Portuguese alphabet

The official Portuguese alphabet consists of the main letters of the Latin alphabet minus K, W, and Y:

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, X, Z

See Portuguese Othography for the name and pronunciation of each letter, and Portuguese Phonology for further information on the pronunciation of Portuguese.

Although not found in vernacular terms, the letters K, W, and Y appear in personal names, and in words derived from them.

Apart from these letters, Portuguese makes use of the following accented characters:

À, Á, Â, Ã, Ç, É, Ê, Í, �", �", Õ, Ú, Ü

And of the following digraphs:

CH, GU, LH, NH, OU, QU, RR, SS

However, accented letters and digraphs are not counted as separate characters for collation purposes.

Portuguese-language typewriters

Typewriters in Portuguese-speaking countries generally have a separate extra key for "Ç", and a dead key for each diacritic except the cedilla; so that "Á" is obtained by typing first the acute accent, then the letter "A". The same thing happens with computer keyboards, although in some older versions, to type "Ç" one should first type the acute accent and then the letter "C".

See also

*Orthography of Portuguese
*Spelling reforms of Portuguese
*Alphabets derived from the Latin

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