Italian is one of the richest languages, with its wide vocabulary and its melodic sounds. However, something is missing in Italian, something very important to the English language: some letters! The Italian alphabet comprehends only 21 letters! “J,” “K,” “W,” “X,” and “Y” are completely missing from Italian. This is why you will find names like Joseph and Julia, spelled Giuseppe and Giulia, creating, let me tell you, weird pronunciations and great confusion for people that are not familiar with the Italian spelling.

How do Italians make up for the lack of those letters? Simple, with many confusing spelling rules that everyone that studies Italian hates. For example, “C” in Italian has the same sound as “K” in “CA,” “CO,” “CU,” but not in “CE” and “CI.” In this case, you will need to add an “H” in between the “C” and the vowel in order to produce the “K” sound. For example, “chiglia” would then be pronounced with a “K” sound, but “ciglia,” without the “H,” would be pronounced as the “CH” in English. Why? It’s just the way it is! “G” is another weird letter that makes up for the lack of “J.” When a “G” is followed by an “I” it has the “J” sound; however, “GE” already has the “J” sound without the “I,” while “GA,” “GO,” “GU,” have the same hard “G” sound from the throat like in English. Therefore, “ghiro” is different from “giro,” and “ghetto” is not the same as “getto.” Simple, no? Don’t worry, now comes the easy part! In Italian, “W” is mostly replaced by “U” and “Y” by “I,” but “X” doesn’t really exist. There is no “X” in the original Italian alphabet.

Does this mean that no Italian will call a taxi? Do they play a xylophone? Of course those words are now of common use in the Italian language, but those “foreign letters,” as Italians would call them, appear in these words only because those are loanwords, which means that they are taken directly and imported as they are from a foreign language. So, as Italians do call a taxi, they also do wear jeans, they are okay, and they do find people sexy.

Just to add a little confusion to what I just explained, there are some Italian words that do include those 5 letters. For example, the city of Jesolo and some names, like the politician Bettino Craxi. Those, even though Italian cities and people, have still a foreign origin. They come from ancient Venetian, the language spoken in the republic of Venice before the unification of Italy.

So, even though Italian has only 21 letters, this language doesn’t lack any of the sounds that those five missing letters provide to the English language thanks to the complicated Italian spelling rules and loanwords. Don’t be discouraged if you have to re-learn your ABCs when you study Italian. Luckily, there is “less” to learn.