Portuguese Alphabet

The Portuguese alphabet, as of 2009, consists of the following 23 or 26 Latin letters:

Majuscule Forms (also called uppercase or capital letters)

Minuscule Forms (also called lowercase or small letters)

Note:

The letters K, W and Y were included in the alphabet used in Brazil, East Timor, Macau, Portugal and five countries in Africa when the 1990 Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement went into legal effect, since January 1, 2009. However, they were used before 1911 (see the article on spelling reform in Portugal).

In addition, the following characters with diacritics are used: Áá, Ââ, Ãã, Àà, Çç, Éé, Êê, Íí, Óó, Ôô, Õõ, Úú. These are not, however, treated as independent letters in collation, nor do they have entries of their own in Portuguese dictionaries. When two words differ only in the presence or absence of a diacritic, the one without it is collated first. The trema on Ü was used in Brazilian Portuguese up to December 31, 2008. With the 1990 Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement going into effect in Brazil on January 1, 2009, the diaeresis may only appear in borrowed words, in personal names, and in words derived from them.

Read more about Portuguese Alphabet: Letter Names and Pronunciations, Consonants, Vowels, Keyboard Layout

Famous quotes containing the word alphabet:

“I believe the alphabet is no longer considered an essential piece of equipment for traveling through life. In my day it was the keystone to knowledge. You learned the alphabet as you learned to count to ten, as you learned “Now I lay me” and the Lord’s Prayer and your father’s and mother’s name and address and telephone number, all in case you were lost.”
—Eudora Welty (b. 1909)