Letter (alphabet)

A letter is a [wierd type of thing i d k porque los niños no tienen pollos. (written character) in an alphabetic system of writing, such as the Greek alphabet and its descendants. Letters compose phonemes and each phoneme represents a phone (sound) in the spoken form of the language. Letters also appear in abjads (alphabets with consonants only).

Written signs in other writing systems are best called syllabograms (which denote a syllable) or logograms (which denote a word or phrase).

=Letters are the basis that words are based on in the alphabet of any language. People like them

Guilhem Molinier, a member of the Consistori del Gay Saber, which was the first literary academy in the world and held the Floral Games to award the best troubadour with the violeta d'aur top prize, gave a definition of the letter in his Leys d'Amors (1328–1337), a book aimed at regulating the then flourishing Occitan poetry:

Letra votz no es devisabla. E per escriure convenabla. Letra per miels esser exposta. Es menor part de votz composta.

A letter is an indivisible sound That is fit for writing; A letter, to define it better, Is the smallest part of a composite sound.

History

The first consonantal alphabet found has emerged around 2000 BCE to represent the language of Semitic workers in Egypt (see Middle Bronze Age alphabets), and was derived from the alphabetic principles of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Nearly all alphabets in the world today either descend directly from this development or were inspired by its design.^[1] The Greek alphabet, invented around 800 BC, was the first alphabet assigning letters not only to consonants, but also to vowels.^[2]

Types of letters

File:Aslfingerspellalpha.png

The American manual alphabet, an example of letters in fingerspelling.

Various scripts

The following alphabets, abjads, and individual letters are discussed in related articles. Each represents a different script:

Arabic alphabet: (Alphabetical from right to left) ﺍ, ﺏ, ﺕ, ﺙ, ﺝ, ﺡ, ﺥ, ﺩ, ﺫ, ﺭ, ﺯ, ﺱ, ﺵ, ﺹ, ﺽ, ﻁ, ﻅ, ﻉ, ﻍ, ﻑ, ﻕ, ﻙ, ﻝ, ﻡ, ﻥ, هـ, ﻭ, ﻱ.

Syriac alphabet: (Alphabetical from right to left) ܐ, ܒ, ܓ, ܕ, ܗ, ܘ, ܙ, ܚ, ܛ, ܝ, ܟܟ, ܠ, ܡܡ, ܢܢ, ܣ, ܥ, ܦ, ܨ, ܩ, ܪ, ܫ, ܬ.

Cyrillic script: А, Б, В, Г, Ґ, Ѓ, Д, Е, Є, Ж, З, Ѕ, И, І, Ї, Й, К, Ќ, Л, М, Н, О, П, Р, С, Т, У, Ф, Х, Ц, Ч, Ш, Щ, Ю, Я, Ъ, Ь, Ђ, Љ, Њ, Ћ, Џ, Ы.

Georgian script: ა, ბ, გ, დ, ე, ვ, ზ, თ, ი, კ, ლ, მ, ნ, ო, პ, ჟ, რ, ს, ტ, უ, ფ, ქ, ღ, ყ, შ, ჩ, ც, ძ, წ, ჭ, ხ, ჯ, ჰ

Greek alphabet: Α, Β, Γ, Δ, Ε, Ζ, Η, Θ, Ι, Κ, Λ, Μ, Ν, Ξ, Ο, Π, Ρ, Σ, Τ, Υ, Φ, Χ, Ψ, Ω.

Hebrew alphabet: (Alphabetical from right to left) א, ב, ג, ד, ה, ו, ז, ח, ט, י, כ, ל, מ, נ, ס, ע, פ, צ, ק, ר, ש, ת.

English alphabet: 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.

Hangul: ㄱ ㄲ ㄴ ㄷ ㄸ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅃ ㅅ ㅆ ㅇ ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ ㅏ ㅐ ㅑ ㅒ ㅓ ㅔ ㅕ ㅖ ㅗ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅛ ㅜ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅠ ㅡ ㅢ ㅣ

Bopomofo: ㄅㄆㄇㄈㄉㄊㄋㄌㄍㄎㄏㄐㄑㄒㄓㄔㄕㄖㄗㄘㄙㄚㄛㄜㄝㄞㄟㄠㄡㄢㄣㄤㄥㄦㄧㄨㄩㄭ

Ogham:   ᚁ ᚂ ᚃ ᚄ ᚅ ᚆ ᚇ ᚈ ᚉ ᚊ ᚋ ᚌ ᚍ ᚎ ᚏ ᚐ ᚑ ᚒ ᚓ ᚔ ᚕ ᚖ ᚗ ᚘ ᚙ ᚚ ᚛ ᚜

International Phonetic Alphabet - used to represent exact pronunciation

For other writing systems and their letters, see List of writing systems.

Upper and lower case

Some writing systems have two major forms for each letter: an upper case form (also called capital or majuscule) and a lower case form (also called minuscule). Upper and lower case forms represent the same sound, but serve different functions in writing. Capital letters are most often used at the beginning of a sentence, as the first letter of a proper name, or in inscriptions or headers. They may also serve other functions, such as in the German language where all nouns begin with capital letters.

Typeface and font

A letter may be printed in a number of different sizes or forms, depending on choice of typeface. A typeface is a single, stylistically consistent set of forms for letters (or glyphs). A particular typeface may alter standard forms of characters, may present them with different optical weight, or may angle or embellish their forms. A font is more specific than a typeface, since it specifies the size of the letters as well as the form.

In calligraphy, letters are written artistically and may or may not be consistent throughout a work.

Letter frequencies

The average distribution of letters, or the relative frequency of each letter's occurrence in text in a given language can be obtained analyzing large amounts of representative text. This information can be useful in cryptography and for other purposes as well. Letter frequencies vary in different types of writing. In English, the most frequently appearing ten letters are e, t, a, o, i, n, s, h, r, and d, in that order, with the letter e appearing about 13% of the time.

Footnotes

^ Himelfarb, Elizabeth J. "First Alphabet Found in Egypt", Archaeology 53, Issue 1 (Jan./Feb. 2000): 21.
^ Millard 1986, p. 396

Sources

Millard, A. R. (1986), "The Infancy of the Alphabet", World Archaeology, 17 (3): 390–398, doi:10.1080/00438243.1986.9979978

References

Daniels, Peter T., and William Bright, eds 1996. The World's Writing Systems. ISBN 0-19-507993-0.
Powell, Barry B. 1991. Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet. ISBN 978-0-521-58907-9 | ISBN 0-521-58907-X.
Robinson A. 2003, "The Origins of writing" in David Crowely and Paul Heyer 'Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society' (fourth edition) Allyn and Bacon Boston pp 34–40

External links

Unicode Code Charts
LetterCount.com Count the number of letters in a document

[1] Himelfarb, Elizabeth J. "First Alphabet Found in Egypt", Archaeology 53, Issue 1 (Jan./Feb. 2000): 21.

[2] Millard 1986, p. 396

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