The transformation of the ancient alphabet into modern

In the picture you can see the transformation of the ancient alphabet into modern.

The English alphabet is made of 26 letters. Some letters were of late additions. English was first written in the Anglo-Saxon alphabet. Eventually, Christian missionaries introduced the Latin alphabet, which replaced Anglo-Saxon.

But for some time, the alphabet included the letters of the Latin alphabet. With the development of Modern English the old letters were dropped out or replaced. For example: in Old English, a letter called “thorn” represented the “th” sound (as in “that”) in Modern English. In the Latin alphabet, the “Y” was the symbol that most closely resembled the character that represented thorn. So, thorn was dropped out and “y” took its place. The Old English letter “WYNN” was replaced by “UU,” which eventually developed into the modern W. It is really a double U. W is the only English letter whose name is not pronounced with any of the sounds that the letter typically makes. The letters “U” and “J” didn’t join the alphabet until the sixteenth century.