Contents › Section 1: Phonetics, phonology and orthography › answer 13 of 32
Is the Ampersands a Letter in the Latin Alphabet?
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No, the ampersand was not a letter but rather developed from a ligature between e and t in the Latin word et (and - as in etc). It has its origins in 1st century BC and seems to have been in common use since 1st century AD. You can read more about its history on the excellent blog (or book) Shady Characters: http://www.shadycharacters.co.uk/2011/06/the-ampersand-part-1-of-2.
© Dominik Lukeš. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Originally published on Linguistics Stack Exchange, attributed there to Dominik Lukes (profile).