The Latin alphabet that we still use today was created by the Etruscans and the Romans from the Greek. It had only 23 letters: the J, U and W were missing. The J was represented by the I, the U was written as V and there was no need for a W. The story of the Z is particularly interesting. The new letter G (based on C) was added; Z was borrowed from the Greek, then dropped as Latin had no need for it. G took its place in the line-up, until a little later when the Romans decided they needed the Z (when Greek literature became the vogue and they started to introduce many Greek words), they re-introduced it, but since its spot had be taken by G, it was sent to the back of the alphabet, where it remains to this day.
