ISO basic Latin alphabet

The ISO basic Latin alphabet is a Latin-script alphabet and consists of two sets of 26 letters, codified
in[1] various national and international standards and used widely in international communication. They are
the same letters that comprise the English alphabet.

The two sets contain the following 26 letters each:[1]

ISO basic Latin alphabet

Uppercase
Latin A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
alphabet
Lowercase
Latin a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
alphabet

Contents
History
Terminology
Timeline for encoding standards
Timeline for widely used computer codes supporting the alphabet
Representation
Usage
Alphabets containing the same set of letters
Column numbering
See also
Notes
References

History
By the 1960s it became apparent to the computer and telecommunications industries in the First World that
a non-proprietary method of encoding characters was needed. The International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) encapsulated the Latin script in their (ISO/IEC 646) 7-bit character-encoding
standard. To achieve widespread acceptance, this encapsulation was based on popular usage. The standard
was based on the already published American Standard Code for Information Interchange, better known
as ASCII, which included in the character set the 26 × 2 letters of the English alphabet. Later standards
issued by the ISO, for example ISO/IEC 8859 (8-bit character encoding) and ISO/IEC 10646 (Unicode
Latin), have continued to define the 26 × 2 letters of the English alphabet as the basic Latin script with
extensions to handle other letters in other languages.[1]
Terminology
The Unicode block that contains the alphabet is called "C0 Controls and Basic Latin". Two subheadings
exist:[2]

"Uppercase Latin alphabet": the letters start at U+0041 and contain the string LATIN CAPITAL LETTER
in their descriptions
"Lowercase Latin alphabet": the letters start at U+0061 and contain the string LATIN SMALL LETTER in
their descriptions

There are also another two sets in the Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms block:[3]

Uppercase: the letters start at U+FF21 and contain the string FULLWIDTH LATIN CAPITAL LETTER in
their descriptions
Lowercase: the letters start at U+FF41 and contain the string FULLWIDTH LATIN SMALL LETTER in
their descriptions

Timeline for encoding standards

1865 International Morse Code was standardized at the International Telegraphy Congress in Paris, and
was later made the standard by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
1950s Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet by ICAO[4]

Timeline for widely used computer codes supporting the alphabet

1963: ASCII (7-bit character-encoding standard from the American Standards Association, which
became ANSI in 1969)
1963/1964: EBCDIC (developed by IBM and supporting the same alphabetic characters as ASCII, but
with different code values)
1965-04-30: Ratified by ECMA as ECMA-6[5] based on work the ECMA's Technical Committee TC1 had
carried out since December 1960.[5]
1972: ISO 646 (ISO 7-bit character-encoding standard, using the same alphabetic code values as
ASCII, revised in second edition ISO 646:1983 and third edition ISO/IEC 646:1991 as a joint ISO/IEC
standard)
1983: ITU-T Rec. T.51 | ISO/IEC 6937 (a multi-byte extension of ASCII)
1987: ISO/IEC 8859-1:1987 (8-bit character encoding)
Subsequently, other versions and parts of ISO/IEC 8859 have been published.
Mid-to-late 1980s: Windows-1250, Windows-1252, and other encodings used in Microsoft Windows
(some roughly similar to ISO/IEC 8859-1)
1990: Unicode 1.0 (developed by the Unicode Consortium),[6][7] contained in the block "C0 Controls and
Basic Latin" using the same alphabetic code values as ASCII and ISO/IEC 646
Subsequently, other versions of Unicode have been published and it later became a joint ISO/IEC
standard as well, as identified below.
1993: ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993, ISO/IEC standard for characters in Unicode 1.1
Subsequently, other versions of ISO/IEC 10646-1 and one of ISO/IEC 10646-2 have been published.
Since 2003, the standards have been published under the name "ISO/IEC 10646" without the
separation into two parts.
1997: Windows Glyph List 4
Representation
In ASCII the letters belong to the printable characters and in Unicode since version 1.0
they belong to the block "C0 Controls and Basic Latin". In both cases, as well as in
ISO/IEC 646, ISO/IEC 8859 and ISO/IEC 10646 they are occupying the positions in
hexadecimal notation 41 to 5A for uppercase and 61 to 7A for lowercase. The letters of
the ISO basic
Not case sensitive, all letters have code words in the ICAO spelling alphabet and can be
Latin alphabet
represented with Morse code. on a 16-
segment
Usage display (plus
the Arabic
All of the lowercase letters are used in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). In X- numerals).
SAMPA and SAMPA these letters have the same sound value as in IPA.

Alphabets containing the same set of letters

The list below only includes alphabets that lack:

letters whose diacritical marks make them distinct letters.

multigraphs that constitute distinct letters.
 Alphabet Diacritic Multigraphs (not constituting distinct letters) Ligatures
Digraphs: ⟨aa⟩, ⟨ai⟩, ⟨ch⟩, ⟨ee⟩, ⟨ei⟩, ⟨eu⟩, ⟨gh⟩, ⟨ie⟩,
á, ä, é, è, ê, ⟨nj⟩, ⟨ng⟩ ⟨oe⟩, ⟨oi⟩, ⟨oo⟩, ⟨ou⟩, ⟨sj⟩, ⟨tj⟩, ⟨ts⟩, ⟨ui⟩, ⟨uu⟩
Afrikaans alphabet ë, í, î, ï, ó, ô, ʼn
ö, ú, û, ü, ý Trigraphs: ⟨aai⟩, ⟨eeu⟩, ⟨oei⟩, ⟨ooi⟩

à, é, è, í, ï, ó,
Catalan alphabet ⟨gu⟩, ⟨ig⟩, ⟨ix⟩, ⟨ll⟩, ⟨ny⟩, ⟨qu⟩, ⟨rr⟩, ⟨ss⟩
ò, ú, ü, ç, lꞏl
The digraph ⟨ij⟩ is sometimes considered to be a
separate letter. When that is the case, it usually
ä, é, è, ë, ï, ö,
Dutch alphabet replaces or is intermixed with ⟨y⟩. Other digraphs: ⟨aa⟩,
ü
⟨ae⟩, ⟨ai⟩, ⟨au⟩, ⟨ch⟩, ⟨ee⟩, ⟨ei⟩, ⟨eu⟩, ⟨ie⟩, ⟨oe⟩, ⟨oi⟩,
⟨oo⟩, ⟨ou⟩, ⟨ui⟩, ⟨uu⟩

only in ⟨sh/shw⟩, ⟨ch/j⟩, ⟨ea/i⟩, ⟨ou/au⟩, ⟨th/d⟩, ⟨ph/f⟩, æ, œ ue

English alphabet loanwords
⟨ng/ngh/ngk/ngg⟩⟨qu/kw⟩ (archaic)
(see below)

à, â, ç, é, è, ⟨ai⟩, ⟨au⟩, ⟨ei⟩, ⟨eu⟩, ⟨oi⟩, ⟨ou⟩, ⟨eau⟩, ⟨ch⟩, ⟨ph⟩, ⟨gn⟩,
French alphabet ê, ë, î, ï, ô, ù, ⟨an⟩, ⟨am⟩, ⟨en⟩, ⟨em⟩, ⟨in⟩, ⟨im⟩, ⟨on⟩, ⟨om⟩, ⟨un⟩, æ, œ, ᵫ
û, ü, ÿ ⟨um⟩, ⟨yn⟩, ⟨ym⟩, ⟨ain⟩, ⟨aim⟩, ⟨ein⟩, ⟨oin⟩, ⟨aî⟩, ⟨eî⟩

ß
(sometimes
German alphabet ä, ö, ü ⟨sch⟩, ⟨qu⟩, ⟨ch⟩, ⟨ph⟩, ⟨ng⟩, ⟨ie⟩, ⟨ck⟩, ⟨ei⟩, ⟨eu⟩, ⟨äu⟩
considered
a letter)

Italian alphabet (extended)[a] à, è, é, ì, ò, ù ⟨ch⟩, ⟨ci⟩, ⟨gh⟩, ⟨gi⟩, ⟨gl⟩, ⟨gli⟩, ⟨gn⟩, ⟨sc⟩, ⟨sci⟩

Ido alphabet none ⟨qu⟩, ⟨ch⟩, ⟨sh⟩ none

only in
learning
Indonesian alphabet ⟨kh⟩, ⟨ng⟩, ⟨ny⟩, ⟨sy⟩, diphthongs: ai, au, ei, oi
materials
(see below)
only in
unassimilated
Interlingua alphabet ⟨ch⟩, ⟨ph⟩, ⟨qu⟩, ⟨rh⟩, ⟨sh⟩ none
loanwords
(see below)
Javanese Latin alphabet é, è ⟨dh⟩, ⟨kh⟩, ⟨ng⟩, ⟨ny⟩, ⟨sy⟩, ⟨th⟩ none

Luxembourgish alphabet ä, é, ë
only in
learning
Malay alphabet ⟨gh⟩, ⟨kh⟩, ⟨ng⟩, ⟨ny⟩, ⟨sy⟩ none
materials
(see below)

ã, õ, á, é, í, ó, ⟨ch⟩, ⟨lh⟩, ⟨nh⟩, ⟨rr⟩, ⟨ss⟩, ⟨am⟩, ⟨em⟩, ⟨im⟩, ⟨om⟩, ⟨um⟩,
Portuguese alphabet[b] none
ú, â, ê, ô, à, ç ⟨ãe⟩, ⟨ão⟩, ⟨õe⟩

Sundanese Latin alphabet é ⟨eu⟩, ⟨ng⟩, ⟨ny⟩ none

English is one of few modern European languages requiring no diacritics for native words (although a
diaeresis is used by some American publishers in words such as "coöperation").[c][8]

The constructed language Interlingua never use diacritics except in unassimilated loanwords. However, they
can be removed if they are not used to modify the vowel (e.g. cafe, from French: café).[9]

Malay and Indonesian (based on Malay) are the only languages outside Europe that use all the Latin
alphabet and require no diacritics and ligatures.[d] Many of the 700+ languages of Indonesia also use the
Indonesian alphabet to write their languages, some such as Javanese adding diacritics é and è, and some
omitting q, x, and z.
Column numbering

The Roman (Latin) alphabet is commonly used for column numbering in a table or chart. This avoids
confusion with row numbers using Arabic numerals. For example, a 3-by-3 table would contain Columns A,
B, and C, set against Rows 1, 2, and 3. If more columns are needed beyond Z (normally the final letter of the
alphabet), the column immediately after Z is AA, followed by AB, and so on (see bijective base-26 system).
This can be seen by scrolling far to the right in a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel or LibreOffice
Calc.

These are double-digit "letters" for table columns, in the same way that 10 through 99 are double-digit
numbers. The Greek alphabet has a similar extended form that uses such double-digit letters if necessary,
but it is used for chapters of a fraternity as opposed to columns of a table.

Such double-digit letters for bullet points are AA, BB, CC, etc., as opposed to the number-like place value
system explained above for table columns.

See also
Hebrew alphabet
Greek alphabet
Latin alphabet
Latin-script alphabet for the sound correspondence
List of Latin-script alphabets
Early Cyrillic alphabet, Cyrillic alphabets
Windows code pages

Notes
a. The Italian alphabet is traditionally considered to have only 21 letters, excluding j, k, w, x, y. However, in
practice these letters occur in a number of loanwords. J also occurs in some native Italian proper names
as a variant of writing semivocalic i.
b. Note for Portuguese: k and y (but not w) were part of the alphabet until several spelling reforms during
the 20th century, the aim of which was to change the etymological Portuguese spelling into an easier
phonetic spelling. These letters were replaced by other letters having the same sound: thus psychologia
became psicologia, kioske became quiosque, martyr became mártir, etc. Nowadays k, w, and y are only
found in foreign words and their derived terms and in scientific abbreviations (e.g. km, byronismo).
These letters are considered part of the alphabet again following the 1990 Portuguese Language
Orthographic Agreement, which came into effect on January 1, 2009, in Brazil. See Reforms of
Portuguese orthography.
c. As an example of an article containing a diaeresis in "coöperate", as well as accents on loan words in
English, such as a cedilla in "façades" and a circumflex in the word "crêpe", see Grafton, Anthony
(October 23, 2006). "Books: The Nutty Professors, The history of academic charisma" (http://www.newy
orker.com/archive/2006/10/23/061023crbo_books?currentPage=all). The New Yorker.
d. However, Malay and Indonesian learning materials may use ⟨é⟩ (E with acute) to clarify the
pronunciation of the letter E; in that case, ⟨e⟩ is pronounced /ə/ while ⟨é⟩ is pronounced /e/ and (è) is
pronounced /ɛ/.

References
1. "Internationalisation standardization of 7-bit codes, ISO 646" (http://www.terena.org/activities/multiling/e
uroml/section04.html). Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association (TERENA).
 Retrieved October 3, 2010.
2. "C0 Controls and Basic Latin" (https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0000.pdf) (PDF). Unicode.org.
Retrieved August 8, 2016.
3. "Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms" (https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UFF00.pdf) (PDF). Unicode.org.
Retrieved August 8, 2016.
4. "The Postal History of ICAO" (https://www.icao.int/secretariat/PostalHistory/annex_10_aeronautical_tele
communications.htm). www.icao.int. Retrieved February 17, 2019.
5. Standard ECMA-6: 7-Bit Coded Character Set (http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECM
A-ST-WITHDRAWN/ECMA-6,%205th%20Edition,%20March%201985.pdf) (PDF) (5th ed.). Geneva,
Switzerland: European Computer Manufacturers Association (Ecma). March 1985. Archived (https://we
b.archive.org/web/20160529230908/http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST-WIT
HDRAWN/ECMA-6%2C%205th%20Edition%2C%20March%201985.pdf) (PDF) from the original on
May 29, 2016. Retrieved May 29, 2016. "The Technical Committee TC1 of ECMA met for the first time in
December 1960 to prepare standard codes for Input/Output purposes. On April 30, 1965, Standard
ECMA-6 was adopted by the General Assembly of ECMA."
6. "Unicode character database" (https://www.unicode.org/ucd). The Unicode Standard. Retrieved
March 22, 2013.
7. The Unicode Standard Version 1.0, Volume 1. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc. 1990. ISBN 0-
201-56788-1.
8. "The New Yorker's odd mark — the diaeresis" (https://web.archive.org/web/20101216160024/http://dscri
ber.com/news/121-the-new-yorkers-odd-mark-the-diaeresis). December 16, 2010. Archived from the
original (http://dscriber.com/news/121-the-new-yorkers-odd-mark-the-diaeresis) on December 16, 2010.
9. "Introduction al IED (in anglese)" (https://www.interlingua.com/ied/intro/). www.interlingua.com.
Retrieved September 21, 2020.

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