Why do various languages that use basically the same alphabet have sometimes wholly different pronuciations for said alphabet?

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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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Anonymous 0 Comments

It didn’t start that way, in various regions the sounds changed due to people mispronouncing things. Over time a mutation gets so popular that it just becomes the new “correct”. That’s how you get Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Italian languages (as some examples) being variations of Latin. If everyone stuck to being perfect “by the book” per se than language wouldn’t evolve and most of Europe would still speak Latin.

You can also just look at regional dialects of the same language. In Boston the letter R sounds like “ah” to other English speakers. In the south east US the letters “oi” together sound like “er” (oil rhymes with Earl).

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