that what's W's name? Double u/v.


But what about: 

Y: Greek I
Z: zède/zed (zeta)


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## papillon

BlueWolf said:


> Now, I know this alphabet formed by 26 letters is the one used in English, but why is it considered the "default Latin alphabet"? ... Just because it's used in English?


My short answer would be Yes. 

Since German had other letters (estset, letters with umlaut) that _didn't_ make it into "the standard" alphabet, I would assume that the current convention on the standard alphabet is heavily influenced by English. I take the designation "Latin" in this case not as a statement that the alphabet was used by the Romans, but simply as an acknowledgement of it's _origins_ in Classical Rome. In the same way as Latin America was not part of the Roman Empire, but is in a way connected to Rome as a result of being colonialized by "romanic" countries.

Interestingly, in recent years the concept of a standard Latin alphabet is becoming less and less relevant. A mechanical typewriter can only have a fixed number of characters, and so the manufacturer, say Underwood, needs to decide which letters to include in the carriage. If W is omitted, you've lost the English-speaking market. If Č is omitted you've lost some Slavic countries. You make your decision.

With computer fonts, adding new characters requires no effort. More and more, you see English-language media featuring Serbian and Czech names in all of their original glory, with all the diacritic marks.


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## Blackleaf

Shakespeare invented the letters J and U in the way that we use them today. The Elizabethan alphabet originally had only 24 letters. In the English alphabet at that time, J was the capital of i before I became the capital. Shakespeare made J a completely separate letter.

Shakespeare also gave us the letter U. Even though that letter originally dated back to the Anglo-Saxon times, it was Shakespeare who started using it like we do now and made it common.

He also invented about 1700 words, including "assassination" and "bump."


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## Fernando

I do not know what you call "Standard Latin Alphabet". Certainly, every language has its alphabet.

From the list you give to us "K" and "W", as an example, are used in Spanish just for foreign words. If you have any doubt check how "large" are these words in any Spanish dictionary.

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

In Spanish you should add "ñ", which is certainly a separate letter and (possibly) the digraphs "ll", "rr" and "ch". I am certain that if we had invented the computer, you should have a key for them. A pity.


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## Lugubert

I always find it strange when I see our å, ä, ö referred to as "accented letters". There are definitions of accents that would allow his usage, but for example a with a superscript o -> å is from the 15th century, so it certainly isn't regarded as accented in Sweden (or, I suppose, in Norway, where aa -> å is from 1917, or even in Denmark, where that switch was in 1948).

Our o + superscript e -> ö, a + superscript e -> ä is 16th C. As "accented" as the T is an accented I.

My middle name would look unfamiliar if we replaced the W by a V, but in Swedish alphabetical listings, the  rule is that there is no differentiation between the single v and the "dubbelve". I'm getting close to the "translating names" thread, but I would have no problem if we made the W to V substitution wholesale. However, for foreign names I'm in favour of writing/printing them as close to their domestic form as practically possible.


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## Outsider

Fernando said:


> I do not know what you call "Standard Latin Alphabet". Certainly, every language has its alphabet.


Certainly, not _every_ language... 

Anyway, that's arguable. It can be said that Spanish, English and Italian all use the Latin alphabet, but in different ways (and amounts).


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## Outsider

Lugubert said:


> I always find it strange when I see our å, ä, ö referred to as "accented letters".


Well, I always find it strange to see them referred to as "letters". And don't get me started on digraphs... 

_Chacun à son goût_, I say.


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## Fernando

Outsider said:


> Certainly, not _every_ language...
> 
> Anyway, that's arguable. It can be said that Spanish, English and Italian all use the Latin alphabet, but in different ways (and amounts).



Agreed. What is strange to me is the notion of "Standard". The common ones are the abovementioned (let us accept W and K in Romanic languages) I think no language share all the letters.


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## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> J and U were not invented to distinguish different Latin sounds. Latin never needed them, because the pronunciations of I and V were predictable from their position in a word. The letters were split because of languages other than Latin, such as French, where the pronunciation of I and V had ceased to be predictable.


Yes, but they was sounds from Latin, and French was Vulgar Latin. And since they was Latin sounds, today we actually use to write "vivere" instead of "uiuere", and often "Julius" instead of "Iulius". W? It doesn't for Latin, it doesn't need for any other language that comes from Latin.
English, German and so on needed a new letter and "invented" W from a ligature between two V's. What's the difference with Sweden and å?


> But what about:
> 
> Y: Greek I
> Z: zède/zed (zeta)


 Ok, I see Y, but what's your problem with Z? 


> A mechanical typewriter can only have a fixed number of characters, and so the manufacturer, say Underwood, needs to decide which letters to include in the carriage. If W is omitted, you've lost the English-speaking market. If Č is omitted you've lost some Slavic countries. You make your decision.


 I'm talking about Latin alphabet. You can include W in a typewriter even without including it in the "official Latin alphabet".
[quoteI do not know what you call "Standard Latin Alphabet". Certainly, every language has its alphabet.[/quote]
First, it's not my definition, since I don't agree with it , but however I clearly give the definition in my first post. And if you read a introduction to a language, let's pretend Spanish, you'll read:
_Spanish alphabet is based on Latin one, but it doesn't use K and W and it add the letter Ñ.
_So "every language's alphabet" is compared with the "standard Latin", that, you can see, is actually the English one.


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## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> Yes, but they was sounds from Latin, and French was Vulgar Latin. And since they was Latin sounds, today we actually use to write "vivere" instead of "uiuere", and often "Julius" instead of "Iulius".


Arguable. Classical Latin did not have the sounds of the "j" and the "v", such as they are pronounced today in most Romance languages. What we now rewrite as "j" and "v" were originally pronounced as English "y" and "w". Vivere = wiwere, Iulius = Yulyus. Still think "W" does not stand for a Latin sound? 



BlueWolf said:


> Ok, I see Y, but what's your problem with Z?


It's a Greek letter, with a Greek name to boot. Genuine Latin had no use for it. Only pedantic intellectuals used it. 
Shall we throw it out of the alphabet?...


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## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> Arguable. Classical Latin did not have the sounds of the "j" and the "v", such as they are pronounced today in most Romance languages. What we now rewrite as "j" and "v" were originally pronounced as English "y" and "w". Vivere = wiwere, Iulius = Yulyus. Still think "W" does not stand for a Latin sound?


No, you misunderstood me. I didn't mean it has the same sound they have in Romance languages today. *I* was read _ or [j] (IPAs letters) and *V*  or [w]. So W doesn't stand for a Latin sound, because [w] was written V in Latin.



			It's a Greek letter, with a Greek name to boot. Genuine Latin had no use for it. Only pedantic intellectuals used it. 
Shall we throw it out of the alphabet?... 

Click to expand...

Yes, it's a Greek letter, used in Latin for words which came from Greek, but it isn't a variant of a Latin sound, so Y was actually a sound used Latin, even if come from Greek (IPA pronunce [y]). In fact, a Latin imperator invented a new letter to rappresent this sound (as he does for V) but it didn't become popular and Y was used instead. So Y is Latin, and Latins added it in their alphabet. Why shouldn't we?_


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## Outsider

I think I understand your point of view, but I don't give as much importance to those things as you do. The Latin alphabet itself was a repurposed Etruscan alphabet (which was descended from one of the many varieties of the Greek alphabet...) 
From the moment that other languages started to be written in it, it stopped being _Latin's_ alphabet. We call it the "Latin alphabet" for historical reasons, because that was the first language to be written in it (if we discount Etruscan), but now it's a tool used by many different languages, each in their own different ways. It does not belong to Latin alone anymore.


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## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> I think I understand your point of view, but I don't give as much importance to those things as you do.


You don't have to think I cry all nights for this reason.  I only think this is only an other prove of how much English has become the "universal point of view".


> From the moment that other languages started to be written in it, it stopped being _Latin's_ alphabet. We call it the "Latin alphabet" for historical reasons, because that was the first language to be written in it (if we discount Etruscan), but now it's a tool used by many different languages, each in their own different ways. It does not belong to Latin alone anymore.


I'm agree, this is the reason I wouldn't call the alphabet ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ the Latin alphabet, but the English alphabet.


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## Outsider

And what would the Latin alphabet be, for you?


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## BlueWolf

If we consider it as the alphabet Latins used, it should be ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTVXYZ (of course, it changed in the centuries, but this was the "most recent").
But if we consider it as an "international one", with the meaning it is the Latin alphabet as used today in modern language, I'd say it is ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVXYZ (and W is just a "ligature between two V's", a character for specific languages).


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## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> If we consider it as the alphabet Latins used, it should be ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTVXYZ (of course, it changed in the centuries, but this was the "most recent").


You mean the Romans. But Latin continued to be used, even spoken, for a long time after their empire had fallen apart.



BlueWolf said:


> But if we consider it as an "international one", with the meaning it is the Latin alphabet as used today in modern language, I'd say it is ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVXYZ (and W is just a "ligature between two V's", a character for specific languages).


By "international", you mean "multilingual", right?...


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## BlueWolf

> By "international", you mean "multilingual", right?...


I mean that it's the base for all the languages uses it. Some languages could not use all the letters (like my own language) and some languages could add more (almost all created from those letters, like W), but all can recognize in that alphabet a common base from which their alphabet was born.


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## Brioche

Blackleaf said:


> Shakespeare invented the letters J and U in the way that we use them today. The Elizabethan alphabet originally had only 24 letters. In the English alphabet at that time, J was the capital of i before I became the capital. Shakespeare made J a completely separate letter.
> 
> Shakespeare also gave us the letter U. Even though that letter originally dated back to the Anglo-Saxon times, it was Shakespeare who started using it like we do now and made it common.
> 
> He also invented about 1700 words, including "assassination" and "bump."


 
Sorry, but I don't believe this.

It was the  printers who printed Shakespeare's plays and poems who decided how to spell them.

Only 18 of his 38 plays were published during his lifetime, and there is no evidence that The Bard took the slightest interest in the publications.
The printers certainly did not work from manuscripts in Shakespeare's own hand. Spelling was not fixed in those days. Each of the supposedly authentic signatures of Shakespeare spells the name differently.

I know that it is frequently maintained that Shakespeare introduced this or that word into the language, but this merely means that the word _first appears in print_ in something attributed to Shakespeare.


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## BlueWolf

I just found two other interesting news about this old thread.

From Wikipedia:
_There are only five major European languages that use W in native words: English, German, Polish, Dutch and Welsh.

_I bet that if we take some other special letters we can reach the W.

Secondly, after some discussions (I have nothing to do with them ) Wikipedia did remove the claim that the Latin Alphabet would be composed by 26 letters.


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## Thomsen

And don't forget Gutenberg.  I bet standardization of the "Latin alphabet" with Germanic letters had something to do with printing mechanization in northern Europe.


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## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> I just found two other interesting news about this old thread.
> 
> From Wikipedia:
> _There are only five major European languages that use W in native words: English, German, Polish, Dutch and Welsh.
> 
> _I bet that if we take some other special letters we can reach the W.


The letter W also used to be a part of the alphabets of Northeastern European languages influenced by German, like the Scandinavian languages. It was only recently that they replaced it with V (which was often a variant of U before that).


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## Lemminkäinen

Outsider said:


> The letter W also used to be a part of the alphabets of Northeastern European languages influenced by German, like the Scandinavian languages. It was only recently that they replaced it with V (which was often a variant of U before that).



In addition to W, C, Q, Z and X are almost not used at all here. 

(A political satire show has a contest where the team members have to say one sentence each - the first has to start with A, the next B, &c, all the way to Å. Most of them run into trouble when they reach C, but the other letters listed are also killers  )

I think the reason W isn't considered a ligature is because it signifies a different sound in English than V (Braille for instance, didn't have a specific sign for W for quite some time because it wasn't a specific letter in French at the time). 

I'm not sure if we can still talk about just the Latin alphabet; perhaps the English/French/Danish alphabet is better. 
The letters æ, ø and å are definitely not mere ligatures in the Norwegian alphabet, but "real" letters.


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## Outsider

I was thinking of the following:



> Until recently the letter "W" was treated as a variant form of "V" and this practice is still commonly encountered. However, in 2005 the Swedish Academy separated the two letters in conformity with international lexicographic practice.
> 
> Swedish alphabet





> The English-style w-sound is foreign to Finnish language, but historically "W" was used (as in German) to mark a v-sound. Although this is today considered archaic and "V" is used instead, "W" may still occur in some old surnames as a variant of "V".
> 
> Finnish alphabet


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## Lugubert

Outsider said:


> I was thinking of the following:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Until recently the letter "W" was treated as a variant form of "V" and this practice is still commonly encountered. However, in 2005 the Swedish Academy separated the two letters in conformity with international lexicographic practice.
Click to expand...

And the Academy is so far very much alone in that effort. The telephone book and MS Word sorting algorithms make no difference. The semi-official Nationalencyklopedin has 





> _v,_ _V_, the 22nd letter in the Swedish version of the Latin alphabet. The difference between _v_ and _u _was introduced only in the 10th century. In Swedish, _w_ is used only in proper names and in loan words as an alternative _v_, having no place of its own in the alphabet.


 (My translation.)


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## Outsider

> The difference between _v_ and _u_ was introduced only in the *10th* century.


That can't be right! Perhaps you've misspelled "20th".


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## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> The letter W also used to be a part of the alphabets of Northeastern European languages influenced by German, like the Scandinavian languages. It was only recently that they replaced it with V (which was often a variant of U before that).



Well, even if you count the language which used W only in the past, I bet it can't reach the languages which use Ç (and note that it is a separate letter in some languages, even if it isn't in French and Portuguese).


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## Outsider

But you can construct a "Ç" by adding a little squiggle to a "C". You can't make a "W" that way!


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## maxiogee

There's a clue in the name of the letter. You make a *w* from a *uu* formation.


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## Outsider

You mean a *vv* formation...


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## mcibor

Outsider said:


> It's not just Germanic languages (actually, several Germanic languages do not use the letter W regularly): also some Celtic languages, Polish (a Slavic language), and several African languages. Plus, it's widely used in the transcription of languages not written with the Latin alphabet, such as Chinese and Japanese.



As for Polish
Q = ku
X = ks
V = W

so these three letters are used only in words taken from nowaday English: taxi, but ksero.

Chałewer  there is a letter, which is similar in pronounciation to English w, it's
Ł ł
which derives from L and is used in Polish, Belarussian latin, Venice language, in Wymysöryś and Navaho language - maybe it should also be put into the "latin letters" as well?

I think that latin in this context mean multilingual, not the roman language, therefore as these 26 letters (Polish has 32) are most commonly used around the EMEAm (Europe, Middle East, and both Americas) and Roman empire or it's descendants are living there we could leave the W letter as is.

Correct me if I'm wrong
Michał


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## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> But you can construct a "Ç" by adding a little squiggle to a "C". You can't make a "W" that way!



In a computer a W is very easier to write than a Ç (if you don't have the standard version).
And why should the form of a letter affect its presence in the alphabet. Also G is a C with a little line.


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## Outsider

G has been treated as a letter on its own since the Latin alphabet was the Latin alphabet. VV is not quite W.


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## lazarus1907

BlueWolf said:


> Chinese and Japanese use the English alphabet because it's the dominant power (and language) (and even because they need letter to be able to transcribe their language ).


Once again: It is not English, but Latin, with the W added to it, if you want. In Japanese, by the way, they call this alphabet that you have claimed for the English language "*Romanji*", which means "*Roman characters*".



> The letter *W* is the twenty-third letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is _double-u_, which is the longest letter to pronounce. /ˈdʌ.bəl.juː/.
> 
> The earliest form of the letter W was a doubled V used in the 7th century by the earliest writers of; it is from this <uu> digraph that the modern name "double U" comes.


Regards.


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## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> G has been treated as a letter on its own since the Latin alphabet was the Latin alphabet. VV is not quite W.



So is also Æ is not quite AE? W is a legature two V's, even if it's a letter on its own in some alphabets.


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## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> So is also Æ is not quite AE?


What does the answer to that question have to do with whether W should be included in the main alphabet or not?  



BlueWolf said:


> What does W is a legature two V's, even if it's a letter on its own in some alphabets.


W is a letter on its own in _every_ modern version of the Latin alphabet that includes it.


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## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> What does the answer to that question have to do with whether W should be included in the main alphabet or not?



In fact, nothing, I'm only answering to your last post:



> VV is not quite W.



W is a letter on its own in _every_ modern version of the Latin alphabet that includes it.[/quote]

No, for example for some alphabets it's simply a variant of an other letter (V).


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## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> No, for example for some alphabets it's simply a variant of an other letter (V).


Those are alphabets where the use of W is old-fashioned / optional / foreign. And it's never analysed as a ligature, in any case.



BlueWolf said:


> So is also Æ is not quite AE?


Absolutely. Just ask anyone who speaks a North Germanic language.


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## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> Those are alphabets where the use of W is old-fashioned / optional / foreign. And it's never analysed as a ligature, in any case.



Well, that is the origin of the letter. That's what I meant.


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## Cecilio

Outsider said:


> The Latin alphabet itself was a repurposed Etruscan alphabet (which was descended from one of the many varieties of the Greek alphabet...)



I'm not too sure about this Etruscan step in the origin of the Latin alphabet. I've always assumed that the Latin alphabet (and also the Faliscan one for example) derives directly from the archaic Greek alphabets used in Italy.


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## BlueWolf

Cecilio said:


> I'm not too sure about this Etruscan step in the origin of the Latin alphabet. I've always assumed that the Latin alphabet (and also the Faliscan one for example) derives directly from the archaic Greek alphabets used in Italy.


 
The Greek colonies were only in the southern part of Italy, and that alphabet wasn't used in Rome. On the other hand Romans had strong relationship with Etruscans, in fact three of the legendary seven kings of Rome have Etruscan origins. It is true however that the Greek alphabet influenced the Latin one.


----------



## Cecilio

As far as I know, both the Etruscan and the Latin alphabets derived from Greek alphabets. The Greeks were mainly in southern Italy and their influence spread further north. But it's not only that the Greek alphabet influenced the Latin one: the Latin alphabet is a simple derivation of the Greek archaic alphabets. On the other hand, the territory of the Latins was not only the city of Rome, but the whole region of Latium, whose southern boundary was quite close to the Greek colonies of Campania.


----------



## BlueWolf

Almost everywhere you check this topic, you'll read something like this:_

The default Latin alphabet is the Roman, supplemented with G, J, U, W, Y, Z, and lower-case variants:_
_

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
_ 

_Additional letters may be formed. [...]_
_However, these glyphs are not always considered independent letters of the alphabet._


_[From Wikipedia]
_​ 

Now, I know this alphabet formed by 26 letters is the one used in English, but why is it considered the "default Latin alphabet"? The letter W is simply formed by two V's, why should it be considered part of the standard Latin alphabet? Letters like æ_, _ç, ñ, ð, etc. aren't, why should W? Just because it's used in English?


----------



## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> The letter W is simply formed by two V's, why should it be considered part of the standard Latin alphabet?


By the same line of reasoning, the letter G is just a C with a little vertical line added to it. 
"W" works as an independent letter in the (not many) languages that use it regularly.



BlueWolf said:


> Letters like æ_, _ç, ñ, <eth>, etc. aren't, why should W? Just because it's used in English?


The ligatures are rare, in the sense that they're used in very few languages. As for ç and ñ, they can be seen as accented versions of c and n. (I know that ñ is considered a letter of its own in Spanish, but graphically it's still n + ~).


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> By the same line of reasoning, the letter G is just a C with a little vertical line added to it.



I know that, but G was actually used by Latins as well as Y and Z (even if they came after), W wasn't.



> "W" works as an independent letter in the (not many) languages that use it regularly.



Well, Ñ is as well. And since they aren't so many, why is it "default Latin alphabet"?



> The ligatures are rare, in the sense that they're used in very few languages. As for ç and ñ, they can be seen as accented versions of c and n. (I know that ñ is considered a letter of its own in Spanish, but graphically it's still n + ~).



But W is a ligature! Between two V's.


----------



## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> I know that, but G was actually used by Latins as well as Y and Z (even if they came after), W wasn't.


But J and U weren't either, and K seldom was -- are you going to remove them from the alphabet?



BlueWolf said:


> Well, Ñ is as well. And since they aren't so many, why is it "default Latin alphabet"?
> 
> [...]
> 
> But W is a ligature! Between two V's.


W could be considered a ligature, but not Ñ, I think. 
What matters (I suppose; I'm not going to be dogmatic about this) is that "W" is used by an appreciable fraction of the languages that are written with the Latin alphabet nowadays, while the other ligatures are not.


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> But J and U weren't either, and K seldom was -- are you going to remove them from the alphabet?



But J and U are modificated version of I and V, and they are used in almost all the languages (differently to W) and they was created to distinguish between the couple of sounds that I and V had. 
W on the other hand is a necessity of Germanic languages only.



> W could be considered a ligature, but not Ñ, I think.



No, Ñ isn't, but as Ñ is a modificated N, W are two V's. Doesn't they have (under this point of view) the same status?



> What matters (I suppose; I'm not going to be dogmatic about this) is that "W" is used by an appreciable fraction of the languages that are written with the Latin alphabet nowadays, while the other ligatures are not.



Letters like Ç, Č, Š, Ž are used in many languages. I don't see why W would have a special status.


----------



## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> But J and U are modificated version of I and V, and they are used in almost all the languages (differently to W) and they was created to distinguish between the couple of sounds that I and V had.
> W on the other hand is a necessity of Germanic languages only.


It's not just Germanic languages (actually, several Germanic languages do not use the letter W regularly): also some Celtic languages, Polish (a Slavic language), and several African languages. Plus, it's widely used in the transcription of languages not written with the Latin alphabet, such as Chinese and Japanese.



BlueWolf said:


> No, Ñ isn't, but as Ñ is a modificated N, W are two V's. Doesn't they have (under this point of view) the same status?
> 
> [...]
> 
> Letters like Ç, C<caron>, S<caron>, Z<caron> are used in many languages. I don't see why W would have a special status.


It makes sense to me that Ñ, Ç, etc., would be considered compound characters, rather than "atomic" letters, for the sake of graphic simplicity. If you included all those symbols in the Latin alphabet, how many letters would it end up having?...


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> It makes sense to me that Ñ, Ç, etc., would be considered compound characters, rather than "atomic" letters, for the sake of graphic simplicity. If you included all those symbols in the Latin alphabet, how many letters would it end up having?...



I didn't mean to say "Let's add all the letters used in the languages that use a variant of Latin language". But I mean, there's a reason because it's called Latin Alphabet. The languages which use it say "This is a thing we inherit by our common Latin origins." 
The letter W, on the other hand, was born by some Germanic languages. And when you say:


> It's not just Germanic languages (actually, several Germanic languages do not use the letter W regularly): also some Celtic languages, Polish (a Slavic language), and several African languages. Plus, it's widely used in the transcription of languages not written with the Latin alphabet, such as Chinese and Japanese.


In all these cases, it's used because many of those languages _didn't_ derived their alphabet from Latin. Roman Empire never included those areas. They use that alphabet, because the "power" (Germanic) used it. Afrikaans is from English. Chinese and Japanese use the English alphabet because it's the dominant power (and language) (and even because they need letter to be able to transcribe their language ). Finnish uses W, but it's not an Indo-European language, it simply took it from its neighbours (Germanic).


----------



## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> I didn't mean to say "Let's add all the letters used in the languages that use a variant of Latin language". But I mean, there's a reason because it's called Latin Alphabet. The languages which use it say "This is a thing we inherit by our common Latin origins."


Yes, we inherited it from the Romans, but we've also modified it, for example adding subscript letters, and splitting I and V into I/J and U/V. Why not accept one more little addition? You wouldn't want to make these fellas cry, would you? 



BlueWolf said:


> The letter W, on the other hand, was born by some Germanic languages. And when you say:
> 
> In all these cases, it's used because many of those languages _didn't_ derived their alphabet from Latin. Roman Empire never included those areas. They use that alphabet, because the "power" (Germanic) used it. Afrikaans is from English. Chinese and Japanese use the English alphabet because it's the dominant power (and language) (and even because they need letter to be able to transcribe their language ). Finnish uses W, but it's not an Indo-European language, it simply took it from its neighbours (Germanic).


One correction: Afrikaans got the "W" from Dutch, its parent language. And when I mentioned African languages, I was also thinking of Swahili, Wolof, etc., which also use the Latin alphabet. Yes, it's due to their European colonial heritage, but then we can also say that the Latin alphabet is part of _our_ Roman colonial heritage.


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> Yes, we inherited it from the Romans, but we've also modified it, for example adding subscript letters, and splitting I and V into I/J and U/V. Why not accept one more little addition? You wouldn't want to make these fellas cry, would you?



I didn't know that association.
But I'm not agree about that because while J and U had invented to distinguish some sounds _in Latin_ (and in fact you can (and many do) write Latin with J and U), where do you see W in Latin? W has nothing to do with Latin world.

P.S. About that what's W's name? Double u/v.


----------



## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> I didn't know that association.
> But I'm not agree about that because while J and U had invented to distinguish some sounds _in Latin_ (and in fact you can (and many do) write Latin with J and U), where do you see W in Latin? W has nothing to do with Latin world.


J and U were not invented to distinguish different Latin sounds. Latin never needed them, because the pronunciations of I and V were predictable from their position in a word. The letters were split because of languages other than Latin, such as French, where the pronunciation of I and V had ceased to be predictable.



BlueWolf said:


> P.S. About that what's W's name? Double u/v.


But what about: 

Y: Greek I
Z: zède/zed (zeta)


----------



## papillon

BlueWolf said:


> Now, I know this alphabet formed by 26 letters is the one used in English, but why is it considered the "default Latin alphabet"? ... Just because it's used in English?


My short answer would be Yes. 

Since German had other letters (estset, letters with umlaut) that _didn't_ make it into "the standard" alphabet, I would assume that the current convention on the standard alphabet is heavily influenced by English. I take the designation "Latin" in this case not as a statement that the alphabet was used by the Romans, but simply as an acknowledgement of it's _origins_ in Classical Rome. In the same way as Latin America was not part of the Roman Empire, but is in a way connected to Rome as a result of being colonialized by "romanic" countries.

Interestingly, in recent years the concept of a standard Latin alphabet is becoming less and less relevant. A mechanical typewriter can only have a fixed number of characters, and so the manufacturer, say Underwood, needs to decide which letters to include in the carriage. If W is omitted, you've lost the English-speaking market. If Č is omitted you've lost some Slavic countries. You make your decision.

With computer fonts, adding new characters requires no effort. More and more, you see English-language media featuring Serbian and Czech names in all of their original glory, with all the diacritic marks.


----------



## Blackleaf

Shakespeare invented the letters J and U in the way that we use them today. The Elizabethan alphabet originally had only 24 letters. In the English alphabet at that time, J was the capital of i before I became the capital. Shakespeare made J a completely separate letter.

Shakespeare also gave us the letter U. Even though that letter originally dated back to the Anglo-Saxon times, it was Shakespeare who started using it like we do now and made it common.

He also invented about 1700 words, including "assassination" and "bump."


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## Fernando

I do not know what you call "Standard Latin Alphabet". Certainly, every language has its alphabet.

From the list you give to us "K" and "W", as an example, are used in Spanish just for foreign words. If you have any doubt check how "large" are these words in any Spanish dictionary.

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

In Spanish you should add "ñ", which is certainly a separate letter and (possibly) the digraphs "ll", "rr" and "ch". I am certain that if we had invented the computer, you should have a key for them. A pity.


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## Lugubert

I always find it strange when I see our å, ä, ö referred to as "accented letters". There are definitions of accents that would allow his usage, but for example a with a superscript o -> å is from the 15th century, so it certainly isn't regarded as accented in Sweden (or, I suppose, in Norway, where aa -> å is from 1917, or even in Denmark, where that switch was in 1948).

Our o + superscript e -> ö, a + superscript e -> ä is 16th C. As "accented" as the T is an accented I.

My middle name would look unfamiliar if we replaced the W by a V, but in Swedish alphabetical listings, the  rule is that there is no differentiation between the single v and the "dubbelve". I'm getting close to the "translating names" thread, but I would have no problem if we made the W to V substitution wholesale. However, for foreign names I'm in favour of writing/printing them as close to their domestic form as practically possible.


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## Outsider

Fernando said:


> I do not know what you call "Standard Latin Alphabet". Certainly, every language has its alphabet.


Certainly, not _every_ language... 

Anyway, that's arguable. It can be said that Spanish, English and Italian all use the Latin alphabet, but in different ways (and amounts).


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## Outsider

Lugubert said:


> I always find it strange when I see our å, ä, ö referred to as "accented letters".


Well, I always find it strange to see them referred to as "letters". And don't get me started on digraphs... 

_Chacun à son goût_, I say.


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## Fernando

Outsider said:


> Certainly, not _every_ language...
> 
> Anyway, that's arguable. It can be said that Spanish, English and Italian all use the Latin alphabet, but in different ways (and amounts).



Agreed. What is strange to me is the notion of "Standard". The common ones are the abovementioned (let us accept W and K in Romanic languages) I think no language share all the letters.


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## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> J and U were not invented to distinguish different Latin sounds. Latin never needed them, because the pronunciations of I and V were predictable from their position in a word. The letters were split because of languages other than Latin, such as French, where the pronunciation of I and V had ceased to be predictable.


Yes, but they was sounds from Latin, and French was Vulgar Latin. And since they was Latin sounds, today we actually use to write "vivere" instead of "uiuere", and often "Julius" instead of "Iulius". W? It doesn't for Latin, it doesn't need for any other language that comes from Latin.
English, German and so on needed a new letter and "invented" W from a ligature between two V's. What's the difference with Sweden and å?


> But what about:
> 
> Y: Greek I
> Z: zède/zed (zeta)


 Ok, I see Y, but what's your problem with Z? 


> A mechanical typewriter can only have a fixed number of characters, and so the manufacturer, say Underwood, needs to decide which letters to include in the carriage. If W is omitted, you've lost the English-speaking market. If Č is omitted you've lost some Slavic countries. You make your decision.


 I'm talking about Latin alphabet. You can include W in a typewriter even without including it in the "official Latin alphabet".
[quoteI do not know what you call "Standard Latin Alphabet". Certainly, every language has its alphabet.[/quote]
First, it's not my definition, since I don't agree with it , but however I clearly give the definition in my first post. And if you read a introduction to a language, let's pretend Spanish, you'll read:
_Spanish alphabet is based on Latin one, but it doesn't use K and W and it add the letter Ñ.
_So "every language's alphabet" is compared with the "standard Latin", that, you can see, is actually the English one.


----------



## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> Yes, but they was sounds from Latin, and French was Vulgar Latin. And since they was Latin sounds, today we actually use to write "vivere" instead of "uiuere", and often "Julius" instead of "Iulius".


Arguable. Classical Latin did not have the sounds of the "j" and the "v", such as they are pronounced today in most Romance languages. What we now rewrite as "j" and "v" were originally pronounced as English "y" and "w". Vivere = wiwere, Iulius = Yulyus. Still think "W" does not stand for a Latin sound? 



BlueWolf said:


> Ok, I see Y, but what's your problem with Z?


It's a Greek letter, with a Greek name to boot. Genuine Latin had no use for it. Only pedantic intellectuals used it. 
Shall we throw it out of the alphabet?...


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> Arguable. Classical Latin did not have the sounds of the "j" and the "v", such as they are pronounced today in most Romance languages. What we now rewrite as "j" and "v" were originally pronounced as English "y" and "w". Vivere = wiwere, Iulius = Yulyus. Still think "W" does not stand for a Latin sound?


No, you misunderstood me. I didn't mean it has the same sound they have in Romance languages today. *I* was read _ or [j] (IPAs letters) and *V*  or [w]. So W doesn't stand for a Latin sound, because [w] was written V in Latin.



			It's a Greek letter, with a Greek name to boot. Genuine Latin had no use for it. Only pedantic intellectuals used it. 
Shall we throw it out of the alphabet?... 

Click to expand...

Yes, it's a Greek letter, used in Latin for words which came from Greek, but it isn't a variant of a Latin sound, so Y was actually a sound used Latin, even if come from Greek (IPA pronunce [y]). In fact, a Latin imperator invented a new letter to rappresent this sound (as he does for V) but it didn't become popular and Y was used instead. So Y is Latin, and Latins added it in their alphabet. Why shouldn't we?_


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## Outsider

I think I understand your point of view, but I don't give as much importance to those things as you do. The Latin alphabet itself was a repurposed Etruscan alphabet (which was descended from one of the many varieties of the Greek alphabet...) 
From the moment that other languages started to be written in it, it stopped being _Latin's_ alphabet. We call it the "Latin alphabet" for historical reasons, because that was the first language to be written in it (if we discount Etruscan), but now it's a tool used by many different languages, each in their own different ways. It does not belong to Latin alone anymore.


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## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> I think I understand your point of view, but I don't give as much importance to those things as you do.


You don't have to think I cry all nights for this reason.  I only think this is only an other prove of how much English has become the "universal point of view".


> From the moment that other languages started to be written in it, it stopped being _Latin's_ alphabet. We call it the "Latin alphabet" for historical reasons, because that was the first language to be written in it (if we discount Etruscan), but now it's a tool used by many different languages, each in their own different ways. It does not belong to Latin alone anymore.


I'm agree, this is the reason I wouldn't call the alphabet ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ the Latin alphabet, but the English alphabet.


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## Outsider

And what would the Latin alphabet be, for you?


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## BlueWolf

If we consider it as the alphabet Latins used, it should be ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTVXYZ (of course, it changed in the centuries, but this was the "most recent").
But if we consider it as an "international one", with the meaning it is the Latin alphabet as used today in modern language, I'd say it is ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVXYZ (and W is just a "ligature between two V's", a character for specific languages).


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## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> If we consider it as the alphabet Latins used, it should be ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTVXYZ (of course, it changed in the centuries, but this was the "most recent").


You mean the Romans. But Latin continued to be used, even spoken, for a long time after their empire had fallen apart.



BlueWolf said:


> But if we consider it as an "international one", with the meaning it is the Latin alphabet as used today in modern language, I'd say it is ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVXYZ (and W is just a "ligature between two V's", a character for specific languages).


By "international", you mean "multilingual", right?...


----------



## BlueWolf

> By "international", you mean "multilingual", right?...


I mean that it's the base for all the languages uses it. Some languages could not use all the letters (like my own language) and some languages could add more (almost all created from those letters, like W), but all can recognize in that alphabet a common base from which their alphabet was born.


----------



## Brioche

Blackleaf said:


> Shakespeare invented the letters J and U in the way that we use them today. The Elizabethan alphabet originally had only 24 letters. In the English alphabet at that time, J was the capital of i before I became the capital. Shakespeare made J a completely separate letter.
> 
> Shakespeare also gave us the letter U. Even though that letter originally dated back to the Anglo-Saxon times, it was Shakespeare who started using it like we do now and made it common.
> 
> He also invented about 1700 words, including "assassination" and "bump."


 
Sorry, but I don't believe this.

It was the  printers who printed Shakespeare's plays and poems who decided how to spell them.

Only 18 of his 38 plays were published during his lifetime, and there is no evidence that The Bard took the slightest interest in the publications.
The printers certainly did not work from manuscripts in Shakespeare's own hand. Spelling was not fixed in those days. Each of the supposedly authentic signatures of Shakespeare spells the name differently.

I know that it is frequently maintained that Shakespeare introduced this or that word into the language, but this merely means that the word _first appears in print_ in something attributed to Shakespeare.


----------



## BlueWolf

I just found two other interesting news about this old thread.

From Wikipedia:
_There are only five major European languages that use W in native words: English, German, Polish, Dutch and Welsh.

_I bet that if we take some other special letters we can reach the W.

Secondly, after some discussions (I have nothing to do with them ) Wikipedia did remove the claim that the Latin Alphabet would be composed by 26 letters.


----------



## Thomsen

And don't forget Gutenberg.  I bet standardization of the "Latin alphabet" with Germanic letters had something to do with printing mechanization in northern Europe.


----------



## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> I just found two other interesting news about this old thread.
> 
> From Wikipedia:
> _There are only five major European languages that use W in native words: English, German, Polish, Dutch and Welsh.
> 
> _I bet that if we take some other special letters we can reach the W.


The letter W also used to be a part of the alphabets of Northeastern European languages influenced by German, like the Scandinavian languages. It was only recently that they replaced it with V (which was often a variant of U before that).


----------



## Lemminkäinen

Outsider said:


> The letter W also used to be a part of the alphabets of Northeastern European languages influenced by German, like the Scandinavian languages. It was only recently that they replaced it with V (which was often a variant of U before that).



In addition to W, C, Q, Z and X are almost not used at all here. 

(A political satire show has a contest where the team members have to say one sentence each - the first has to start with A, the next B, &c, all the way to Å. Most of them run into trouble when they reach C, but the other letters listed are also killers  )

I think the reason W isn't considered a ligature is because it signifies a different sound in English than V (Braille for instance, didn't have a specific sign for W for quite some time because it wasn't a specific letter in French at the time). 

I'm not sure if we can still talk about just the Latin alphabet; perhaps the English/French/Danish alphabet is better. 
The letters æ, ø and å are definitely not mere ligatures in the Norwegian alphabet, but "real" letters.


----------



## Outsider

I was thinking of the following:



> Until recently the letter "W" was treated as a variant form of "V" and this practice is still commonly encountered. However, in 2005 the Swedish Academy separated the two letters in conformity with international lexicographic practice.
> 
> Swedish alphabet





> The English-style w-sound is foreign to Finnish language, but historically "W" was used (as in German) to mark a v-sound. Although this is today considered archaic and "V" is used instead, "W" may still occur in some old surnames as a variant of "V".
> 
> Finnish alphabet


----------



## Lugubert

Outsider said:


> I was thinking of the following:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Until recently the letter "W" was treated as a variant form of "V" and this practice is still commonly encountered. However, in 2005 the Swedish Academy separated the two letters in conformity with international lexicographic practice.
Click to expand...

And the Academy is so far very much alone in that effort. The telephone book and MS Word sorting algorithms make no difference. The semi-official Nationalencyklopedin has 





> _v,_ _V_, the 22nd letter in the Swedish version of the Latin alphabet. The difference between _v_ and _u _was introduced only in the 10th century. In Swedish, _w_ is used only in proper names and in loan words as an alternative _v_, having no place of its own in the alphabet.


 (My translation.)


----------



## Outsider

> The difference between _v_ and _u_ was introduced only in the *10th* century.


That can't be right! Perhaps you've misspelled "20th".


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> The letter W also used to be a part of the alphabets of Northeastern European languages influenced by German, like the Scandinavian languages. It was only recently that they replaced it with V (which was often a variant of U before that).



Well, even if you count the language which used W only in the past, I bet it can't reach the languages which use Ç (and note that it is a separate letter in some languages, even if it isn't in French and Portuguese).


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## Outsider

But you can construct a "Ç" by adding a little squiggle to a "C". You can't make a "W" that way!


----------



## maxiogee

There's a clue in the name of the letter. You make a *w* from a *uu* formation.


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## Outsider

You mean a *vv* formation...


----------



## mcibor

Outsider said:


> It's not just Germanic languages (actually, several Germanic languages do not use the letter W regularly): also some Celtic languages, Polish (a Slavic language), and several African languages. Plus, it's widely used in the transcription of languages not written with the Latin alphabet, such as Chinese and Japanese.



As for Polish
Q = ku
X = ks
V = W

so these three letters are used only in words taken from nowaday English: taxi, but ksero.

Chałewer  there is a letter, which is similar in pronounciation to English w, it's
Ł ł
which derives from L and is used in Polish, Belarussian latin, Venice language, in Wymysöryś and Navaho language - maybe it should also be put into the "latin letters" as well?

I think that latin in this context mean multilingual, not the roman language, therefore as these 26 letters (Polish has 32) are most commonly used around the EMEAm (Europe, Middle East, and both Americas) and Roman empire or it's descendants are living there we could leave the W letter as is.

Correct me if I'm wrong
Michał


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> But you can construct a "Ç" by adding a little squiggle to a "C". You can't make a "W" that way!



In a computer a W is very easier to write than a Ç (if you don't have the standard version).
And why should the form of a letter affect its presence in the alphabet. Also G is a C with a little line.


----------



## Outsider

G has been treated as a letter on its own since the Latin alphabet was the Latin alphabet. VV is not quite W.


----------



## lazarus1907

BlueWolf said:


> Chinese and Japanese use the English alphabet because it's the dominant power (and language) (and even because they need letter to be able to transcribe their language ).


Once again: It is not English, but Latin, with the W added to it, if you want. In Japanese, by the way, they call this alphabet that you have claimed for the English language "*Romanji*", which means "*Roman characters*".



> The letter *W* is the twenty-third letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is _double-u_, which is the longest letter to pronounce. /ˈdʌ.bəl.juː/.
> 
> The earliest form of the letter W was a doubled V used in the 7th century by the earliest writers of; it is from this <uu> digraph that the modern name "double U" comes.


Regards.


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> G has been treated as a letter on its own since the Latin alphabet was the Latin alphabet. VV is not quite W.



So is also Æ is not quite AE? W is a legature two V's, even if it's a letter on its own in some alphabets.


----------



## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> So is also Æ is not quite AE?


What does the answer to that question have to do with whether W should be included in the main alphabet or not?  



BlueWolf said:


> What does W is a legature two V's, even if it's a letter on its own in some alphabets.


W is a letter on its own in _every_ modern version of the Latin alphabet that includes it.


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> What does the answer to that question have to do with whether W should be included in the main alphabet or not?



In fact, nothing, I'm only answering to your last post:



> VV is not quite W.



W is a letter on its own in _every_ modern version of the Latin alphabet that includes it.[/quote]

No, for example for some alphabets it's simply a variant of an other letter (V).


----------



## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> No, for example for some alphabets it's simply a variant of an other letter (V).


Those are alphabets where the use of W is old-fashioned / optional / foreign. And it's never analysed as a ligature, in any case.



BlueWolf said:


> So is also Æ is not quite AE?


Absolutely. Just ask anyone who speaks a North Germanic language.


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> Those are alphabets where the use of W is old-fashioned / optional / foreign. And it's never analysed as a ligature, in any case.



Well, that is the origin of the letter. That's what I meant.


----------



## Cecilio

Outsider said:


> The Latin alphabet itself was a repurposed Etruscan alphabet (which was descended from one of the many varieties of the Greek alphabet...)



I'm not too sure about this Etruscan step in the origin of the Latin alphabet. I've always assumed that the Latin alphabet (and also the Faliscan one for example) derives directly from the archaic Greek alphabets used in Italy.


----------



## BlueWolf

Cecilio said:


> I'm not too sure about this Etruscan step in the origin of the Latin alphabet. I've always assumed that the Latin alphabet (and also the Faliscan one for example) derives directly from the archaic Greek alphabets used in Italy.


 
The Greek colonies were only in the southern part of Italy, and that alphabet wasn't used in Rome. On the other hand Romans had strong relationship with Etruscans, in fact three of the legendary seven kings of Rome have Etruscan origins. It is true however that the Greek alphabet influenced the Latin one.


----------



## Cecilio

As far as I know, both the Etruscan and the Latin alphabets derived from Greek alphabets. The Greeks were mainly in southern Italy and their influence spread further north. But it's not only that the Greek alphabet influenced the Latin one: the Latin alphabet is a simple derivation of the Greek archaic alphabets. On the other hand, the territory of the Latins was not only the city of Rome, but the whole region of Latium, whose southern boundary was quite close to the Greek colonies of Campania.


----------



## BlueWolf

Almost everywhere you check this topic, you'll read something like this:_

The default Latin alphabet is the Roman, supplemented with G, J, U, W, Y, Z, and lower-case variants:_
_

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
_ 

_Additional letters may be formed. [...]_
_However, these glyphs are not always considered independent letters of the alphabet._


_[From Wikipedia]
_​ 

Now, I know this alphabet formed by 26 letters is the one used in English, but why is it considered the "default Latin alphabet"? The letter W is simply formed by two V's, why should it be considered part of the standard Latin alphabet? Letters like æ_, _ç, ñ, ð, etc. aren't, why should W? Just because it's used in English?


----------



## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> The letter W is simply formed by two V's, why should it be considered part of the standard Latin alphabet?


By the same line of reasoning, the letter G is just a C with a little vertical line added to it. 
"W" works as an independent letter in the (not many) languages that use it regularly.



BlueWolf said:


> Letters like æ_, _ç, ñ, <eth>, etc. aren't, why should W? Just because it's used in English?


The ligatures are rare, in the sense that they're used in very few languages. As for ç and ñ, they can be seen as accented versions of c and n. (I know that ñ is considered a letter of its own in Spanish, but graphically it's still n + ~).


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> By the same line of reasoning, the letter G is just a C with a little vertical line added to it.



I know that, but G was actually used by Latins as well as Y and Z (even if they came after), W wasn't.



> "W" works as an independent letter in the (not many) languages that use it regularly.



Well, Ñ is as well. And since they aren't so many, why is it "default Latin alphabet"?



> The ligatures are rare, in the sense that they're used in very few languages. As for ç and ñ, they can be seen as accented versions of c and n. (I know that ñ is considered a letter of its own in Spanish, but graphically it's still n + ~).



But W is a ligature! Between two V's.


----------



## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> I know that, but G was actually used by Latins as well as Y and Z (even if they came after), W wasn't.


But J and U weren't either, and K seldom was -- are you going to remove them from the alphabet?



BlueWolf said:


> Well, Ñ is as well. And since they aren't so many, why is it "default Latin alphabet"?
> 
> [...]
> 
> But W is a ligature! Between two V's.


W could be considered a ligature, but not Ñ, I think. 
What matters (I suppose; I'm not going to be dogmatic about this) is that "W" is used by an appreciable fraction of the languages that are written with the Latin alphabet nowadays, while the other ligatures are not.


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> But J and U weren't either, and K seldom was -- are you going to remove them from the alphabet?



But J and U are modificated version of I and V, and they are used in almost all the languages (differently to W) and they was created to distinguish between the couple of sounds that I and V had. 
W on the other hand is a necessity of Germanic languages only.



> W could be considered a ligature, but not Ñ, I think.



No, Ñ isn't, but as Ñ is a modificated N, W are two V's. Doesn't they have (under this point of view) the same status?



> What matters (I suppose; I'm not going to be dogmatic about this) is that "W" is used by an appreciable fraction of the languages that are written with the Latin alphabet nowadays, while the other ligatures are not.



Letters like Ç, Č, Š, Ž are used in many languages. I don't see why W would have a special status.


----------



## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> But J and U are modificated version of I and V, and they are used in almost all the languages (differently to W) and they was created to distinguish between the couple of sounds that I and V had.
> W on the other hand is a necessity of Germanic languages only.


It's not just Germanic languages (actually, several Germanic languages do not use the letter W regularly): also some Celtic languages, Polish (a Slavic language), and several African languages. Plus, it's widely used in the transcription of languages not written with the Latin alphabet, such as Chinese and Japanese.



BlueWolf said:


> No, Ñ isn't, but as Ñ is a modificated N, W are two V's. Doesn't they have (under this point of view) the same status?
> 
> [...]
> 
> Letters like Ç, C<caron>, S<caron>, Z<caron> are used in many languages. I don't see why W would have a special status.


It makes sense to me that Ñ, Ç, etc., would be considered compound characters, rather than "atomic" letters, for the sake of graphic simplicity. If you included all those symbols in the Latin alphabet, how many letters would it end up having?...


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> It makes sense to me that Ñ, Ç, etc., would be considered compound characters, rather than "atomic" letters, for the sake of graphic simplicity. If you included all those symbols in the Latin alphabet, how many letters would it end up having?...



I didn't mean to say "Let's add all the letters used in the languages that use a variant of Latin language". But I mean, there's a reason because it's called Latin Alphabet. The languages which use it say "This is a thing we inherit by our common Latin origins." 
The letter W, on the other hand, was born by some Germanic languages. And when you say:


> It's not just Germanic languages (actually, several Germanic languages do not use the letter W regularly): also some Celtic languages, Polish (a Slavic language), and several African languages. Plus, it's widely used in the transcription of languages not written with the Latin alphabet, such as Chinese and Japanese.


In all these cases, it's used because many of those languages _didn't_ derived their alphabet from Latin. Roman Empire never included those areas. They use that alphabet, because the "power" (Germanic) used it. Afrikaans is from English. Chinese and Japanese use the English alphabet because it's the dominant power (and language) (and even because they need letter to be able to transcribe their language ). Finnish uses W, but it's not an Indo-European language, it simply took it from its neighbours (Germanic).


----------



## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> I didn't mean to say "Let's add all the letters used in the languages that use a variant of Latin language". But I mean, there's a reason because it's called Latin Alphabet. The languages which use it say "This is a thing we inherit by our common Latin origins."


Yes, we inherited it from the Romans, but we've also modified it, for example adding subscript letters, and splitting I and V into I/J and U/V. Why not accept one more little addition? You wouldn't want to make these fellas cry, would you? 



BlueWolf said:


> The letter W, on the other hand, was born by some Germanic languages. And when you say:
> 
> In all these cases, it's used because many of those languages _didn't_ derived their alphabet from Latin. Roman Empire never included those areas. They use that alphabet, because the "power" (Germanic) used it. Afrikaans is from English. Chinese and Japanese use the English alphabet because it's the dominant power (and language) (and even because they need letter to be able to transcribe their language ). Finnish uses W, but it's not an Indo-European language, it simply took it from its neighbours (Germanic).


One correction: Afrikaans got the "W" from Dutch, its parent language. And when I mentioned African languages, I was also thinking of Swahili, Wolof, etc., which also use the Latin alphabet. Yes, it's due to their European colonial heritage, but then we can also say that the Latin alphabet is part of _our_ Roman colonial heritage.


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> Yes, we inherited it from the Romans, but we've also modified it, for example adding subscript letters, and splitting I and V into I/J and U/V. Why not accept one more little addition? You wouldn't want to make these fellas cry, would you?



I didn't know that association.
But I'm not agree about that because while J and U had invented to distinguish some sounds _in Latin_ (and in fact you can (and many do) write Latin with J and U), where do you see W in Latin? W has nothing to do with Latin world.

P.S. About that what's W's name? Double u/v.


----------



## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> I didn't know that association.
> But I'm not agree about that because while J and U had invented to distinguish some sounds _in Latin_ (and in fact you can (and many do) write Latin with J and U), where do you see W in Latin? W has nothing to do with Latin world.


J and U were not invented to distinguish different Latin sounds. Latin never needed them, because the pronunciations of I and V were predictable from their position in a word. The letters were split because of languages other than Latin, such as French, where the pronunciation of I and V had ceased to be predictable.



BlueWolf said:


> P.S. About that what's W's name? Double u/v.


But what about: 

Y: Greek I
Z: zède/zed (zeta)


----------



## papillon

BlueWolf said:


> Now, I know this alphabet formed by 26 letters is the one used in English, but why is it considered the "default Latin alphabet"? ... Just because it's used in English?


My short answer would be Yes. 

Since German had other letters (estset, letters with umlaut) that _didn't_ make it into "the standard" alphabet, I would assume that the current convention on the standard alphabet is heavily influenced by English. I take the designation "Latin" in this case not as a statement that the alphabet was used by the Romans, but simply as an acknowledgement of it's _origins_ in Classical Rome. In the same way as Latin America was not part of the Roman Empire, but is in a way connected to Rome as a result of being colonialized by "romanic" countries.

Interestingly, in recent years the concept of a standard Latin alphabet is becoming less and less relevant. A mechanical typewriter can only have a fixed number of characters, and so the manufacturer, say Underwood, needs to decide which letters to include in the carriage. If W is omitted, you've lost the English-speaking market. If Č is omitted you've lost some Slavic countries. You make your decision.

With computer fonts, adding new characters requires no effort. More and more, you see English-language media featuring Serbian and Czech names in all of their original glory, with all the diacritic marks.


----------



## Blackleaf

Shakespeare invented the letters J and U in the way that we use them today. The Elizabethan alphabet originally had only 24 letters. In the English alphabet at that time, J was the capital of i before I became the capital. Shakespeare made J a completely separate letter.

Shakespeare also gave us the letter U. Even though that letter originally dated back to the Anglo-Saxon times, it was Shakespeare who started using it like we do now and made it common.

He also invented about 1700 words, including "assassination" and "bump."


----------



## Fernando

I do not know what you call "Standard Latin Alphabet". Certainly, every language has its alphabet.

From the list you give to us "K" and "W", as an example, are used in Spanish just for foreign words. If you have any doubt check how "large" are these words in any Spanish dictionary.

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

In Spanish you should add "ñ", which is certainly a separate letter and (possibly) the digraphs "ll", "rr" and "ch". I am certain that if we had invented the computer, you should have a key for them. A pity.


----------



## Lugubert

I always find it strange when I see our å, ä, ö referred to as "accented letters". There are definitions of accents that would allow his usage, but for example a with a superscript o -> å is from the 15th century, so it certainly isn't regarded as accented in Sweden (or, I suppose, in Norway, where aa -> å is from 1917, or even in Denmark, where that switch was in 1948).

Our o + superscript e -> ö, a + superscript e -> ä is 16th C. As "accented" as the T is an accented I.

My middle name would look unfamiliar if we replaced the W by a V, but in Swedish alphabetical listings, the  rule is that there is no differentiation between the single v and the "dubbelve". I'm getting close to the "translating names" thread, but I would have no problem if we made the W to V substitution wholesale. However, for foreign names I'm in favour of writing/printing them as close to their domestic form as practically possible.


----------



## Outsider

Fernando said:


> I do not know what you call "Standard Latin Alphabet". Certainly, every language has its alphabet.


Certainly, not _every_ language... 

Anyway, that's arguable. It can be said that Spanish, English and Italian all use the Latin alphabet, but in different ways (and amounts).


----------



## Outsider

Lugubert said:


> I always find it strange when I see our å, ä, ö referred to as "accented letters".


Well, I always find it strange to see them referred to as "letters". And don't get me started on digraphs... 

_Chacun à son goût_, I say.


----------



## Fernando

Outsider said:


> Certainly, not _every_ language...
> 
> Anyway, that's arguable. It can be said that Spanish, English and Italian all use the Latin alphabet, but in different ways (and amounts).



Agreed. What is strange to me is the notion of "Standard". The common ones are the abovementioned (let us accept W and K in Romanic languages) I think no language share all the letters.


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> J and U were not invented to distinguish different Latin sounds. Latin never needed them, because the pronunciations of I and V were predictable from their position in a word. The letters were split because of languages other than Latin, such as French, where the pronunciation of I and V had ceased to be predictable.


Yes, but they was sounds from Latin, and French was Vulgar Latin. And since they was Latin sounds, today we actually use to write "vivere" instead of "uiuere", and often "Julius" instead of "Iulius". W? It doesn't for Latin, it doesn't need for any other language that comes from Latin.
English, German and so on needed a new letter and "invented" W from a ligature between two V's. What's the difference with Sweden and å?


> But what about:
> 
> Y: Greek I
> Z: zède/zed (zeta)


 Ok, I see Y, but what's your problem with Z? 


> A mechanical typewriter can only have a fixed number of characters, and so the manufacturer, say Underwood, needs to decide which letters to include in the carriage. If W is omitted, you've lost the English-speaking market. If Č is omitted you've lost some Slavic countries. You make your decision.


 I'm talking about Latin alphabet. You can include W in a typewriter even without including it in the "official Latin alphabet".
[quoteI do not know what you call "Standard Latin Alphabet". Certainly, every language has its alphabet.[/quote]
First, it's not my definition, since I don't agree with it , but however I clearly give the definition in my first post. And if you read a introduction to a language, let's pretend Spanish, you'll read:
_Spanish alphabet is based on Latin one, but it doesn't use K and W and it add the letter Ñ.
_So "every language's alphabet" is compared with the "standard Latin", that, you can see, is actually the English one.


----------



## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> Yes, but they was sounds from Latin, and French was Vulgar Latin. And since they was Latin sounds, today we actually use to write "vivere" instead of "uiuere", and often "Julius" instead of "Iulius".


Arguable. Classical Latin did not have the sounds of the "j" and the "v", such as they are pronounced today in most Romance languages. What we now rewrite as "j" and "v" were originally pronounced as English "y" and "w". Vivere = wiwere, Iulius = Yulyus. Still think "W" does not stand for a Latin sound? 



BlueWolf said:


> Ok, I see Y, but what's your problem with Z?


It's a Greek letter, with a Greek name to boot. Genuine Latin had no use for it. Only pedantic intellectuals used it. 
Shall we throw it out of the alphabet?...


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> Arguable. Classical Latin did not have the sounds of the "j" and the "v", such as they are pronounced today in most Romance languages. What we now rewrite as "j" and "v" were originally pronounced as English "y" and "w". Vivere = wiwere, Iulius = Yulyus. Still think "W" does not stand for a Latin sound?


No, you misunderstood me. I didn't mean it has the same sound they have in Romance languages today. *I* was read _ or [j] (IPAs letters) and *V*  or [w]. So W doesn't stand for a Latin sound, because [w] was written V in Latin.



			It's a Greek letter, with a Greek name to boot. Genuine Latin had no use for it. Only pedantic intellectuals used it. 
Shall we throw it out of the alphabet?... 

Click to expand...

Yes, it's a Greek letter, used in Latin for words which came from Greek, but it isn't a variant of a Latin sound, so Y was actually a sound used Latin, even if come from Greek (IPA pronunce [y]). In fact, a Latin imperator invented a new letter to rappresent this sound (as he does for V) but it didn't become popular and Y was used instead. So Y is Latin, and Latins added it in their alphabet. Why shouldn't we?_


----------



## Outsider

I think I understand your point of view, but I don't give as much importance to those things as you do. The Latin alphabet itself was a repurposed Etruscan alphabet (which was descended from one of the many varieties of the Greek alphabet...) 
From the moment that other languages started to be written in it, it stopped being _Latin's_ alphabet. We call it the "Latin alphabet" for historical reasons, because that was the first language to be written in it (if we discount Etruscan), but now it's a tool used by many different languages, each in their own different ways. It does not belong to Latin alone anymore.


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> I think I understand your point of view, but I don't give as much importance to those things as you do.


You don't have to think I cry all nights for this reason.  I only think this is only an other prove of how much English has become the "universal point of view".


> From the moment that other languages started to be written in it, it stopped being _Latin's_ alphabet. We call it the "Latin alphabet" for historical reasons, because that was the first language to be written in it (if we discount Etruscan), but now it's a tool used by many different languages, each in their own different ways. It does not belong to Latin alone anymore.


I'm agree, this is the reason I wouldn't call the alphabet ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ the Latin alphabet, but the English alphabet.


----------



## Outsider

And what would the Latin alphabet be, for you?


----------



## BlueWolf

If we consider it as the alphabet Latins used, it should be ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTVXYZ (of course, it changed in the centuries, but this was the "most recent").
But if we consider it as an "international one", with the meaning it is the Latin alphabet as used today in modern language, I'd say it is ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVXYZ (and W is just a "ligature between two V's", a character for specific languages).


----------



## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> If we consider it as the alphabet Latins used, it should be ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTVXYZ (of course, it changed in the centuries, but this was the "most recent").


You mean the Romans. But Latin continued to be used, even spoken, for a long time after their empire had fallen apart.



BlueWolf said:


> But if we consider it as an "international one", with the meaning it is the Latin alphabet as used today in modern language, I'd say it is ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVXYZ (and W is just a "ligature between two V's", a character for specific languages).


By "international", you mean "multilingual", right?...


----------



## BlueWolf

> By "international", you mean "multilingual", right?...


I mean that it's the base for all the languages uses it. Some languages could not use all the letters (like my own language) and some languages could add more (almost all created from those letters, like W), but all can recognize in that alphabet a common base from which their alphabet was born.


----------



## Brioche

Blackleaf said:


> Shakespeare invented the letters J and U in the way that we use them today. The Elizabethan alphabet originally had only 24 letters. In the English alphabet at that time, J was the capital of i before I became the capital. Shakespeare made J a completely separate letter.
> 
> Shakespeare also gave us the letter U. Even though that letter originally dated back to the Anglo-Saxon times, it was Shakespeare who started using it like we do now and made it common.
> 
> He also invented about 1700 words, including "assassination" and "bump."


 
Sorry, but I don't believe this.

It was the  printers who printed Shakespeare's plays and poems who decided how to spell them.

Only 18 of his 38 plays were published during his lifetime, and there is no evidence that The Bard took the slightest interest in the publications.
The printers certainly did not work from manuscripts in Shakespeare's own hand. Spelling was not fixed in those days. Each of the supposedly authentic signatures of Shakespeare spells the name differently.

I know that it is frequently maintained that Shakespeare introduced this or that word into the language, but this merely means that the word _first appears in print_ in something attributed to Shakespeare.


----------



## BlueWolf

I just found two other interesting news about this old thread.

From Wikipedia:
_There are only five major European languages that use W in native words: English, German, Polish, Dutch and Welsh.

_I bet that if we take some other special letters we can reach the W.

Secondly, after some discussions (I have nothing to do with them ) Wikipedia did remove the claim that the Latin Alphabet would be composed by 26 letters.


----------



## Thomsen

And don't forget Gutenberg.  I bet standardization of the "Latin alphabet" with Germanic letters had something to do with printing mechanization in northern Europe.


----------



## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> I just found two other interesting news about this old thread.
> 
> From Wikipedia:
> _There are only five major European languages that use W in native words: English, German, Polish, Dutch and Welsh.
> 
> _I bet that if we take some other special letters we can reach the W.


The letter W also used to be a part of the alphabets of Northeastern European languages influenced by German, like the Scandinavian languages. It was only recently that they replaced it with V (which was often a variant of U before that).


----------



## Lemminkäinen

Outsider said:


> The letter W also used to be a part of the alphabets of Northeastern European languages influenced by German, like the Scandinavian languages. It was only recently that they replaced it with V (which was often a variant of U before that).



In addition to W, C, Q, Z and X are almost not used at all here. 

(A political satire show has a contest where the team members have to say one sentence each - the first has to start with A, the next B, &c, all the way to Å. Most of them run into trouble when they reach C, but the other letters listed are also killers  )

I think the reason W isn't considered a ligature is because it signifies a different sound in English than V (Braille for instance, didn't have a specific sign for W for quite some time because it wasn't a specific letter in French at the time). 

I'm not sure if we can still talk about just the Latin alphabet; perhaps the English/French/Danish alphabet is better. 
The letters æ, ø and å are definitely not mere ligatures in the Norwegian alphabet, but "real" letters.


----------



## Outsider

I was thinking of the following:



> Until recently the letter "W" was treated as a variant form of "V" and this practice is still commonly encountered. However, in 2005 the Swedish Academy separated the two letters in conformity with international lexicographic practice.
> 
> Swedish alphabet





> The English-style w-sound is foreign to Finnish language, but historically "W" was used (as in German) to mark a v-sound. Although this is today considered archaic and "V" is used instead, "W" may still occur in some old surnames as a variant of "V".
> 
> Finnish alphabet


----------



## Lugubert

Outsider said:


> I was thinking of the following:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Until recently the letter "W" was treated as a variant form of "V" and this practice is still commonly encountered. However, in 2005 the Swedish Academy separated the two letters in conformity with international lexicographic practice.
Click to expand...

And the Academy is so far very much alone in that effort. The telephone book and MS Word sorting algorithms make no difference. The semi-official Nationalencyklopedin has 





> _v,_ _V_, the 22nd letter in the Swedish version of the Latin alphabet. The difference between _v_ and _u _was introduced only in the 10th century. In Swedish, _w_ is used only in proper names and in loan words as an alternative _v_, having no place of its own in the alphabet.


 (My translation.)


----------



## Outsider

> The difference between _v_ and _u_ was introduced only in the *10th* century.


That can't be right! Perhaps you've misspelled "20th".


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> The letter W also used to be a part of the alphabets of Northeastern European languages influenced by German, like the Scandinavian languages. It was only recently that they replaced it with V (which was often a variant of U before that).



Well, even if you count the language which used W only in the past, I bet it can't reach the languages which use Ç (and note that it is a separate letter in some languages, even if it isn't in French and Portuguese).


----------



## Outsider

But you can construct a "Ç" by adding a little squiggle to a "C". You can't make a "W" that way!


----------



## maxiogee

There's a clue in the name of the letter. You make a *w* from a *uu* formation.


----------



## Outsider

You mean a *vv* formation...


----------



## mcibor

Outsider said:


> It's not just Germanic languages (actually, several Germanic languages do not use the letter W regularly): also some Celtic languages, Polish (a Slavic language), and several African languages. Plus, it's widely used in the transcription of languages not written with the Latin alphabet, such as Chinese and Japanese.



As for Polish
Q = ku
X = ks
V = W

so these three letters are used only in words taken from nowaday English: taxi, but ksero.

Chałewer  there is a letter, which is similar in pronounciation to English w, it's
Ł ł
which derives from L and is used in Polish, Belarussian latin, Venice language, in Wymysöryś and Navaho language - maybe it should also be put into the "latin letters" as well?

I think that latin in this context mean multilingual, not the roman language, therefore as these 26 letters (Polish has 32) are most commonly used around the EMEAm (Europe, Middle East, and both Americas) and Roman empire or it's descendants are living there we could leave the W letter as is.

Correct me if I'm wrong
Michał


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> But you can construct a "Ç" by adding a little squiggle to a "C". You can't make a "W" that way!



In a computer a W is very easier to write than a Ç (if you don't have the standard version).
And why should the form of a letter affect its presence in the alphabet. Also G is a C with a little line.


----------



## Outsider

G has been treated as a letter on its own since the Latin alphabet was the Latin alphabet. VV is not quite W.


----------



## lazarus1907

BlueWolf said:


> Chinese and Japanese use the English alphabet because it's the dominant power (and language) (and even because they need letter to be able to transcribe their language ).


Once again: It is not English, but Latin, with the W added to it, if you want. In Japanese, by the way, they call this alphabet that you have claimed for the English language "*Romanji*", which means "*Roman characters*".



> The letter *W* is the twenty-third letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is _double-u_, which is the longest letter to pronounce. /ˈdʌ.bəl.juː/.
> 
> The earliest form of the letter W was a doubled V used in the 7th century by the earliest writers of; it is from this <uu> digraph that the modern name "double U" comes.


Regards.


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> G has been treated as a letter on its own since the Latin alphabet was the Latin alphabet. VV is not quite W.



So is also Æ is not quite AE? W is a legature two V's, even if it's a letter on its own in some alphabets.


----------



## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> So is also Æ is not quite AE?


What does the answer to that question have to do with whether W should be included in the main alphabet or not?  



BlueWolf said:


> What does W is a legature two V's, even if it's a letter on its own in some alphabets.


W is a letter on its own in _every_ modern version of the Latin alphabet that includes it.


----------



## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> What does the answer to that question have to do with whether W should be included in the main alphabet or not?



In fact, nothing, I'm only answering to your last post:



> VV is not quite W.



W is a letter on its own in _every_ modern version of the Latin alphabet that includes it.[/quote]

No, for example for some alphabets it's simply a variant of an other letter (V).


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## Outsider

BlueWolf said:


> No, for example for some alphabets it's simply a variant of an other letter (V).


Those are alphabets where the use of W is old-fashioned / optional / foreign. And it's never analysed as a ligature, in any case.



BlueWolf said:


> So is also Æ is not quite AE?


Absolutely. Just ask anyone who speaks a North Germanic language.


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## BlueWolf

Outsider said:


> Those are alphabets where the use of W is old-fashioned / optional / foreign. And it's never analysed as a ligature, in any case.



Well, that is the origin of the letter. That's what I meant.


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## Cecilio

Outsider said:


> The Latin alphabet itself was a repurposed Etruscan alphabet (which was descended from one of the many varieties of the Greek alphabet...)



I'm not too sure about this Etruscan step in the origin of the Latin alphabet. I've always assumed that the Latin alphabet (and also the Faliscan one for example) derives directly from the archaic Greek alphabets used in Italy.


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## BlueWolf

Cecilio said:


> I'm not too sure about this Etruscan step in the origin of the Latin alphabet. I've always assumed that the Latin alphabet (and also the Faliscan one for example) derives directly from the archaic Greek alphabets used in Italy.


 
The Greek colonies were only in the southern part of Italy, and that alphabet wasn't used in Rome. On the other hand Romans had strong relationship with Etruscans, in fact three of the legendary seven kings of Rome have Etruscan origins. It is true however that the Greek alphabet influenced the Latin one.


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## Cecilio

As far as I know, both the Etruscan and the Latin alphabets derived from Greek alphabets. The Greeks were mainly in southern Italy and their influence spread further north. But it's not only that the Greek alphabet influenced the Latin one: the Latin alphabet is a simple derivation of the Greek archaic alphabets. On the other hand, the territory of the Latins was not only the city of Rome, but the whole region of Latium, whose southern boundary was quite close to the Greek colonies of Campania.


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