LAMBERT SOUVENIRS

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Lambert Souvenirs Alphabet ‘A’ Fridge Magnet

An alphabet is a standard set of letters (basic written symbols or graphemes) which is used to write one or more languages based on the general principle that the letters represent phonemes (basic significant sounds) of the spoken language. This is in contrast to other types of writing systems, such as syllabaries (in which each character represents a syllable) and logographies (in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic unit).
 

A true alphabet has letters for the vowels of a language as well as the consonants. The first “true alphabet” in this sense is believed to be the Greek alphabet, [1][2] which is a modified form of the Phoenician alphabet. In other types of alphabet either the vowels are not indicated at all, as was the case in the Phoenician alphabet (such systems are known as abjads), or else the vowels are shown.

Known by diacritics or modification of consonants, as in the devanagari used in India and Nepal (these systems are known as abugidas or alphasyllabaries).

There are dozens of alphabets in use today, the most popular being the Latin alphabet[3] (which was derived from the Greek). Many languages use modified forms of the Latin alphabet, with additional letters formed using diacritical marks. While most alphabets have letters composed of lines (linear writing), there are also exceptions such as the alphabets used in Braille, fingerspelling, and Morse code.

Alphabets are usually associated with a standard ordering of their letters. This makes them useful for purposes of collation, specifically by allowing words to be sorted in alphabetical order. It also means that their letters can be used as an alternative method of “numbering” ordered items, in such contexts as numbered lists.

An alphabet is a standard set of letters (basic written symbols or graphemes) which is used to write one or more languages based on the general principle that the letters represent phonemes (basic significant sounds) of the spoken language. This is in contrast to other types of writing systems, such as syllabaries (in which each character represents a syllable) and logographies (in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic unit).

A true alphabet has letters for the vowels of a language as well as the consonants. The first “true alphabet” in this sense is believed to be the Greek alphabet,[1][2] which is a modified form of the Phoenician alphabet. In other types of alphabet either the vowels are not indicated at all, as was the case in the Phoenician alphabet (such systems are known as abjads), or else the vowels are shown by diacritics or modification of consonants, as in the devanagari used in India and Nepal (these systems are known as abugidas or alphasyllabaries).

There are dozens of alphabets in use today, the most popular being the Latin alphabet[3] (which was derived from the Greek). Many languages use modified forms of the Latin alphabet, with additional letters formed using diacritical marks. While most alphabets have letters composed of lines (linear writing), there are also exceptions such as the alphabets used in Braille, fingerspelling, and Morse code.

Alphabets are usually associated with a standard ordering of their letters. This makes them useful for purposes of collation, specifically by allowing words to be sorted in alphabetical order. It also means that their letters can be used as an alternative method of “numbering” ordered items, in such contexts as numbered lists.

In computer science and mathematical logic, an alphabet is a non-empty set of symbols or letters, e.g. characters or digits.[1] For example a common alphabet is {0,1}, the binary alphabet. A finite string is a finite sequence of letters from an alphabet; for instance a binary string is a string drawn from the alphabet {0,1}. An infinite sequence of letters may be constructed from elements of an alphabet as well.

Given an alphabet , we write to denote the set of all finite strings over the alphabet . Here, the denotes the Kleene star operator, so is also called the Kleene closure of . We write (or occasionally, or ) to denote the set of all infinite sequences over the alphabet .

For example, if we use the binary alphabet {0,1}, the strings (e, 0, 1, 00, 01, 10, 11, 000, etc.) would all be in the Kleene closure of the alphabet (where e represents the empty string).

Alphabets are important in the use of formal languages, automata and semiautomata. In most cases, for defining instances of automata, such as deterministic finite automata (DFAs), it is required to specify an alphabet from which the input strings for the automaton are built.

The word alphabet is made up of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet namely Alpha and Beta.

The modern English alphabet is a Latin alphabet consisting of 26 letters – the same letters that are found in the ISO basic Latin alphabet:

The exact shape of printed letters varies depending on the typeface. The shape of handwritten letters can differ significantly from the standard printed form (and between individuals), especially when written in cursive style. See the individual letter articles for information about letter shapes and origins (follow the links on any of the uppercase letters above).

Written English uses a number of digraphs, such as ch, sh, th, wh, qu, etc., but they are not considered separate letters of the alphabet. Some traditions also use two ligatures, æ and œ,[1] or consider the ampersand (&) part of the alphabet.

The English language was first written in the Anglo-Saxon futhorc runic alphabet, in use from the 5th century. This alphabet was brought to what is now England, along with the proto-form of the language itself, by Anglo-Saxon settlers. Very few examples of this form of written Old English have survived, these being mostly short inscriptions or fragments.  The Latin script, introduced by Christian missionaries, began to replace the Anglo-Saxon futhorc from about the 7th century, although the two continued in parallel for some time

For further information about the Alphabet do read Kevin Stroud’s book ‘The History Of The Alphabet’ and for educating toddlers do click onto Lambert’s Lessons.

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London Alphabet Keyrings

Lambert Souvenirs sell an attractive range of Alphabet keyrings with UK and London design features

For further information about the Alphabet do read Kevin Stroud’s book ‘The History Of The Alphabet’

Lambert Souvenirs Alphabet ‘A’ & ‘Z’ Keyrings