Letters:
* 26: The standard English alphabet (A-Z)
Numbers:
* 10: Digits 0-9
Punctuation:
* This is where it gets fuzzy. There are common punctuation marks like:
* Period (.)
* Comma (,)
* Question mark (?)
* Exclamation mark (!)
* Colon (:)
* Semicolon (;)
* Apostrophe (')
* Quotation marks (" ")
* Hyphen (-)
* Dash (—)
* Parentheses ()
* Brackets []
* Braces {}
* But there are many other symbols used less frequently:
* Ellipsis (...)
* Asterisk (*)
* Slash (/)
* Backslash (\)
* At sign (@)
* Hash (#)
* Dollar sign ($)
* Percent sign (%)
* Ampersand (&)
* Less than (<)
* Greater than (>)
* Equal sign (=)
* Plus sign (+)
* Minus sign (-)
* Multiplication sign (×)
* Division sign (÷)
* And more...
Other symbols:
* Diacritics: These are marks added to letters to modify their pronunciation (e.g., á, é, ü). While not part of the basic alphabet, they are essential for some words and names.
* Mathematical symbols: There are countless symbols used in mathematics (e.g., ∞, √, ≠).
* Technical symbols: Various fields have their own symbols (e.g., music notation, chemistry).
So, how many total symbols?
* It's impossible to give a definitive number.
* The number will vary based on what you consider a symbol and how many obscure or specialized symbols you include.
It's safe to say the English language uses hundreds of symbols, but it's not a fixed number!