Latin script

The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy (Magna Graecia). The Greek alphabet was altered by the Etruscans, and subsequently their alphabet was altered by the Romans. Several Latin-script alphabets exist, which differ in graphemes, collation and phonetic values from the classical Latin alphabet.

For the Latin script originally used by the ancient Romans to write Latin, see Latin alphabet.

Latin
Roman
Script type
Time period
c. 700 BC – present
DirectionLeft-to-right 
LanguagesThe languages of Europe that do not use Cyrillic or Greek; most languages of Africa that do not use Ethiopic or Arabic script; the languages of the Americas; the languages of Oceania, incl. the Malay Archipelago; and a number of languages of Asia such as Vietnamese.

Official script in:

132 sovereign states

Co-official script in:

15 sovereign states
3 international organizations
Related scripts
Parent systems
Child systems
Sister systems
ISO 15924
ISO 15924Latn (215), ​Latin
Unicode
Unicode alias
Latin
See Latin characters in Unicode

The Latin script is the basis of the International Phonetic Alphabet, and the 26 most widespread letters are the letters contained in the ISO basic Latin alphabet, which are the same letters as the English alphabet.

Latin script is the basis for the largest number of alphabets of any writing system and is the most widely adopted writing system in the world. Latin script is used as the standard method of writing the languages of Western and Central Europe, most of sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, and Oceania, as well as many languages in other parts of the world.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.