ISO Basic Latin Alphabet - Equivalent Alphabets

Equivalent Alphabets

An alphabet equivalent to the basic Latin alphabet has all of the following characteristics:

• consists of 26 letters.
• consists of only the 26 letters of the basic Latin alphabet.
• consists of all the 26 letters of the basic Latin alphabet.
• does not have letters with diacritical marks that constitute distinct letters.
• does not have multigraphs that constitute distinct letters.

Alphabets equivalent to the Latin alphabet:

English is the only major modern European language requiring no diacritics for native words (although a diaeresis is used by some publishers in words such as "coöperation"). (The non-European language Swahili for examples comes close as well: it requires no diacritics and has the 24 letters of the English alphabet, minus Q and X.)

Note for Portuguese: k, w and y were part of the alphabet until several spelling reforms during the 20th century, whose objective were changing the etymological Portuguese language into an easier phonetic language. Thus these letters had been replaced by another letters which have the same sound (e. g. Psychologia became Psicologia, kioske became quiosque, martyr became mártir etc). Now the usage of k, w, and y only happens in foreign words and its derived terms and for scientific abbreviations (e. g. km, byronismo). These letters are considered part of the alphabet again since the 1990 Portuguese Language Orthographic Agreement, which came into effect on January 1, 2009 in Brazil.. See Reforms of Portuguese orthography

Note for Dutch: | The digraph ⟨ij⟩ is sometimes considered to be a separate letter. When that is the case, it usually replaces or is intermixed with ⟨y⟩.