The alphabet regulates how we learn the English letters (to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”), organize books on library shelves and line up students for a graduation procession. Saying the ...

THE English alphabet used to have extra letters that have been lost as centuries went by. While today our alphabet consists of 26 letters, the people of Middle Age Britain had an additional six ...

At 26 letters long, the English alphabet isn’t the most complicated string of symbols and characters to master, even for a five-year-old. You know the alphabet. It’s one of the first things you’re ...

Why Q Needs U. By Danny Bate. Blink Publishing; 336 pages; £14.99. T HE ALPHABET is easy to take for granted. Children memorise it before they know why it matters. Then it’s of ...

English once had extra letters, including Þ, pronounced like “th.” Geography, printing, and time slowly erased it, leaving us ...

Discover how Chinese and Japanese writing systems work without alphabets, using symbols and syllabaries that represent ...