Romanian alphabet facts for kids
The Romanian alphabet is a special version of the Latin alphabet used to write the Romanian language. It's based on the old Latin alphabet but has 31 letters. Five of these letters (Ă, Â, Î, Ș, and Ț) have been changed from their original Latin forms. These changes help the letters make the right sounds needed for Romanian words.
| Letter | Name |
|---|---|
| A, a | a |
| Ă, ă | ă |
| Â, â | î / î din a |
| B, b | be / bî |
| C, c | ce / cî |
| D, d | de / dî |
| E, e | e |
| F, f | ef / fe / fî |
| G, g | ge / ghe / gî |
| H, h | haș / ha / hî |
| I, i | i |
| Letter | Name |
|---|---|
| Î, î | î / î din i |
| J, j | je / jî |
| K, k | ca / capa |
| L, l | el / le / lî |
| M, m | em / me / mî |
| N, n | en / ne / nî |
| O, o | o |
| P, p | pe / pî |
| Q, q | chiu |
| R, r | er / re / rî |
| S, s | es / se / sî |
| Letter | Name |
|---|---|
| Ș, ș | șe / șî |
| T, t | te / tî |
| Ț, ț | țe / țî |
| U, u | u |
| V, v | ve / vî |
| W, w | dublu ve / dublu vî |
| X, x | ics |
| Y, y | igrec / i grec |
| Z, z | ze / zet / zed / zî |
Special Letters in Romanian
The letters Q, W, and Y were officially added to the Romanian alphabet in 1982. Even though they were used before, they became formal then. These letters are mostly found in words borrowed from other languages. For example, you might see them in words like quasar, watt, and yacht.
The letter K is also not very common in Romanian words. It usually appears in proper names or new words that come from other languages. Examples include kilogram, broker, and karate. These four letters (Q, W, Y, K) are still seen as "foreign" letters in Romanian.
Images for kids
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Pre-(top) and post-1993 (bottom) street signs in Bucharest, showing the two different spellings of the same name
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Old Bucharest manhole cover inscribed according to the etymologically prone spelling at the time, which reads BUCURESCI CANALISARE (meaning Bucharest sewers). Compare to today's BUCUREȘTI CANALIZARE.
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Inconsistent cedilla glyphs in Adobe Caslon (left). The correct Romanian rendering (right) can be obtained by activating the OpenType GSUB/latn/ROM/locl feature, which remaps the s with cedilla glyph to comma-below. The rendering on the right is visually indistinguishable from the rendering produced by comma-below code points for this font.
See also
In Spanish: Alfabeto rumano para niños
