Why We All Use the Latin Alphabet

You’ve learned your ABC’s all the way to Z. But where did those letters actually come from? Let’s rewind all the way back to Italy—before Rome was even an empire. Here’s how the Latin alphabet—the most widely used writing system in the world—went global. It all started with the North Semitic alphabet: the first known alphabetic writing system, which emerged in ancient Syria and Palestine around 1100 BCE. This evolved into the Phoenician alphabet, which laid the foundation for the Greeks to develop their own version with vowels and modified letter forms. Enter the Etruscans—ancient people who flourished in Italy before the Roman Empire emerged. During the 7th century BCE the Etruscans had adopted the Greek alphabet and made some tweaks: they wrote right to left, so the orientation of some familiar letters was flipped. Shortly after, the Etruscan’s neighbors began adapting the alphabet for their own language, Latin. These Latin speakers lived in a region called Latium and were called Romans, after Romulus, the legendary founder of their main settlement. By 600 BCE the Latin speakers had succeeded in adapting the Etruscan alphabet to their language. The classical Latin alphabet contained only 23 letters, with no J, U, or W. It also lacked lowercase letters—writing was divided into capital letters, used for stone-carved inscriptions, and a more casual cursive script. The earliest recorded Latin is found on a golden cloak pin, called the “Praeneste Fibula,” from 6th century BCE. The inscription says “Manius made me for Numerius”—a sweet note from the goldsmith to the pin’s receiver. As Romans colonized the Mediterranean, they took their alphabet with them. During the Middle Ages, the letters I and J were differentiated from each other, and V split into the V we know today, and the modern day letter U. Speakers of Germanic languages also created the letter W out of two consecutive U’s. The Latin alphabet is now used by nearly 70 percent of the world’s population. It’s used to write languages such as English and Spanish, as well as French and Polish. It’s also utilized in Swahili, Tagalog, and Vietnamese—and even some Indigenous languages in the Americas and Australia. So the next time you write your name, read a book, or teach someone the ABC’s, just remember—every word is a part of thousands of years of history and cultural exchange. Yes, even the word “fart.”