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Arts & Culture

The Evolution of the Latin Alphabet and Its Scripts

Quick fact

The Latin alphabet originally had only 23 letters, and two of our modern ones—J and W—were added only in the Middle Ages, while U and V were once the same letter.

Why this is interesting

You write with a 2,500-year-old system. But the A, B, C you use today look nothing like their ancestors—so how did they get here?