The Latin alphabet was based on the Etruscan alphabet, which was based on the Greek alphabet, which was based on the Phoenician alphabet. In early Latin, C, G a

The Latin alphabet was based on the Etruscan alphabet, which was based on the Greek alphabet, which was based on the Phoenician alphabet. In early Latin, C, G and K were all pronounced the same way. They later dropped G, only to bring it back when they realized that they used C to refer to two different consonants, and wanted to disambiguate them. They assigned the less common constant to G. J was introduced because I had a similar problem, except I could be either a consonant or a vowel, rather than any of two consonants. The same applied to the introduction of U for V. Well, almost the same. In the case of I, they added J to be the consonant, while in the case of V, they added U to be the vowel. Finally, people changed the pronunciation of V over time to be something new, and W was introduced to be the original sound in English. W does not exist in Latin since V fulfills its role, unless you are using a modern pronunciation that changes how V is pronounced and then you still do not need W. There were other sound changes (see Italian), but this is sufficient to explain all of the letters. Well, there is also Z, which they removed from early Latin and later reintroduced to represent a Greek sound.