The Esperanto alphabet is based on the Roman alphabet (which the English alphabet is also based on). Unlike the English alphabet, it does not have the letters "q", "w", "x" or "y", but it has 6 (six) letters that use a diacritic (a special mark above a letter): "ĉ", "ĝ", "ĥ", "ĵ", "ŝ" and "ŭ".