Now, what is so special about the letters of the alphabet, you ask? After all, who hasn’t grown up singing A, B, C, D ( and mispronouncing the LM N O P Q) ! Of course, the English alphabet has 26 letters, something that we learned right in play school. It will be interesting, though, to know some interesting aspects of the English alphabet that are not so commonly known. What is also interesting to know is that not all languages have the same 26-letter alphabet as the English language. Let’s get started.

Some cool facts about the English Alphabet

A

Did you know that the letter “A”, along with the letter “I” is also the shortest word in the English language.

B

This is one letter that is responsible for some spelling faux pas that you may have made. Think “debt” or “ subtle,” and you may remember how you missed the “b” in them and botched up the word.

C

Here is one letter that has both a hard and soft variant. Think of the word “circus” that has both variants!

E

Did you know that “ E” is the most frequently used letter in the alphabet.

G

This is one letter that can keep its presence silent as well as make its presence known. While you can hear the “g” in “go”, try saying “ sign” and you can miss its presence.

J

Legend has it that J was the last letter to be added to the English Alphabet.

K

Again, this is one letter that has both a silent avatar and one with its sound. Think of “ Knee” and “ Keen,” and you will immediately see the difference.

N

Did you know that the shape of the letter “ N” is thought to be derived from a hieroglyph for a snake.

O

When it comes to the letter “O”, one cannot help but notice that the shape of this letter is perhaps over 3000 years old.

S

Here is the one letter that frequently is the letter that begins a word in the English language

W

Well, here is one letter that is pronounced as a double U, but while writing, it takes the form of a Double V.

X

You may use this letter rarely, but it sure has an X-factor. Now how is that for a pun?

Z

Zed or Zee, take your pick.

Just when you thought we were done, here’s another fact- up until 1835, the English Language had 27 letters. Do you want to know what that added letter was- it was called ampersand, what you frequently still see as “ &”

Now that we have seen how cool the English alphabet is, it is time to quickly look at some other languages.

The Hindi Alphabet

The Hindi “ Varnmala” or the garland of letters, comprises 33 consonants and 11 vowels. The language uses the Devnagri script. What is particularly interesting about the language is that each letter has its own distinct sound and words are therefore pronounced as they are written, making the language easy to learn.

Cool fact- Hindi has contributed several words to the English language. Think- guru, yoga, karma, cheetah, bungalow, and avatar.

The Spanish Alphabet

Hola! The Spanish alphabet comprises 27 letters. That makes all of the same letters as in the English alphabet, with the addition of the letter ñ. Did you also know that most letters in the Spanish alphabet have one or more special names?

The Swedish Alphabet

Now this one has as many as 29 letters. 26-letter basic Latin alphabet (A to Z) plus Å, Ä, and Ö, in that order.

The French Alphabet

While the French alphabet is the same as English, there are grave, acute and circumflex accents that are used along with the cedilla that appears under the letter c when preceding a, o or u. French words are known for their silent letters especially at the end of words.

The German Alphabet

While the German Alphabet also has 26 letters, it has 3 umlauts: ä, ö and ü and an additional consonant ß.

The Italian Alphabet

It has 21 letters ( j, k, w, x and y not being a part) with pronunciations that are quite different as compared to those in English. What the language particularly loves is double consonants.

The Chinese Alphabet

Ni Hao! Look at the Chinese language and you sure would marvel at its aesthetic appeal. Actually, the Chinese alphabet comprises characters and not letters. In fact these characters are words themselves.

The Japanese Alphabet

Well the Japanese language comprises three writing systems- Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Now that is a lot of learning to do!

The Greek Alphabet

Odds are that you know some Greek alphabets already- Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta. Yes, those and several other letters make up the 24 alphabets of the language!

There you go with so many fun facts about different languages! Armed with these facts, are you planning to learn a new language? Let us know in the comments which one would that be. Irrespective of the language that you choose, you sure are about to embark on a very enriching journey.

Stay tuned to the Footprints blog for a lot more interesting trivia!

Footprints has emerged as a preferred parenting partner for lakhs of parents across the country. Run by IIT-IIM alumni, our playschool and daycare follows the scientifically developed High Scope curriculum that offers opportunities for “active participatory learning”. This enables our young learners to achieve overall growth and development.

Here’s to raising a generation of holistic learners!