Alphabets

Alphabets, or phonemic alphabets, are sets of letters, usually arranged in a fixed order, each of which represents one or more phonemes, both consonants and vowels, in the language they are used to write. In some case combinations of letters are used to represent single phonemes, as in the English sh, ch and th.

The Greeks were the first people to create a phonemic alphabet when they adapted the Phoenican alphabet to write their language. They used a number of Phoenician letter that represented sounds with no equivalent in Greek to write Greek vowels.

The word alphabet comes, via Latin Latin alphabētum, from the Greek word αλφάβητος (alphabētos), which itself comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, α (άλφα/alpha) and β (βήτα/beta).

The best-known and most widely-used alphabets are the Latin or Roman alphabet and the Cyrillic alphabet, which have been adapted to write numerous languages. Most other alphabets are used for a single language or just a few languages.

Alphabets currently in use

Armenian	Bassa (Vah)	Cyrillic
Fraser	Georgian (Mkhedruli)	Greek
Korean (hangŭl)	Latin/Roman	Manchu
Mongolian	N'Ko	Oirat Clear Script
Pollard Miao	Sutton SignWriting	Tai Lue
Thaana	Tifinagh

Alphabets used mainly for decorative, ceremonial or religious purposes

Coptic

Old Church Slavonic

Runic

Alphabets that are no longer used

Avestan	Beitha Kukju	Elbasan
Etruscan	Georgian (Asomtavruli)	Georgian (Nuskha-khucuri)
Glagolitic	ic	Hungarian Runes
Meroïtic	Ogham	Old Italic
Old Permic (Abur)	Orkhon (Turkic runes)	Uighur

Please note

transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) are used extensively throughout this website. The IPA transcriptions are the letters and other symbols which appear in square bracketts, like this [b], [p]. etc.

You can learn which sounds are represented by these letters and symbols at:
http://www.unil.ch/ling/page30184.html
http://www.unil.ch/ling/page12580.html (en français)