For instance, in Spanish, the letter “v” is pronouced like the letter “b” in English. Why not just use the letter b? Who decided that for this sound, we’re going to use this letter, even though other users of this alphabet use a different one? I’m not trying to be English-centric here. We could just as easily use the Italian “ci” for the English “ch.” And don’t get me started on how “eaux” somehow equates to a long “o.” I get that English has a different language branch than the Romance languages, but we all use (basically) the same alphabet.
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Part of it, to answer your question about ci and ch, has to do with the fact that way back in the Middle Ages, people didn’t learn to read and write their native language. They learned to read Latin, and then if for some reason they needed to write something in their language, they had to figure out a way to do it with Latin letters. Mainly this involved using consonant clusters or silent letters to represent sounds that Latin didn’t have. Different literary traditions across Europe came up with different ideas to make it work, and over time they standardized into the languages we know today.
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