abecedy

Abecedy is the plural form of abeceda, the word used in Czech and Slovak to mean the alphabet—the complete set of letters used to write a language or the script family. The term also appears in other Slavic languages with a similar meaning. An abeceda may refer to a language's writing system as a whole, or to the practice of teaching children the letters (the ABCs) and the order of letters used for sorting words.

Etymology and concept: Abeceda derives from the idea of teaching reading with the first letters of the alphabet. In many languages the term ultimately traces to abecedary from Latin or Greek origins, while the English word alphabet derives from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta.

Scope and varieties: In practice, abecedy describe multiple writing systems. For example, the Latin-based abeceda used for Czech, Slovak and many Western languages; the Cyrillic abeceda used for Russian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian; the Greek abeceda; and others such as Arabic and Hebrew scripts. Some languages treat diacritics or certain digraphs as integral letters, which can affect how the abeceda is ordered or taught.

Usage and function: The abeceda is commonly taught as the basis of literacy—the ABCs—and serves as the framework for alphabetical ordering in dictionaries, indexes, and word lists. When comparing languages, references to different abecedy emphasize the scripts and letter inventories in use.

See also: Alphabet, ABC, Abecedary, List of alphabets.