Example graffiti alphabet letters A-Z cool. An alphabet is a set of standard letters - basic symbols that are written - each of which approximately represents a phoneme, a spoken language, both as it exists now or as in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic unit, and syllabaries, in which each character represents a syllable. Alphabet are classified based on how they indicate vowels:
- The same way as consonants, as in Greek (true alphabet)
- Abbreviation of consonants, as in Hindi (abugida)
- Not at all, like in Phoenix (Alphabetical)
The word "alphabet" came to England, from the medieval Latin word Alphabetum end, which in turn comes from the Ancient Greek Αλφάβητος Alphabetos, from alpha and beta, the first two letters of the Greek alphabet. Alpha and beta in turn came from the first two letters of the Phoenician alphabet, and means that cows and their homes. There are dozens of alphabets in use today. Most of them are composed of lines (linear writing); exceptions are Braille, fingerspelling, and Morse code.