Originally, Y and Z were missing as well. The Old Latin alphabet consisted of 22 letters: the missing ones were J, G, U, and W. (Etruscan V is Latin U Etruscan F is Latin V.) Compared to the classical Etruscan alphabet, they retained the letters B, D, K, O, Q, and X, but dropped Θ, Ś, Φ, Ψ, and F. Starting from the 7th century BC, 21 of the 26 archaic Etruscan letters were adapted for Old Latin - either directly from the Cumae alphabet (another writing system derived from the Greek alphabet) or via the archaic Etruscan forms. Early Etruscan Alphabet with Transliteration, Public Domain, Wikipedia Commons At first, it was used by the Etruscans, among others, and their alphabet was the immediate ancestor of the Roman script we know today. After the evolution from the Western Greek Alphabet from the Old Italic alphabets, the writing system that would later become the Latin alphabet diverged in turn from the Western Greek alphabet, getting started on its own evolutionary course. Over the ages many different stylistic forms of each letter evolved, with some of these forms becoming a recognized subform that got used to transliterate exotic tongues. The lowercase letters evolved through cursive styles that developed in response to the need to adapt the traditionally inscribed alphabet to being written with a pen. The Latin alphabet has been in use since as early as 700 BCE, starting out as uppercase letters known as Roman square capitals. Without further ado, let’s get started! History Let’s take a look at how the alphabet we know and love changed and what the reasons behind those changes were. In fact, a time-traveling ancient Roman who had used the first iteration of the alphabet would no longer recognize it! Even though the Latin alphabet turned out to be quite a convenient tool for writing in many languages, it didn’t always look the same as the one we’re familiar with today. We’ve previously covered the history of the Latin script and how it came to life: How it evolved from the Greek alphabet, which in turn was derived from the Old Phoenician writing system that stemmed from Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.
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