Latin Script - English Alphabet

English Alphabet

As used in modern English, the Latin alphabet consists of the following characters

In addition, the ligatures ⟨Æ⟩ of ⟨A⟩ with ⟨E⟩ (e.g. "encyclopædia"), and ⟨Œ⟩ of ⟨O⟩ with ⟨E⟩ (e.g. "cœlacanth") may be used, optionally, in words derived from Latin or Greek, and the diaeresis mark is sometimes placed on the letters ⟨o⟩, ⟨i⟩ and ⟨e⟩ (e.g. "coöperate", "naïve" or "preëxisting") to indicate the pronunciation of ⟨oo⟩, ⟨ai⟩ or ⟨ee⟩ as two distinct vowels, rather than a long one. Hyphenation may also be used, to avoid having to type accented characters: "co-operate" or "pre-existing". Outside of professional papers on specific subjects that traditionally use ligatures in loanwords, however, ligatures and diaereses are seldom used in modern English. Note, however, that some fonts for typesetting English contain commonly used ligatures, such as for ⟨tt⟩, ⟨fi⟩, ⟨fl⟩, ⟨ffi⟩, and ⟨ffl⟩. These are not independent letters, but rather allographs.