Latin alphabet

Latin
Script type	Alphabet
Time period	c. 700 BC – present
Official script	Roman Republic and Roman Empire
Languages	Latin
Related scripts
Parent systems	Egyptian hieroglyphs Proto-Sinaitic alphabet Phoenician alphabet Greek alphabet Old Italic script Latin
Child systems	Numerous Latin alphabets; also more divergent derivations such as Osage
Sister systems	Cyrillic Coptic Armenian Georgian Runic
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Latn (215), ​Latin
Unicode
Unicode alias	Latin
Unicode range	See Latin script in Unicode
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

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The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered excepting several letters splitting—i.e. ⟨J⟩ from ⟨I⟩, and ⟨U⟩ from ⟨V⟩—additions such as ⟨W⟩, and extensions such as letters with diacritics, it forms the Latin script that is used to write most languages of modern Europe, Africa, America and Oceania. Its basic modern inventory is standardised as the ISO basic Latin alphabet.