Classical Latin alphabet

Classical Latin alphabet

After the Roman conquest of Greece in the 1st century BC, Latin adopted the Greek letters ⟨Y⟩ and ⟨Z⟩ (or readopted, in the latter case) to write Greek loanwords, placing them at the end of the alphabet. An attempt by the emperor Claudius to introduce three additional letters⟨Ↄ, Ⅎ, Ⱶ⟩ did not last. Thus, it was during the classical Latin period that the Latin alphabet contained 21 letters and 2 foreign letters: