Latin alphabet

noun

: an alphabet that was used for writing Latin and that has been modified for writing many modern languages

Examples of Latin alphabet in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Though many Indigenous languages are primarily oral, Portuguese colonizers transcribed them using the Latin alphabet in the 16th century. Cameron Pugh, The Christian Science Monitor, 21 Mar. 2024 Kasem said that in cases where signs featured multiple languages all based on the same alphabet – for instance, both Welsh and English are based on the Latin alphabet – greater care was needed to differentiate them, such as by using different colors or font sizes. Chris Lau, CNN, 29 July 2023 New learners, including Chinese children, pick up character pronunciation using Pinyin, which uses the Latin alphabet to spell out sounds of Standard Chinese characters. Jamie Dickman, Popular Science, 11 Apr. 2023 Part of the reason for the confusion is that Hebrew, unlike English, doesn't use the Latin alphabet, meaning words are often subject to less-than-perfect translations. Justin Klawans, The Week, 18 Dec. 2022 Garfinkel said that Canaanites were the first to use letters that represented sounds in their writing system, which subsequently evolved into the Phoenician, Greek and ultimately the Latin alphabet that’s most commonly used today. Katie Hunt, CNN, 8 Nov. 2022 And there are practical reasons to consider, too: The Latin alphabet contains only 26 letters, which were relatively simple to mass produce as type pieces. Gregory Barber, WIRED, 29 Aug. 2022 The font has 8,000 glyphs including Cantonese characters, Mandarin phonetic symbols, the Latin alphabet, numerals, emoji, and punctuation marks. Anne Quito, Quartz, 20 July 2022

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'Latin alphabet.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1823, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of Latin alphabet was in 1823

Dictionary Entries Near Latin alphabet

Cite this Entry

“Latin alphabet.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Latin%20alphabet. Accessed 20 Apr. 2024.

Kids Definition

Latin alphabet

noun
: an alphabet that was used for writing Latin and that has been modified for writing many modern languages (as English)

More from Merriam-Webster on Latin alphabet

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