Page 286 - DK Children's Encyclopedia

Alphabets and
writing systems Ancient Greek
An alphabet is a set of
marks that each means a
sound. It is used to write alpha beta gamma delta epsilon zeta eta theta
down the words of a
language.

iota kappa lambda mu nu ksi omicron pi
Ancient Greek
letters
The ancient Greeks
used an alphabet with
24 letters. The Latin rho sigma tau upsilon phi chi psi omega
alphabet is based on it.

Latin letters
The Latin alphabet Latin (Roman)
is still used today
in many European
languages. Three Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm
letters have been
added since ancient
times: J, U, and W. Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz

Arabic letters
The Arabic alphabet Arabic
has 28 letters. It reads
from right to left and
does not have separate
capital letters. Some
vowels have their own
letters, but some are
added to the
consonants.

Chinese characters
Chinese writing does Chinese (Mandarin)
not have an alphabet;
instead, symbols
called characters
represent whole
words. More than one woman man child head hand foot sun moon
language is spoken in
China. Mandarin is the
most common.
earth water fire metal tree mountain cloud dragon

dog cat horse bird north south big small

knife fork hot cold spring summer autumn winter

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