User:40bus/Alphabetical order

Language-specific conventions[edit]

Latin alphabet[edit]

In a few cases, such as Somali, the alphabet has been completely reordered.

Alphabetization rules applied in various languages are listed below.

In Albanian the accented letters Ç and Ë, as well as digraphs DH, GJ, LL, NJ, RR, SH, TH, XH and ZH are treated as single letters, and each is listed after the first character of the pair, producing the order A, B, C, Ç, D, DH, E, Ë, F, G, GJ, H, and so on. The letter W is absent.
In Azerbaijani, there are eight additional letters to the standard Latin alphabet. Five of them are vowels: Ə, I, İ, Ö, Ü. and three are consonants: Ç, Ğ, Ş. The alphabet is the same as the Turkish alphabet, with the same sounds written with the same letters, except for three additional letters: Ə, Q and X for sounds that do not exist in Turkish. Although all the "Turkish letters" are collated in their "normal" alphabetical order like in Turkish, the three extra letters are collated arbitrarily after letters whose sounds approach theirs. So, Ə is collated just after E, X is collated just after H and Q is collated after K. The letter W is absent.
In Breton, there is no "c", "q", "x" but there are the digraphs "ch" and "c'h", which are collated between "b" and "d".
In Czech and Slovak, accented vowels have secondary collating weight – compared to other letters, they are treated as their unaccented forms (in Czech, A-Á, E-É-Ě, I-Í, O-Ó, U-Ú-Ů, Y-Ý, and in Slovak, A-Á-Ä, E-É, I-Í, O-Ó-Ô, U-Ú, Y-Ý), but then they are sorted after the unaccented letters (for example, the correct lexicographic order is baa, baá, báa, báá, bab, báb, bac, bác, bač, báč [in Czech] and baa, baá, baä, báa, báá, báä, bäa, bäá, bää, bab, báb, bäb, bac, bác, bäc, bač, báč, bäc [in Slovak]). Accented consonants have primary collating weight and are collated immediately after their unaccented counterparts, with exception of Ď, Ň and Ť (in Czech) and Ď, Ĺ, Ľ, Ň, Ŕ and Ť (in Slovak), which have again secondary weight. CH is considered to be a separate letter and goes between H and I. In Slovak, DZ and DŽ are also considered separate letters and are positioned between Ď and E.
In the Danish and Norwegian alphabets, the same extra vowels as in Swedish (see below) are also present but in a different order and with different glyphs (..., X, Y, Z, Æ, Ø, Å). Also, "Aa" collates as an equivalent to "Å". The Danish alphabet has traditionally seen "W" as a variant of "V", but today "W" is considered a separate letter.
In Dutch the combination IJ (representing Ĳ) was formerly to be collated as Y (or sometimes as a separate letter: Y < IJ < Z), but is currently mostly collated as 2 letters (II < IJ < IK). Exceptions are phone directories; IJ is always collated as Y here because in many Dutch family names Y is used where modern spelling would require IJ. Note that a word starting with ij that is written with a capital I is also written with a capital J, for example, the town IJmuiden, the river IJssel and the country IJsland (Iceland).
In Esperanto, consonants with circumflex accents (ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ), as well as ŭ (u with breve), are counted as separate letters and collated separately (c, ĉ, d, e, f, g, ĝ, h, ĥ, i, j, ĵ ... s, ŝ, t, u, ŭ, v, z).
In Estonian õ, ä, ö and ü are considered separate letters and collate after w. Letters š, z and ž appear in loanwords and foreign proper names only and follow the letter s in the Estonian alphabet, which otherwise does not differ from the basic Latin alphabet.
The Faroese alphabet also has some of the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish extra letters, namely Æ and Ø. Furthermore, the Faroese alphabet uses the Icelandic eth, which follows the D. Five of the six vowels A, I, O, U and Y can get accents and are after that considered separate letters. The consonants C, Q, X, W and Z are not found. Therefore, the first five letters are A, Á, B, D and Ð, and the last five are V, Y, Ý, Æ, Ø
In Filipino (Tagalog) and other Philippine languages, the letter Ng is treated as a separate letter. It is pronounced as in sing, ping-pong, etc. By itself, it is pronounced nang, but in general Filipino orthography, it is spelled as if it were two separate letters (n and g). Also, letter derivatives (such as Ñ) immediately follow the base letter. Filipino also is written with diacritics, but their use is very rare (except the tilde). (Philippine orthography also includes spelling.)
The Finnish alphabet and collating rules are the same as those of Swedish.
In German letters with umlaut (Ä, Ö, Ü) are treated generally just like their non-umlauted versions; ß is always sorted as ss. This makes the alphabetic order Arbeit, Arg, Ärgerlich, Argument, Arm, Assistant, Aßlar, Assoziation. For phone directories and similar lists of names, the umlauts are to be collated like the letter combinations "ae", "oe", "ue" because a number of German surnames appear both with umlaut and in the non-umlauted form with "e" (Müller/Mueller). This makes the alphabetic order Udet, Übelacker, Uell, Ülle, Ueve, Üxküll, Uffenbach.
The Hungarian vowels have accents, umlauts, and double accents, while consonants are written with single, double (digraphs) or triple (trigraph) characters. In collating, accented vowels are equivalent with their non-accented counterparts and double and triple characters follow their single originals. Hungarian alphabetic order is: A=Á, B, C, Cs, D, Dz, Dzs, E=É, F, G, Gy, H, I=Í, J, K, L, Ly, M, N, Ny, O=Ó, Ö=Ő, P, Q, R, S, Sz, T, Ty, U=Ú, Ü=Ű, V, W, X, Y, Z, Zs. (Before 1984, dz and dzs were not considered single letters for collation, but two letters each, d+z and d+zs instead.) It means that e.g. cukor should precede csomó (even though s normally precedes u), since c precedes cs in the collation. Difference in vowel length should only be taken into consideration if the two words are otherwise identical (e.g. egér, éger). Spaces and hyphens within phrases are ignored in collation. Ch also occurs as a digraph in certain words but it is not considered as a grapheme on its own right in terms of collation.
A particular feature of Hungarian collation is that contracted forms of double di- and trigraphs (such as ggy from gy + gy or ddzs from dzs + dzs) should be collated as if they were written in full (independently of the fact of the contraction and the elements of the di- or trigraphs). For example, kaszinó should precede kassza (even though the fourth character z would normally come after s in the alphabet), because the fourth "character" (grapheme) of the word kassza is considered a second sz (decomposing ssz into sz + sz), which does follow i (in kaszinó) Thus, wors kassza is sorted as if it were spelled kaszsza.
In Icelandic, Þ is added, and D is followed by Ð. Each vowel (A, E, I, O, U, Y) is followed by its correspondent with acute: Á, É, Í, Ó, Ú, Ý. There is no Z, so the alphabet ends: ... X, Y, Ý, Þ, Æ, Ö. Also, there is no C, Q or W.
Unlike Czech or Slovak, in Icelandic the vowels with acute accent are collated as fully independent letters following the unaccented counterpart, and are not treated as their unaccented forms.
Kiowa is ordered on phonetic principles, like the Brahmic scripts, rather than on the historical Latin order. Vowels come first, then stop consonants ordered from the front to the back of the mouth, and from negative to positive voice-onset time, then the affricates, fricatives, liquids, and nasals:

A, AU, E, I, O, U, B, F, P, V, D, J, T, TH, G, C, K, Q, CH, X, S, Z, L, Y, W, H, M, N

In Latvian, accented vowels have secondary collating weight – compared to other letters, they are treated as their unaccented forms (A-Ā, E-Ē, I-Ī, O, U-Ū), but then they are sorted after the unaccented letters (for example, the correct lexicographic order is baa, baā, bāa, bāā, bab, bāb, bac, bāc, bač, bāč). Accented consonants (Č, Ģ, Ķ, Ļ, Ņ, Š, Ž) have primary collating weight and are collated immediately after their unaccented counterparts. Q, W, X and Y are not included in alphabet. Also, DZ and DŽ are not considered separate letters and are treated as d+z and d+ž.
In Lithuanian, specifically Lithuanian letters go after their Latin originals. Another change is that Y comes just before J: ... G, H, I, Į, Y, J, K...
In Polish, specifically Polish letters derived from the Latin alphabet are collated after their originals: A, Ą, B, C, Ć, D, E, Ę, ..., L, Ł, M, N, Ń, O, Ó, P, ..., S, Ś, T, ..., Z, Ź, Ż. The digraphs for collation purposes are treated as if they were two separate letters.
In Portuguese, the collating order is just like in English: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. Digraphs and letters with diacritics are not included in the alphabet.
In Romanian, special characters derived from the Latin alphabet are collated after their originals: A, Ă, Â, ..., I, Î, ..., S, Ș, T, Ț, ..., Z.
In Serbo-Croatian and other related South Slavic languages, the five accented characters and three conjoined characters are sorted after the originals: ..., C, Č, Ć, D, DŽ, Đ, E, ..., L, LJ, M, N, NJ, O, ..., S, Š, T, ..., Z, Ž.
Spanish treated (until 1994) "CH" and "LL" as single letters, giving an ordering of cinco, credo, chispa and lomo, luz, llama. This is not true any more since in 1994 the RAE adopted the more conventional usage, and now LL is collated between LK and LM, and CH between CG and CI. The six characters with diacritics Á, É, Í, Ó, Ú, Ü are treated as the original letters A, E, I, O, U, for example: radio, ráfaga, rana, rápido, rastrillo. The only Spanish-specific collating question is Ñ (eñe) as a different letter collated after N.
In the Swedish alphabet, there are three extra vowels placed at its end (..., X, Y, Z, Å, Ä, Ö), similar to the Danish and Norwegian alphabet, but with different glyphs and a different collating order. The letter "W" has been treated as a variant of "V", but in the 13th edition of Svenska Akademiens ordlista (2006) "W" was considered a separate letter.
In the Turkish alphabet there are 6 additional letters: ç, ğ, ı, ö, ş, and ü (but no q, w, and x). They are collated with ç after c, ğ after g, ı before i, ö after o, ş after s, and ü after u. Originally, when the alphabet was introduced in 1928, ı was collated after i, but the order was changed later so that letters having shapes containing dots, cedilles or other adorning marks always follow the letters with corresponding bare shapes. Note that in Turkish orthography the letter I is the majuscule of dotless ı, whereas İ is the majuscule of dotted i.
In many Turkic languages (such as Azeri or the Jaꞑalif orthography for Tatar), there used to be the letter Gha (Ƣƣ), which came between G and H. It is now in disuse.
In Vietnamese, there are 7 additional letters: ă, â, đ, ê, ô, ơ, ư while f, j, w, z are absent, even though they are still in some use (like Internet address, foreign loan language). "f" is replaced by the combination "ph". The same as for "w" is "qu".
In Volapük ä, ö and ü are counted as separate letters and collated separately (a, ä, b ... o, ö, p ... u, ü, v) while q and w are absent.
In Welsh the digraphs CH, DD, FF, NG, LL, PH, RH, and TH are treated as single letters, and each is listed after the first character of the pair (except for NG which is listed after G), producing the order A, B, C, CH, D, DD, E, F, FF, G, NG, H, and so on. It can sometimes happen, however, that word compounding results in the juxtaposition of two letters which do not form a digraph. An example is the word LLONGYFARCH (composed from LLON + GYFARCH). This results in such an ordering as, for example, LAWR, LWCUS, LLONG, LLOM, LLONGYFARCH (NG is a digraph in LLONG, but not in LLONGYFARCH). The letter combination R+H (as distinct from the digraph RH) may similarly arise by juxtaposition in compounds, although this tends not to produce any pairs in which misidentification could affect the ordering. For the other potentially confusing letter combinations that may occur – namely, D+D and L+L – a hyphen is used in the spelling (e.g. AD-DAL, CHWIL-LYS).

Arabic alphabet[edit]

Common *hijāʾī* order
ء	ي	و	ه	ن	م	ل	ك	ق	ف	غ	ع	ظ	ط	ض	ص	ش	س	ز	ر	ذ	د	خ	ح	ج	ث	ت	ب	ا
ʾ	y	w	h	n	m	l	k	q	f	gh	ʿ	ẓ	ṭ	ḍ	ṣ	sh	s	z	r	dh	d	kh	ḥ	j	th	t	b	ʾ

Brahmic scripts[edit]

Kannada[edit]

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Consonants
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Example orderings[edit]

Czech[edit]

Accented vowels have secondary collating weight
Accented consonants have primary collating weight
CH is considered to be a separate letter and goes between H and I
Thus:
baa, baá, báa, báá, bab, báb, bac, bác, bač, bač, bad, baď, bád, báď, bae, baé, baě, báe, báé, báě, baf, báf, bag, bág, bah, báh, bach, bách, bai, baí, bái, báí, baj, báj, bak, bák, bal, bál, bam, bám, ban, baň, bán, báň, bao, baó, báo, báó, bap, báp, baq, báq, bar, bár, bař, bář, bas, bás, baš, báš, bat, bať, bát, báť, bau, baú, baů, báu, báú, báů, bav, báv, baw, báw, bax, báx, bay, baý, báy, báý, baz, báz, baž, báž

Hungarian[edit]

A particular feature of Hungarian collation is that contracted forms of double di- and trigraphs (such as ggy from gy + gy or ddzs from dzs + dzs) should be collated as if they were written in full (independently of the fact of the contraction and the elements of the di- or trigraphs). For example, kaszinó should precede kassza (even though the fourth character z would normally come after s in the alphabet), because the fourth "character" (grapheme) of the word kassza is considered a second sz (decomposing ssz into sz + sz), which does follow i (in kaszinó).

kaszinó: k-a-sz-i-n-ó
kassza: k-a-sz-sz-a

kaszinó comes before kassza because i comes before sz.