Our Roman letters were adapted from the Greek Alphabet. A true Alphabet, the twenty-six Roman letters include five vowels, a - e - i - o - u, and one semi-vowel, y. There are uppercase and lowercase letters. Uppercase letters are also called capitals. Lowercase letters are often referred to as small letters.
When the printing press was invented, printers had to lay out metal pieces that look like tiles with engraved letters that can be inked, then pressed against paper to transfer the image of the writing. This is much like our ink stamp pads and stamps for scrapbooking and artwork, but on a much larger scale. Printers kept their sets of letters in wooden boxes or cases. One held the capital letters and another housed the small letters. They kept the case holding the capital letters on top of the one used more often that held the small letters. So, although, the printing process has been modernized, the terms “upper case” and “lower case” are still used today to refer to the capitals and small letters.
With both consonants and vowels, our Roman letters make up a true Alphabet.
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