The English alphabet has 5 vowels, 19 consonants, and 2 letters (Y and W) that can function as consonants or vowels. Written English has a large number of digraphs (e.g., would , beak , moat ); it stands out (almost uniquely) as a European language without diacritics in native words.
Written English uses 18 digraphs (strings of two letters to represent just one sound), such as ch, sh, th, ph, wh, etc., but they are not considered separate letters of the alphabet. Some traditions [ which? ] also call two ligatures , æ and œ , and the ampersand (&) part of the alphabet.
A Língua inglesa originalmente foi escrita no alfabeto anglo-saxão, em uso desde o século V. Este alfabeto foi trazido da ilha que hoje corresponde à Inglaterra , juntamente à proto-forma da linguagem própria, pelos Anglo-Saxão. Poucos exemplos desta escrita sobreviveram até os dias de hoje, sendo essas, na maioria, inscrições curtas ou fragmentos.
The English word alphabet came into Middle English from the Late Latin word alphabetum, which in turn originated in the Greek, ἀλφάβητος (alphábētos); it was made from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha (α) and beta (β).