4 ms·

I know I'm being pedantic here but if you're going to insist on writing Greek words with Greek letters you need to stop writing Latin words with the modern "u".

StavrosK 5y ago
Latin used the V for both V and U today, right? How did those two get separated? Why did we get "virus" and not "virvs" or "uirus"? I guess they were pronounced differently back then too?
- laichzeit0 5y ago
  Consonant v is pronounced as w in modern English. Vowel v is pronounced as “oo” as in book. So “virus” in Latin would be pronounced “wiroos”. It’s really a pet peeve of mine when I hear people pronounce Latin words starting with v and using the modern English v. It’s pronounced as w.
  - StavrosK 5y ago
    Ah, so they did indeed use the same letter for two distinct sounds. Makes sense, thanks!
    - thaumasiotes 5y ago
      They used the same letter for two sounds in the sense that it had a consonantal use and a vowel use. But they did not, themselves, perceive the two sounds as being different sounds. They are, to the Romans, one sound in two different contexts. Quoting Vox Latina: > There is also a much-quoted anecdote of Cicero's, which tells how, when Marcus Crassus was setting out on an ill-fated expedition against the Parthians, a seller of Caunean figs was crying out 'Cauneas!'; and Cicero comments [...] that it would have been well for Crassus if he had heeded the 'omen', viz. 'Caue ne eas'; this hardly makes sense unless, as we presume, the [consonantal] u of caue was similar to the [vocalic] u of Cauneas. A parallel case is provided by Varro's etymology of auris from auere (The book is accurate in representing the Latin spelling as being identical for the consonant and the vowel; in fact they used V and U is a much later invention. Perhaps the book felt English speakers would have more trouble accepting V as a vowel than U as a consonant.)
      - StavrosK 5y ago
        > But they did not, themselves, perceive the two sounds as being different sounds. This makes sense, thanks. I guess we generally don't perceive the different sounds in our languages, like an English speaker generally won't perceive the difference between t͟hə and t͟hē (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/the https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/the for audio).
        thaumasiotes 5y ago
        For what it's worth, the sounds really are similar. The technical term for W [w] and Y [j] is "semivowels" (or "glides"); they are pronounced like vowels with no obstruction of airflow.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > It’s really a pet peeve of mine when I hear people pronounce Latin words starting with v and using the modern English v. It’s pronounced as w. It's a little more complicated. The Romans didn't distinguish the sounds. But that doesn't mean they always produced a sound that you would recognize as W. Sometimes they did, sometimes not. You can observe the same effect easily in modern languages with the same non-distinction -- for example, in modern Mandarin, 问 formally begins with a W sound, but in practice often begins with what I hear as a V. (For extra interest, contrast Old English, in which -- like modern Mandarin -- /f/ and /w/ were phonemes while /v/ was not, but -- unlike Mandarin -- [v] was a variety of /f/, not of /w/.)
stevula 5y ago
The choice between “v” and “u” is pretty arbitrary. “V” was easier for inscriptions because of the straight lines but in Latin cursive “U” was used as a more rounded form that’s easier to write. What’s inconsistent with ancient usage is the mixing of V and U. I’ve never understood why we kept V but got rid of J. It would make more sense to distinguish either both or neither.

StavrosK 5y ago

Latin used the V for both V and U today, right? How did those two get separated? Why did we get "virus" and not "virvs" or "uirus"? I guess they were pronounced differently back then too?

laichzeit0 5y ago
Consonant v is pronounced as w in modern English. Vowel v is pronounced as “oo” as in book. So “virus” in Latin would be pronounced “wiroos”. It’s really a pet peeve of mine when I hear people pronounce Latin words starting with v and using the modern English v. It’s pronounced as w.
- StavrosK 5y ago
  Ah, so they did indeed use the same letter for two distinct sounds. Makes sense, thanks!
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    They used the same letter for two sounds in the sense that it had a consonantal use and a vowel use. But they did not, themselves, perceive the two sounds as being different sounds. They are, to the Romans, one sound in two different contexts. Quoting Vox Latina: > There is also a much-quoted anecdote of Cicero's, which tells how, when Marcus Crassus was setting out on an ill-fated expedition against the Parthians, a seller of Caunean figs was crying out 'Cauneas!'; and Cicero comments [...] that it would have been well for Crassus if he had heeded the 'omen', viz. 'Caue ne eas'; this hardly makes sense unless, as we presume, the [consonantal] u of caue was similar to the [vocalic] u of Cauneas. A parallel case is provided by Varro's etymology of auris from auere (The book is accurate in representing the Latin spelling as being identical for the consonant and the vowel; in fact they used V and U is a much later invention. Perhaps the book felt English speakers would have more trouble accepting V as a vowel than U as a consonant.)
    - StavrosK 5y ago
      > But they did not, themselves, perceive the two sounds as being different sounds. This makes sense, thanks. I guess we generally don't perceive the different sounds in our languages, like an English speaker generally won't perceive the difference between t͟hə and t͟hē (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/the https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/the for audio).
      - thaumasiotes 5y ago
        For what it's worth, the sounds really are similar. The technical term for W [w] and Y [j] is "semivowels" (or "glides"); they are pronounced like vowels with no obstruction of airflow.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > It’s really a pet peeve of mine when I hear people pronounce Latin words starting with v and using the modern English v. It’s pronounced as w. It's a little more complicated. The Romans didn't distinguish the sounds. But that doesn't mean they always produced a sound that you would recognize as W. Sometimes they did, sometimes not. You can observe the same effect easily in modern languages with the same non-distinction -- for example, in modern Mandarin, 问 formally begins with a W sound, but in practice often begins with what I hear as a V. (For extra interest, contrast Old English, in which -- like modern Mandarin -- /f/ and /w/ were phonemes while /v/ was not, but -- unlike Mandarin -- [v] was a variety of /f/, not of /w/.)

stevula 5y ago

The choice between “v” and “u” is pretty arbitrary. “V” was easier for inscriptions because of the straight lines but in Latin cursive “U” was used as a more rounded form that’s easier to write. What’s inconsistent with ancient usage is the mixing of V and U. I’ve never understood why we kept V but got rid of J. It would make more sense to distinguish either both or neither.