Scripts
Latin Script
LAT-in
Also Known As Roman Alphabet
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Origin from 700 BCE
The Latin script is the most widely used writing system in the world, adapted by the Romans from the Etruscan alphabet, which was itself adapted from a Western Greek alphabet, ultimately tracing back to the Phoenician abjad. It originally had no letters J, U or W, added only in the medieval and early modern periods to distinguish sounds the classical Roman alphabet had left merged with I and V. Its spread beyond Europe follows almost exactly the map of European colonization and Christian missionary activity, which is why languages as different as English, Vietnamese and Swahili all write with the same base letterforms today, each with its own added diacritics or digraphs to cover sounds the original twenty-three Roman letters did not.
Facts
Directionality In Use Since (Year)Approximate date of the earliest attested Old Italic forerunners of the Roman alphabet; the alphabet continued developing for centuries afterward. Cross-Tradition Connections
Held Differently
Why this is disputed. Early runes are generally agreed to derive from an Old Italic alphabet, but which one is disputed: Raetic, Venetic, Etruscan and Old Latin have all been proposed; Scandinavian scholars tend to favor Latin itself over the Rhaetic candidates.
Descends From
Greek Script, Scripts By way of Euboean Greek colonists and the Etruscan alphabet in Italy, not by direct adoption.
Influenced
Sequoyah, unable to read English, borrowed roughly two dozen letterforms he had seen in a printed English spelling book, along with some Greek and Hebrew derived shapes, but assigned them entirely different Cherokee syllable values. The syllabary is not descended from the Latin alphabet; it borrows some of its shapes without any of its sound values.
Script Of
Latin augmented with click letters (the Lepsius letters later adopted as IPA symbols) for the language click consonants.
Old Norse, Languages Adopted for Old Norse following Christianization in the 11th century, alongside continued runic use.
Swahili, Languages Swahili was earlier written in an Arabic-derived script known as Ajami; Latin-script orthography became standard under European colonial administration and is now near universal.
No single standardized orthography exists; several Latin-based orthographies are in use across the dialect cluster, so this is recorded as associated rather than holds.
Sources
1. Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
2. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
David Crystal (editor), Cambridge University Press, 2010
Cherokee Phoenix
Wikipedia: Runes (Elder Futhark)
Ancestor Of: Runic Alphabet (Elder Futhark), Origin sectionQuote, Ancestor Of: Runic Alphabet (Elder Futhark), Origin section
Scandinavian scholars tend to favor derivation from the Latin alphabet itself over Rhaetic candidates.
Wikipedia: Old Norse
Wikipedia: Hungarian Language
Wikimedia FoundationScript Of: Hungarian, Infobox, writing system field (Latin script, Hungarian alphabet)View the Source Wikipedia: Enga Language
Wikimedia FoundationScript Of: Enga, Infobox, writing system field (Latin script)View the Source Wikipedia: Greenlandic Language
Wikimedia FoundationScript Of: Greenlandic, Lead section, written in the Latin script statementView the Source Wikipedia: Navajo Language
Wikimedia FoundationScript Of: Navajo, Infobox, writing system field (Latin, Navajo alphabet)View the Source Wikipedia: Western Desert Language
Wikimedia FoundationScript Of: Western Desert Language, Orthography section, several different orthographies in use statementView the Source Wikipedia: Vietnamese Language
Wikimedia FoundationScript Of: Vietnamese, Writing system section, chu Quoc ngu Latin-based alphabet statementView the Source Wikipedia: Khoekhoe Language
Wikimedia FoundationScript Of: Khoekhoe, Writing system section, Latin augmented with click letters statementView the Source Wikipedia: Zarma Language
Wikimedia FoundationScript Of: Zarma, Writing system section, primarily written in the Latin alphabet statementView the Source Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
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