Talk:List of Latin-script alphabets/Archive 1

Archive 1

Which letters are considered part of the alphabet?

The information presented here is inconsistent as to which letters are considered part of the alphabet... for example, "ä" in Swedish is a letter in the alphabet and has its own order, whereas e.g. French "é" is considered a variant of "e". So this list is a mixture of "letters in the alphabet of language X" and "letters used when writing language X [regardless of whether they are considered separate letters of not]".

Similarly with digraphs which are mentioned in the notes below the tables; for example, some languages consider "ch" a separate letter, with its own position in the alphabetical order, while others use the digraph in their writing to represent one sound but sort it as the two letters c-h. -- pne 16:12, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Also, some languages include letters as part of the alphabet which are only used in foreign words - for example, Q or K or W or Y, depending on the language. How to treat those? -- pne 16:15, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned if a language considers a letter part of its alphabet, then it is part of its alphabet. Which means that we could go by the "X alphabet" articles, but those don't exist for all alphabets. Dori | Talk 16:18, Jun 3, 2004 (UTC)

I am assuming that this page is useful mostly for people who are not familiar with the languages in question. Therefore, the inclusion of an accented letter like "é" in the line of language X should not depend on the view of X's regulating body or grammarians. It seems more useful to include those "letters" here, and leave the fine points of nomenclature to be explained in the "X alphabet" page. Jorge Stolfi 12:35, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

As for digraphs, it seems better to leave them out (unless they are joined into a single glyph, like the Dutch "ij" or German es-zet). The reason is that there are far too may of them, and often the distinction between a digraph and a mere juxtaposition of letters is quite blurry. (Is the "-ing" ending of English a trigraph?). They too are better explained in the "X alphabet" pages. At most, collating anomalies like Spanish "ch" may be mentioned here as footnotes to the table.Jorge Stolfi 12:35, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Turkish dotted/undotted I

In the table header, shouldn't one show also the upper case dotless "I" and the lower case dotted "i"? True, they are identical to the plain latin letters. But the way the table is now, it looks as if those these letters do not exist in the Turkish alphabet. (Note that this situation is different from that of ess-zet, where the uppercase form is really non-existant.)
Jorge Stolfi 15:02, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Hm... good point. -- pne 16:21, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Changed now. -- pne 16:36, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

More characters needed

HELP... Portuguese uses also the letters "Ê", "Ô", "Ã", and "Õ" which are not on the table. Unfortunately adding the letters by hand is near impossible, and after spending a couple of hours trying to do it by script I concluded that it was just as hard. If you have the tools, could you please do that for me? Thanks...
Jorge Stolfi 17:19, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

French also has Ê and Ô (as well as Û), and I when I added Maltese I wanted to add C-dot, G-dot, and H-bar as well. I'll see whether I have time to do this. -- pne 06:09, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

OK, done. French, Portuguese, and Maltese should now be complete. -- pne 12:39, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Thanks!! And for splitting the table, too — it is much better now.
Jorge Stolfi 15:02, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

(Old) Joining the tables

Couldn't these all go on one page to aid comparison? It only about 26 letters extra for each language. Rmhermen 18:29, Nov 25, 2003 (UTC)

• I agree, if anyone feels up to doing it. Bmills 09:04, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

A table would be nice, e.g.

Alphabet \ Letter	A	B	C	ĉ	D	..
English alphabet	A	B	C		D	..
Esperanto alphabet	A	B	C	ĉ	D	..
..

--User:Docu

• Not sure my editing skills are up to that. I'll try to learn how later today. Bmills 08:57, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)
  • Have made table. Now I never want to see the page again! Bmills 17:09, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Great work. I like it. -- User:Docu

---

To add alphabets, copy the English one, and add/remove letters.

We might want to include or exclude all diacritics and fine tune collation -- User:Docu

Table changed

I've changed the table: it should be easier to edit/add new alphabets now. I've removed all diacritics, ligatures and other letters which do not exist in ASCII to after the Z.

I've also removed the Esperanto X-system: the letters like Cx are just a workaround for non-Unicode systems. If we include the X-system we ought to include the German 'e-system' as well, where ä becomes ae etc.. Jor 15:32, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Alphabetised the list (it was randomly sorted which irked me) and added Scots Gaelic to the list. Whoever originally wrote the tables can put the grave accents in their proper place - they left all fields for grave accents out as if acute accents were the only ones. Every segment has to be fixed in order to put them in now. Their fault.--172.175.248.241 07:03, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The table is a pain, if another character is to be added. Are the accented vowels really different letters in Scots Gaelic? Many languages include diacritics which are not here marked, but only a few see these as different letters. Jor 10:43, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

New table idea

What does everyone think of the table at Alphabets_derived_from_the_Latin/Temp? It uses the new table code and should be more easy to edit, also it scrolls better since I split the basic and extended alphabet. It was very easy to fix Scots Gaelic now. I would like to replace the main article table with the new one. Jor 18:08, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)ß

I'm generally in favour. The basic table is now clean. Only have minor remarks that also affect the original table:

• On older browsers I see → and ↓, maybe --> and v could be used?

Good idea. A shame we can't force people to upgrade their browsers ;) Jor 13:15, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

• Again on older browsers I see lots of ? in the extended table, but it's ok in Mozilla Firefox,Opera 7.11 and IE5.50. -Wikibob 09:39, 2004 Mar 12 (UTC)

The latter problem is unavoidable, as those older browsers couldn't render the characters anyway. The same applies to modern browsers on systems without Unicode fonts (I can't see two of the chars myself on a secondary system because that system doesn't include a font for the Latin Extended-B range). Jor 13:15, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I like it better since it doesn't widen the page. Dori | Talk 15:28, Mar 12, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. No objections so far, so do you agree I can replace the table in the main article? Jor 15:34, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Is it just me, or would it be possible to simply replace all letters within each table with a tick? Is there really any need to replicate each letter each time? I assume that the point is that every instance of a letter in a given column is the same. --Phil | Talk 15:55, Mar 12, 2004 (UTC)

I think it's easier to see them the way it is now, especially in the more sparse area. Dori | Talk 15:58, Mar 12, 2004 (UTC)

Sure, that's possible, but then you lose the ability to check horizontally. Especially since table borders collapse, and there are thus no internal lines in the table (at least in Opera 7.5P3— My Mozilla 1.7's behaviour seems to be buggy here). Jor 15:59, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I changed my mind. I didn't notice how buggy it was under Mozilla until I did some vertical scrolling. I like not having to scroll horizontally, but being compatible Mozilla is more important. Dori | Talk 16:09, Mar 12, 2004 (UTC)

Have you tried using   in the empty boxes, as is traditional in HTML tables? Oh, and actually finishing each line? The Swedish alphabet line stops because that's where you stopped entering stuff! --Phil | Talk 16:20, Mar 12, 2004 (UTC)

Take a look at it now. --Phil | Talk 16:21, Mar 12, 2004 (UTC)

I can see no difference. I'll take some screenshots to show what I mean. Jor 16:23, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Here's how it looks in IE 6 and Mozilla 1.6 from my end:

• Image:Alphabet table ie6 dori.png
• Image:Alphabet table mozilla16 dori.png

Dori | Talk 16:24, Mar 12, 2004 (UTC)

For future reference, I deleted these images since they're no longer needed. Dori | Talk 19:37, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

Here's Opera 7.50P3:

[1]

As far as I understand CSS, this is how border collapse should work. Jor 16:32, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Better than in Mozilla and IE, but what's with the strike-throughs? I believe we should go with the majority here though. If even open source browsers don't support it well, we should not expect our readers to go and get opera just to see a page. Dori | Talk 16:36, Mar 12, 2004 (UTC)

Strike-throughs are my displayal for visited links, ignore ;-) I do not really understand what the problem with the new table is: the existing table looks even worse in my copy of Mozilla 1.7a. It seems the worst MSIE/Gecko bugs can be fixed by adding empty cells at the end of each line. Jor 16:40, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well I get the nasty dashes in Mozilla if I scroll down with the mouse. And I don't have enough control over the fonts in IE6 (well not so immediate anyway) so the row-height is horrid. But I contend that most of the problem is that the ends of most of the rows have not been filled in. --Phil | Talk 16:31, Mar 12, 2004 (UTC)

Okay, all lines are now filled. Thoughts? Looks good in Opera/7.50P3 and Opera/7.23 and acceptable in Mozilla/1.7a here now. Jor 16:56, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Opera looks identical as before, Gecko screenshot:

[2]

Taken with K-Meleon 0.8.2 based on Gecko/20040311 Jor 17:00, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Much better now. Do we need to repeat the word alphabet for every single link? I think we might as well hide them, which will make the row height smaller. Also, instead of copying and pasting, we might have to delete the current page, move it, delete the redirect, and then merge in the old history. Dori | Talk 20:44, Mar 12, 2004 (UTC)

Good ideas. I'll go edit the "alphabet" words. As for the move etc., I'll leave that to someone with admin powers. Jor 20:49, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

OK, I did the move and history merge. The old version is available in the history in case someone thinks it should be reverted. I just noticed something while doing the move. The title of this article doesn't sound right. Should it be "Alphabets derived from the Latin one" or "Alphabets derived from Latin"? The current title doesn't make much sense to me. Dori | Talk 21:15, Mar 12, 2004 (UTC)

Sounds okay to me (Alphabets derived from the Latin [alphabet]). I actually feel more for 'Alphabets based on the Latin', but I am not a native English speaker so derived may be better here. Thanks for doing the merge! Jor 21:26, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I think it should be "Latin-based alphabets" (or perhaps "Latin-derived alphabets"). Titles should be succinct. The preposition from is redundant, it doesn't help explaining what the article is about.

—Herbee 21:35, 2004 Mar 18 (UTC)

Alphabet order

Why are the Ø and Œ columns in front of all the A's in the "Extended Latin Alphabet" table? I would expect them with the O's. The ß is with the S's, after all. Does anyone mind if I change this?
—Herbee 21:51, 2004 Mar 18 (UTC)

They Ø is only there because when I changed the table I didn't move it, and the Œ was inserted later. It probably makes more sense to put them with the O's. — Jor (Darkelf) 22:09, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Latin ligatures

AFAIK the Latin alphabet used Æ and Œ too. Shouldn't there be a "Latin" row at the top of the "Extended latin" table?

Trouble ahead

It seems wrong to include just a random subset of languages in the table and leave the rest as links. On the other hand, if one were to include a couple more languages, the table would not fit in the screen anymore. Vietnamese alone. Also the table does not show the collating order. So I propose a different organization:

(1) a table with one row for each language, that lists the alphabet in collating order, without vertical alignment:

Latin: A Æ, B, C, ...

Pinyin:A Á À &Abrevis; &Acaron; ...

(2) a separate table for each base Latin letter, showing all modifications of that letter used in various languages. These tables would be formatted like the present ones, with one row per language and one column per modified form.

What do you think?
Jorge Stolfi 17:28, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

So, any opinions on this proposal?
Jorge Stolfi 19:20, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to say that collating order can go in the "XYZ alphabet" article which is linked from the bottom. -- pne 06:08, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Ñ in Welsh?!

I've never seen the use of an N-tilde, rather than the digraph Ng (and it's a different phoneme, it's an eng like in thing, not an enye like in canyon. I'm removing it for now, but feel free to prove me wrong, if you have a reference to back you up ;o) — OwenBlacker 20:40, Jul 1, 2004 (UTC)

I agree with you -- it doesn't exist in Welsh. -- Arwel 21:39, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

While we're on the subject of Welsh, Ŵ and Ŷ are not actually separate letters so shouldn't be in the bottom table. Also, the note is wrong -- acute, grave, circumflex and diaeresis accents are used in Welsh on all 7 vowels. See this handy guide. Gareth 15:44, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Ü in French

I have added Ü to the list of French variants. It is extremely rare, being used primarily in names such as Esaü or Saül, but it does exist. Kelisi 18:31, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Occitan needs to be added into the list of languages, cuz it has the Ü also. at least that's what it states in the 'umlaut (diacritic)' article. Ivansevil 23:59, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Need to add the Romany alphabet to this list

The 46-character Romany alphabet should be added to this list. -- Karada 15:37, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Done. (After 2 years from you have requested.) --User:에멜무지로/Sig 11:02, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

tables amended

I have changed from Letters based on A-I/J-Z to Letters based on A-J/K-Z since I and J were historically related.--Hello World! 15:16, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

I have cut the tables into 3 for easier reading with small screen.--✉Hello World! 05:47, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Many missing characters

There are many characters missing, notably extended characters used in a number of African languages, a few less widely spoken European ones (Saami), and for som indigenous languages in the Americas and Australia. Many of the ones I am noticing that are missing happen also to be in the Unicode IPA range (the lower case versions). This also means that the languages of these regions are also missing. Altogether that would imply that a complete table (set of tables) would get very, very large. The tables that are here are good but - given the nature of the subject - far from complete. What would be the appropriate way to procede? Just add away? --A12n 17:38, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Unsure about the purpose of the Extensions table

1. First, the footnotes are a mess. The ones on the table don't match the ones below, and clicking on them does nothing.
2. Secondly, I can't make out what the Extensions table is supposed to represent: All the symbols used in a language? (Then where's Guarani's Ã, Ẽ, Ĩ, for example?) Only the symbols that are included in the official alphabet? (Then French and Portuguese Á, Â, German Ä, Ö, etc., have no business being there.)
3. Third, it should be made clearer which digraphs are counted as part of the alphabet in each language, and which ones are not.

I hope this criticism serves to improve the article. FilipeS 13:00, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Table intro wrong

The paragraph before the foreign characters starts: Some languages have extended the Latin alphabet with ligatures, modified letters, or digraphs. These symbols are listed below. And then goes on to list characters such as the Croatian Č, Ć, Ž, Š and Đ. The first sentence then is simply wrong since theese letters (and suspect many others in from others alphabet variations) are netiher ligatures, modified letters, or digraphs. They are as regular letters as any other representing a unique and independant voice.

You could of course replace modified by derived or something, but diacritc Marks do not create truely new Letters; neither do Accents.

You could rather argue that not the Languages extended the latin Alphabet -- sometimes the Term roman Alphabet is used instead to refer to the Sum of all those builing onto the latin one -- but their Users did for them. The Relationship between Graphemes and Phonemes is totally irrelevant, even for very phonetic Writing-Systems like the spanish or yugoslavian (with its 1:1-Mapping onto cyrillic Letters).

Nevertheless this is just one View and some Linguists probably use different Definitions of Letter. Christoph Päper 14:05, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Č, Ć, Ž, Š and Đ are all modified letters, i.e. letters obtained by combining a diacritic with one of the basic 26 letters in the first table. FilipeS 14:00, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, than W is modified letter V, R is modified P and whole latin alphabet is just modified greek. In Serbocroatian there is 30 voices and 30 letters. So mapping is "1:1" and "on", mathematicaly bijection, and linguisticly it is called phonetic writing system. So all that letters/voices are unique, not modified. Write as you are speaking and read as it is written is true in Serbocroatian.

Other languages

Northern Sami also uses diacritics. I think that it isn't able to include all alphabets derived from the Latin, because Latin alphabet is employed in a lot of writing system, but is this article respecting the neutrality? Might we include all alphabets? Pasqual (ca) · CUT 15:54, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Footnote links are broken

In the "Basic Latin Alphabet" section, click the footnote on the word Latin. Doesn't work. Don't know how to fix without converting to new ref tag format. —Keenan Pepper 21:27, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Ñ is a letter in Spanish

It is said that Spanish has one of the alphabets with 26 letters, where it is completely false, as Ñ is considered a letter, placed after N in the alphabet, and NOT considered a variant. This makes 27 letters. —Jago84 13:45, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Plese read the section again. Nowhere does it say that the Spanish alphabet had exactly 26 letters, just that it has at least 26 letters, because it includes all of the classic roman alphabet. Later on the situations of ñ, ch, ll and even ç are described briefly at least once. Christoph Päper 13:38, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm agree with you, but Actually, the digraphs CH and LL are letters in Real Academia Española. Michael Peter Fustumum 23:21, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Dutch alphabet

I deleted an edit by a user who had added ï, é, è, ö, ü, ë, ä to the Dutch alphabet. Someone else reverted my edit, giving the examples Oekraïne, oké, blèren, coördinatie, vacuüm, poëzie, Aäron. O.K., but some of those are clearly loanwords. Are these characters used for writing vernacular Dutch? If not, I don't think they should be listed in the alphabet. FilipeS 20:12, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

ï/ü/ë/ä/ö aren't characters in the Dutch alphabet, but the "trema" (umlaut) is used when there two vowels in a row and the combination would sound differently without a trema. For instance, the word "kopiëren" is written with a trema because the vowel combination "ie" would normally be a stretched i, while that word is pronounced "kopi-eren". The trema can basically be used on any vowel when it is necessary for clarity of the pronunciation, but is never considered to be part of the alphabet, as the sound of the letter does not change (i.e. ï still sounds like an i in "Oekraïne", but is not part of a diphthong, which it would be if it didn't have a trema). é and è are almost exclusively used in loanwords (particularly of French origin), or in more "informal" words (the example "oké" given above is the abbreviation O.K. written out fully, and "blèren" is an onomatopoeia roughly meaning crying/yelling, and there are not many of these words). Salaskan 22:08, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

In that case, I might include ä, ë, ï, ö, ü in the table, and leave out the others. And/or add a comment to the note about Dutch, explaining that the other characters are only used in loanwords and a few interjections. FilipeS 11:20, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Trema-letters aren't considered part of the 'normal dutch alphabet'. and I do not know of a [dutch] alphabet which includes it, lexiographic they are were their 'normal parts' are, you can also see http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nederlands_alfabet (maybe translate it with some site). and the ij is also a letter I never ever have seen in a alphabet except maybe on primary school. and Salaskan is right about the 'french letters' (e.g. è). So the Dutch alphabet only has the 26 'normal' latin alphebet letters. H-J Wagenaar —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.64.58.115 (talk) 17:13, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Rename?

This article should be renamed. "Alphabets derived from the Latin" is dreadful English. Any suggestions? FilipeS 15:23, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Roman alphabets (the Latin alphabet is that of the Latin language, the ones derived are called roman by several scholars), Roman alphabet, Roman alphabet variants, Roman alphabet variations … — Christoph Päper 18:42, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

The issue is not with the name of the alphabet, but with the use of the article "the", which doesn't sound right to me. FilipeS 20:54, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

It's perfectly good and standard English, though it can mean two different things. The way it's understood here is with 'Latin' as an adjective and implied repeated noun 'alphabet' or equivalent: Alphabets derived from the Latin = Alphabets derived from the Latin one = Alphabets derived from the Latin alphabet. But also, in somewhat older style, we can say 'the Latin' with implied noun 'language': circus is a word borrowed from the Latin. In this sense, it is equivalent to omitting the 'the': Alphabets derived from the Latin = Alphabets derived from Latin. But this is not the sense we want, since they don't 'come from Latin' the way words do. 11:31, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

W in Swedish?

W is not a letter in Swedish, Swedish language are only use for foreign words.--Michael Peter Fustumum 08:02, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Aren't words such as "wow" and "webb" (Swedish spelling of "web") established enough nowadays even if they are loans? /Jiiimbooh (talk) 19:49, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

I read that the word "webb" was the word that made the difference in having W as a Swedish letter. That word was considered an established word now. Usually loan words with W (usually english/german) have been changed to V, but not now. English language is too well known. "Wow" is not a word used in writing so much. What's used in talk does not influence the alphabet. -- BIL (talk) 22:07, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Basic Latin Alphabet confusions

OKay, I am slightly confused. The article is titled Alphabets derived from latin. However, in the basic latin alphabet table it has arabic row, with some arabic letters. But, this is quite misleading since it goes against the articles title that is: Alphabets DERIVED from latin. It is quite the opposite actually, latin is derived from old persian. The script used in Farsi closely resembled Arabic with additional letters (just like swedish and english). I dont think arabic should exist (in the same way farsi doesnt exist). What does everyone else think? --Waqas1987 (talk) 12:41, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

The "Arabic" line is for Romanizations of Arabic. I agree that it should be better explained. Romanizations shouldn't be presented as the same thing as using of the Latin alphabet in regular orthography. Perhaps they shouldn't even be in the table. —Preceding unsigned comment added by FilipeS (talk • contribs) 15:46, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

OKay, I have removed Arabic from the table since its not longer useful. However, if anyone wishes it to be in the table ( but it shouldn't be given the articles title), then a note should be added at least (which I added but later reverted by FilipsS). btw, latin is influenced from Old Persian and slight Arabic. --Waqas1987 (talk) 19:18, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I also think Revised Romanization of Korean should be removed too. I mean if u think that should be there, then u might as well add Romanization of Chinese, Japanese and every other language in the world. --Waqas1987 (talk) 19:22, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree. You can remove it. But we should add a note to the text saying that the Latin alphabet is also used in the Romanization of various languages. FilipeS (talk) 11:40, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Done, I added a short subsection in the Other alphabets based on the Latin alphabet section, regarding the romanization of other languages. --Waqas1987 (talk) 18:23, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Which letters should be included here?

For a specific language, should we include only letters used for words in that language, or should we include also letters only used for names ? It seems that there is a mixed standard in the table. For Swedish, Q and W as well as Ü and È are used only for names. Some native Swedish people have names with these letters. For foreign names in newspapers it seems to based on if there is a keyboard key or combination for it. Some discussions here hint that only official letters, not letters with diacritics should be included. One reason I read this article is that I previously worked with technical devices with a text display, supporting several languages. It would then be good to know which letters are needed to write a language. Please write a principle for this in the article. -- BIL (talk) 13:21, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

It's arguable. Some languages have an official alphabet (see Orthography and Collating sequence). This alphabet may or may not include rare letters used only in loanwords, and it may or may not include symbols with diacritics. I think it should be done according to what is considered standard and official in each language (which it isn't presently). However, if a certain language uses letters with diacritics, then there should be at least a note about that, even if those symbols are not included in the official alphabet.

There's still a lot of work to be done in this article. No rest for the wiki-ed. ;-) FilipeS (talk) 11:37, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

What's the @@@ criteria for inclusion? Mr 에멜무지로 has for example changed my edition of the letters in the Swedish alphabet. I am Swedish, he is Korean. According to the school Swedish uses A-Z,Å,Ä,Ö but not É since it is officially a decorated E. But if this is the principle then several languages must be changed. According to the inclusion principle we should include those that are used in the actual language. If we shall change the principle we should decide what to have. -- BIL (talk) 22:55, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Isn't Swedish É only used in people's names? If we have to include alphabets in people's names, English alphabet has to be changed too because some people who are from Spanish-speaking countries uses Ñ in their names. If we include É in Swedish alphabet, Ñ has to be included in English alphabet. That's why I removed É in Swedish alphabet. --­ (talk) 23:06, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I have written the situation weeks ago in the Notes part of the article. É is used for well integrated loan words like idé and armé, although é is considered a modified e, while å, ä, ö are letters. Q, w, z, ü, è are used for names only, but exist in Swedish names. Á is a Swedish word but somewhat old-fashioned. -- BIL (talk) 23:23, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, then we should include Á, É, È, Q, Ü, W, and Z in Swedish alphabet. --­ (talk) 00:38, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I have updated the table entries for Danish to match the official alphabet from Retskrivningsordbogen. Added: q, w, x, z - they are not used in indigenous words, but are authoritatively considered part of the alphabet. Q, x, and z will always be included if you ask a Danish child to recite the alphabet. W may or may not be; until relatively recently it was considered a variant of V (and collated as V). Now it's its own letter. Removed: é - an acute accent is allowed in certain places by Danish orthography, but not always on an E, and it is considered an orthographic element of its own and does not change the identity of the letter it decorates. –Henning Makholm 02:26, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

So the criteria for inclusion should the alphabet according to schoolbook, not including decorated variants. According to what I know of French and Dutch Language, A-Z should be included and all ë, é, è be dropped since they are accented variants ? But I am not the expert of these languages. I'm Swedish. The criteria varies a lot here. Right now all Swedish are included incuding accented variants used in family names and places only. For Danish the schoolbook is valid. For some other languages letters used only in some loan word are excluded. Etc. -- BIL (talk) 09:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

A useful general criterion for diacritics might be whether omitting the diacritic would be considered a misspelling (by appropriate authorities, or failing that, general consensus of literate native speakers). If there is a word, except proper nouns, that cannot be spelled correctly except with the accent, I'd consider the accented letter a part of the writing systems of that language.

The reason I would exclude proper nouns is that names can contain all sorts of foreign letters in general. For example, if someone named François moved from France to Sweden as an infant and received all of his education in Sweden, in Swedish, he would probably continue to spell his name with a cedilla even when writing Swedish, but that does not mean that Ç has suddenly become a Swedish letter. The spelling of family names in particular is often very conservative; an accent that is not used in general writing may stick in a name for many generation after the original immigrant brought it with him (or after some native thought that his name would sound cooler with some foreign signs in it). –Henning Makholm 01:50, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

A foreign personal name can include letters not in Swedish or Danish of course. It will be hard for François to convince Swedes, like in work, to write François instead of Francois, since Ç is not on the swedish keyboard. So forget foreign personal names. In Swedish é is used and e would be a misspelling. We write idé, armén, caféer, entré, allé, not ide, armen, cafeer, entre, alle. But é is officially a decorated e but still used and needed (for words originally loan words, but several hundred years old). What about that? --BIL (talk) 21:24, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

C in Swedish and Danish

To stop the edit war between me and User:Chinese has a V about the usage of C in Swedish and Danish, I will discuss this. It is true that Danish uses "kk" for words like Tjekkien. But Danish uses C for other words, as can be seen in large articles in Danish Wikipedia like da:Danmark. Examples: placeret, procent, centralmagt, Renæssancen, eksemplificeret, officiell, procedure, kompliceret and more. Swedish uses "ck" instead of "kk" which is enough reason to include it. Example words picked from a Swedish article sv:Danmark include: cirka, december, dock, dricksvatten, ingick, lyckas, och, också, officiell, precis, procent, sträcker. --BIL (talk) 11:24, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

It is true that many Danish words are spelled with a C, but note that those are invariably loan words. Danish tends to preserve C in imported words whenever the C denotes an /s/ sound, whereas a C that represents /k/ will eventually be normalized to K. –Henning Makholm 02:13, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

German and the letter Q

I don't see why the letter Q isn't listed in the basic alphabet table for German. The headline comment says, "The Afrikaans, Catalan [6], Danish [9], Dutch [10], English [36], Filipino [11], Finnish [11], French [12], German [13], Interlingua, Kurdish, Malay, Norwegian [9], Slovak [24], Spanish [25], Swedish, Võro and Zulu alphabets officially contain all 26 letters at least. But not all are used in the vernacular, aside from foreign names and rare unassimilated loanwords."; however, several native or sufficiently assimilated words ("Qualle", "Quelle", "quer", "Qual", ...) have been using that letter since, according to Wiktionary, the Old High German stage at least. I propose the addition of that letter to the table. Similar argumentation is possible for the letter X ("Axt", axe), though I think it is considerably more rare in native words. --Blackhole89 (talk) 16:18, 16 January 2008 (UTC)