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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The Roman alphabet was created to match the set of sounds that classical Latin was composed of. For classical Latin, one letter matches one sound. Because of the importance of the Roman Empire and the continued use of Latin after its end, when other languages came to be written, the Roman alphabet was used, and where sounds in those languages were the same as in classical Latin, those letters were used. Where sounds that did not exist in classical Latin existed in those languages, modifications were made, either using accent markings, combinations of letters (eg ch, th, sh in English), or just accepting that a letter might have a slightly different sound.
Until the invention of the printing press, it was normal for people to just write phonetically. There was no concept of fixed spellings, you would just put the letters that correspond to how you speak on the page. People with different regional accents would write things differently, and the person reading it would just have to figure it out. After the printing press was invented, things changed, and the idea of a “standard” correct spelling of words took hold. Even if I say the word as “root” and you say it as “rowt”, we both spell it as “route”.
The problem is, the way people actually pronounce words changes over time. In different languages and different dialects and accents within different languages, those changes happen differently. While some spellings have changed to a greater or lesser extent, in most languages, the spellings have been more likely to remain fixed than the way people actually speak the language. The result of this is that spellings reflect the sounds of their spoken languages several centuries ago, for each respective language, and often the way it was spoken in a specific, often prestige accent and dialect from that time in the past.
A further complication comes when words are borrowed from one language to another. Often when a word enters from a foreign language, the foreign spelling comes with it. In some cases the spelling and pronunciation from the source language remain, in some cases the spelling is changed to match the spelling conventions of the language that borrowed it, and in other cases people using the word change it to match the odd spelling.
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