text: The English alphabet comes from the Roman, which in turn came from the Greek.  The Greek alphabet had 24 letters, and the Romans borrowed 21 of them (the other letters weren't needed because Latin didn't use those sounds).  Y and Z, which were among those dropped, were later added back in because the Romans admired Greek culture and ended up needing those letters to spell borrowed words.  Then, during the Middle Ages, J and U appeared as varients of I and V.  Eventually, they became unique letters in their own right.  Finally, the 2-letter sequence UU or VV (which was used in some words then) became fused into the modern W.  This gave us the 26 letters we currently use.