Latin spelling and pronunciation
![Transcription of an ancient Roman inscription in Roman square capitals.[note 1] The words are separated by engraved dots, a common but by no means universal practice, and some of the long vowels (e.g. in tvscórvm) are marked by apices.](/uploads/202502/12/Appiuscaecusstele013124.jpg)

Latin spelling, or Latin orthography, is the spelling of Latin words written in the scripts of all historical phases of Latin from Old Latin to the present. All scripts use the same alphabet, but conventional spellings may vary from phase to phase. The Roman alphabet, or Latin alphabet, was adapted from the Old Italic script to represent the phonemes of the Latin language. The Old Italic script had in turn been borrowed from the Greek alphabet, itself adapted from the Phoenician alphabet.