Latin script
The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, and technically Latin writing system 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.
| Latin Roman | |
|---|---|
| Script type | |
Time period | c. 700 BC – present |
| Direction | Left-to-right |
| Languages | The languages of Europe that do not use Cyrillic or Greek; most languages of Africa that do not use Ethiopic or Arabic script; most 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
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| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Egyptian hieroglyphs
|
Child systems |
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Sister systems | |
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Latn (215), Latin |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Latin |
Unicode range | 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.