In a language, the alphabet or alphabet includes the set of letters or grouping that is read in a certain order according to the norm of the language itself. The origin of the word comes from Greece, from combining in one word the letters alpha and beta, the first two letters of the alphabet of the Greek language.
As for the term alphabet, its origin comes from Latin. As can be deduced, it derives from the name of the first letters of the alphabet of this language: ABC D.
This set of letters also represents the spellings that are used to express or represent the written language as a communication system.
Alphabet in spanish
The Spanish alphabet is made up of 27 letters: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, ñ, o, p, q, r, s, t , u, v, w, x, y, z.
Like the rest of the Romance languages, that is, they derive from Latin, Spanish used the alphabetical series of this language, which was adapted and completed over the centuries.
This Spanish variant of the Latin alphabet has been used by the Royal Spanish Academy since 1803 in the preparation of all its alphabetic litas.
The case of CH and LL
Initially, the digraphs ch ( che ) and ll ( elle ) came to be considered part of the letters of the alphabet in Spanish, because each of them presented a single sound.
However, at the tenth Congress of the Association of Spanish Language Academies (in which all the academies of the countries in which Spanish is spoken come together), they agreed to adopt the standard order of the Latin alphabet, in which both digraphs do not they are independent letters, if not a formation of two letters.
As a consequence, the words that begin with these letters or that contain them go, when sorting them alphabetically, to places of c and l, respectively.
This form affects only the alphabetical order process of the words, not the composition of the alphabet.
The Ñ
The ñ. (eñe) is a letter that does not exist in the traditional Latin alphabet, but that arose later throughout the Middle Ages.
The birth of this letter was an element based on necessity, since it was necessary to represent a sound that did not exist in Latin.
We are talking about different consonantal groups such as gn, nn or ni that underwent a derivation, in the languages that come from Latin, towards that palatal nasal sound.
Each of these languages fixed a different spelling to represent it:
Italian and French: gn
Catalan: ny
Portuguese: nh.
In the case of Spanish, we opted for “nn”, which was abbreviated with a single N with that wavy line above it: this is the “creation process” of our Ñ. A letter that the Galician borrowed.
Languages that use the Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet is used in most of the languages spoken in the European Union, America, sub-Saharan Africa and the islands of the Pacific Ocean.
Origin of the Latin alphabet
The spelling of the Latin alphabet reveals Greek, Etruscan and Phoenician origins. According to several theorists, the Latin alphabet comes from the region of Canaan, that is, the current Middle East.
Even so, many studies show that the first alphabet dates back to the time of the Egyptians through hieroglyphics. That is, the origin is a consonantal pseudo-hieroglyphic alphabet. But until reaching the current Latin alphabet there were many processes.
First, the Phoenician “cuneiform” writing was born, where the consonants were the main protagonists. Later, after the Greek incursion, the Hellenes took this Phoenician alphabet as a referential trunk for writing and added the vowels to adapt it to their language.
Later, the Greek alphabet gave way to the Etruscan script. The Etruscans settled in the Italian Peninsula around the 5th century BC, coming, according to experts, from Asia Minor. At that point, this civilization took the Greek alphabet to transcribe their language. A language that, to this day, is largely unknown to scholars since there are points where it becomes untranslatable.
Interesting facts about the Latin alphabet
Since the beginning of the use of the Roman alphabet, its use and its contributions have been happening throughout history.
For example, at the beginning there was no distinction between the spelling of “U” and “V”. Both phonemes were represented with “V”.
Another curious fact is that the “G” did not exist. It was the “C” that was read with the phonemes /k/ and /g/. On the other hand, in current Spanish the letter “K” has practically anecdotal use. Instead, in ancient times, it had a redundant use because the use of the “C” was only used before the “A” in some words.
Finally, the letter “Q” was a variant of the “K” and was only used before the vowel “U”.
In its oldest version, the Latin alphabet had only 20 letters. It was in the 3rd century AD when it began to look more like the alphabet we currently have with 23 letters:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, V, X, Y, Z.
After the incorporation of the last letters, the Latin alphabet has undergone few variations except those that each language has incorporated.
For example, as previously seen, Catalan does not have “Ñ” and the letters “Y” and “J” do not exist in the Galician alphabet.