Why Are the letters Y,X,J,K, and W not used in Italian?

Rolo Fonseca   Mon Dec 31, 2007 9:19 am GMT
Would there be conflicts with the sound of other letters Like s and x?

I think this makes the language easy to learn because in Spanish we wonder if a word is spelled with S or X, S or Z, and K or C
Guest   Mon Dec 31, 2007 9:21 am GMT
there are used in English, Spanish, French and many other languages.
huzia na juzia   Tue Jan 01, 2008 10:49 am GMT
sometimes the letter x from latin was simplified in italian in the same way like other consonant clusters:
nocte>notte
dictum>detto
dixit>disse
Alexander>Alessandro
the letter w doesn't exist in italian because it's not needed
Guest   Tue Jan 01, 2008 11:56 am GMT
Would there be conflicts with the sound of other letters Like s and x?

I think this makes the l

In Italian all consonants can be simple and double so Italian has b/bb c/cc
d/dd f/ff m/mm q/qq and so on and as for x it can generally be s or ss. In some case x is still used like in ex, extra, xenofobo, xilofolo etc. Even the letter j is used is some rare cases and it's always pronounced like spanish or Engish y. Some italian towns; Jesolo Jesi, and in some nouns like jella, naja, pronounced yella, naya.
Alessio   Tue Jan 01, 2008 9:20 pm GMT
because in Spanish we wonder if a word is spelled with S or X, S or Z, and K or C

Wow, what an unbelievable difficulty
Guest   Wed Jan 02, 2008 4:41 am GMT
Italian is so simple that it doesn't need many letters. And except for marking stress in some special case it doesn't use diacritics either.
Adolfo   Wed Jan 02, 2008 10:10 am GMT
"because in Spanish we wonder if a word is spelled with S or X, S or Z, and K or C "

S and X are pronounced different, and also S and Z are , thence there is not room to confussion. X is itself a consonan cluster and not an independent sound, it's the same as CS .Z on the other hand is pronounced like TH in teeth for example.

K and W are almost not used in Spanish as well . Only a few words use K in Spanish, all of them are loanwords: kiosko, words with kilo like kilogram, kilobyte and so on.
Guest   Wed Jan 02, 2008 11:52 am GMT
Italian spelling is much trickier than the spanish one. Italian double consonants are a real nightmare for foreigners, especially Spanish speaking people.
furrykef   Wed Jan 02, 2008 3:36 pm GMT
<< WE are fed up with this hispanico invasion on this forum, especially because everybody knows Spanish is light years more simple than Italian. >>

Explain to me how a more complex language is superior. There is beauty in simplicity, and much linguistic complexity has nothing to do with expressive power. To call a language as superior on the basis of complexity is, quite frankly, stupid.

- Kef
furrykef   Wed Jan 02, 2008 3:38 pm GMT
That should be "to call a language superior", not "to call a language as superior".