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Note: By "Latin alphabet," I'm referring to the 26 letters (A-Z) that English uses. Sorry if this is the wrong term (I don't want to call it the "English alphabet" since it's used by other languages like Spanish). Feel free to edit the question if there is a better term.

The Latin alphabet seems very popular.

  • Many countries have a primary language that uses the Latin alphabet.
  • Additionally, many of the countries that don't have Latin based alphabets (e.g., Japan) still teach children the Latin alphabet as part of their English studies.
  • On top of this, a lot of popular modern digital technology requires users to use the Latin alphabet in some form or another.

So is the Latin alphabet the most widely known alphabet in the world? If not, what is?

Another clarification: By "knowing" an alphabet, I'm just talking about the ability to recognize each letter when reading. Other abilities, like knowing how to write them or what sounds each one makes are beyond the scope of my question (the latter doesn't necessarily even make sense in some languages, like English).

Kyle Lin
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  • What are the most used languages in the world, and which writing systems do they use? It won't be hard for you to find the answer to your question yourself. The only tricky bit would be adjusting for literacy rates, but even many of those who aren't fully literate would still be able to recognise the letters. – curiousdannii Oct 25 '21 at 13:22
  • An interesting side question that arose the other day in another discussion is whether ASCII (the American Standard Code for Information Interchange), which recognizes only those 26 letters, is the most widely-accepted letter code worldwide. I know Unicode is preferred, and why, but how many are still stuck with ASCII? – jlawler Oct 25 '21 at 19:51
  • Your use of "Latin" is standard. But note that many languages which use it have a different number of letters from 26. The Spanish version of the Latin alphabet, for example, has 27. – Colin Fine Oct 31 '21 at 21:54

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