the natural or customary series of the several letters of a language*. The word is formed from alpha and beta, the first and second letters of the Greek alphabet. The number of letters is different in the alphabets of different languages. The English alphabet contains 24 letters; to which if we add y and v consonants, the sum will be 26: the French contains 23; the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and Samaritan, 22 each; the Arabic 28; the Persian 31; the Turkish 33; the Georgian 36; the Coptic 32; the Mucofite 43; the Greek 24; the Latin 22; the Slavonic 27; the Dutch 26; the Spanish 27; the Italian 20; the Ethiopic and Tartarian, each 22; the Indians of Bengal 21; the Baramese 19. The Chinese have, properly speaking, no alphabet, except we call their whole language by that name; their letters are words, or rather hieroglyphics, amounting to about 80,000.