An alphabet or ABC is a scrievin seestem, a series o seembols for scrievin. A seembol in an alphabet is for ordinar cried a "letter". In an alphabet, ilka digraph can be a seembol for a soond or morpheme.

The name alphabet comes frae Alpha an Beta, the first twa letters in the Greek alphabet.

The alphabet uised in this airticle is the Laitin alphabet (or "Roman alphabet"). It wis first uised in Auncient Rome for tae scrieve Laitin.^[1][2] Mony leids uises the Laitin alphabet. Alphabets uise letters for scrievin, an aw letters cry a soond (a vowel or a consenant), an ither scrievin seestems dinnae uise letters for aw soonds.

A leet o some alphabets an examples o leids at uise thaim:

• Laitin alphabet (or "Roman alphabet"), uised fur Europeen leids, American leids, an mony soothern Africaen leids
• Greek alphabet, uised fur Greek
• Arabic alphabet, uised fur Arabic an Farsi
• Ebreu alphabet, uised fur Ebreu an Yiddish
• Cyrillic alphabet, foondit on the Greek alphabet, uised fur Roushie, Bulgarian, an mony ither leids aroond the auld Soviet Union.
• Hangul, uised for Korean
• Phoenician alphabet, uised fur the auncient Phoenician leid, which developed intae the Greek, Aramaic, Tifinagh, Brahmi, an ither scrievin seestems.

Ither scrievin seestems daena uise seembols that means a soond, but insteid uises seembols that means a wird or a syllab. Lang syne, mony culturs uised sic scrievin seestems, but thay are maistly juist uised bi leids that fowk speaks in Asie the day.

• The Cheenese scrievin is cried "pictographic" acause thair scrievin evolved frae uisin picturs for tae represent wirds or ideas insteid o soonds.
• Japanese uises a mixter-maxter o the Cheenese scrievin an twa syllabarie cried hiragana an katakana. Modren Japanese aft uises romaji an aw, that's the Japanese syllabary scrievedd in the Roman alphabet.

A syllabary is a seestem o scrievin that is seemilar tae an alphabet. A syllabary uises ae symbol for tae represent ilka syllab o a wird, insteid o ae seembol for ilka letter o the wird.^[3] For exemple, a syllabary wad uise ae seembol for tae mean the syllab "ga", insteid o twa letters o the alphabet "g" an "a".

• Korean uised the Cheenese scrievin lang syne, but thay uise an alphabet kent as "Hangul" the day. Cheenese chairacters can still be seen in a few offeecial govrenment documents. This is kent as "Hanja".

1. ↑ "Getting started on classical Latin". Open Learning (in Inglis). Retrieved 27 Mey 2025.
2. ↑ Adams, Blake (24 September 2019). "How Old is Latin?". Ancient Language Institute (in Inglis). Retrieved 27 Mey 2025.
3. ↑ "Syllabary | Writing system, Alphabetic, Cuneiform | Britannica". www.britannica.com (in Inglis). Retrieved 27 Mey 2025.

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