3 ms·

Why some of these are missing letter U or W?

by smusamashah 2y ago

observationist 2y ago
Some traditional alphabet charts and primers treated W as a compound letter - double u, uu - and V stood in place of U.
- adrian_b 2y ago
  The classic Latin alphabet had 23 letters. The letters J, U and W have been added during the middle ages. They were originally just variants of the Latin letters I and V. The origin of "u" is as the lowercase form of "V". Latin had used "V" both for the vowel form of "u" and for the consonant form of "u", which is written in English as "w". The Latin consonant "u" has become fricative in the Romance languages, i.e. the sound written in English as "v". Due to this change in pronunciation, for the Romance languages 2 new letters have been created, uppercase "U" and lowercase "v", pairing them with the older "V" and "u" and giving them the current pronunciation. Most other European languages have then taken this updated Latin alphabet. A similar history was for the splitting of Latin "I" into "I" and "J". English is one of the few Indo-European languages that has preserved the original consonant "u" pronunciation in many words, instead of changing to a fricative "v" pronunciation. Because of this, "W" has been originally created for English to write this pronunciation, for which neither "u" nor "v" was appropriate. Later "W" has been taken also by other languages, where it has received different pronunciations.
msla 2y ago
Because V and W weren't firmly established as their own letters until later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V > During the Late Middle Ages, two minuscule glyphs of U developed which were both used for sounds including /u/ and modern /v/. The pointed form ⟨v⟩ was written at the beginning of a word, while a rounded form ⟨u⟩ was used in the middle or end, regardless of sound. So whereas valour and excuse appeared as in modern printing, have and upon were printed as "haue" and "vpon". The first distinction between the letters ⟨v⟩ and ⟨u⟩ is recorded in a Gothic script from 1386, where ⟨v⟩ preceded ⟨u⟩. By the mid-16th century, the ⟨v⟩ form was used to represent the consonant and ⟨u⟩ the vowel sound, giving us the modern letter ⟨v⟩. ⟨u⟩ and ⟨v⟩ were not accepted as distinct letters until many years later.[3] The rounded variant became the modern-day version of ⟨u⟩, and the letter's former pointed form became ⟨v⟩. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W > The classical Latin alphabet, from which the modern European alphabets derived, did not have the "W" character. The "W" sounds were represented by the Latin letter "V" (at the time, not yet distinct from "U").
- Archelaos 2y ago
  In this context I would also add, that there is still a reminisense of the ⟨u⟩ representing the /v/ ord /w/ sounds in many modern European languages, where it is generally used in <qu> to represent the sound /kv/ or /kw/. However, there are exception, for example in Swedish, where <kv> is common. My favorite example is the word "kvinna" for woman.

Why some of these are missing letter U or W?

observationist 2y ago

Some traditional alphabet charts and primers treated W as a compound letter - double u, uu - and V stood in place of U.

adrian_b 2y ago
The classic Latin alphabet had 23 letters. The letters J, U and W have been added during the middle ages. They were originally just variants of the Latin letters I and V. The origin of "u" is as the lowercase form of "V". Latin had used "V" both for the vowel form of "u" and for the consonant form of "u", which is written in English as "w". The Latin consonant "u" has become fricative in the Romance languages, i.e. the sound written in English as "v". Due to this change in pronunciation, for the Romance languages 2 new letters have been created, uppercase "U" and lowercase "v", pairing them with the older "V" and "u" and giving them the current pronunciation. Most other European languages have then taken this updated Latin alphabet. A similar history was for the splitting of Latin "I" into "I" and "J". English is one of the few Indo-European languages that has preserved the original consonant "u" pronunciation in many words, instead of changing to a fricative "v" pronunciation. Because of this, "W" has been originally created for English to write this pronunciation, for which neither "u" nor "v" was appropriate. Later "W" has been taken also by other languages, where it has received different pronunciations.

msla 2y ago

Because V and W weren't firmly established as their own letters until later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V > During the Late Middle Ages, two minuscule glyphs of U developed which were both used for sounds including /u/ and modern /v/. The pointed form ⟨v⟩ was written at the beginning of a word, while a rounded form ⟨u⟩ was used in the middle or end, regardless of sound. So whereas valour and excuse appeared as in modern printing, have and upon were printed as "haue" and "vpon". The first distinction between the letters ⟨v⟩ and ⟨u⟩ is recorded in a Gothic script from 1386, where ⟨v⟩ preceded ⟨u⟩. By the mid-16th century, the ⟨v⟩ form was used to represent the consonant and ⟨u⟩ the vowel sound, giving us the modern letter ⟨v⟩. ⟨u⟩ and ⟨v⟩ were not accepted as distinct letters until many years later.[3] The rounded variant became the modern-day version of ⟨u⟩, and the letter's former pointed form became ⟨v⟩. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W > The classical Latin alphabet, from which the modern European alphabets derived, did not have the "W" character. The "W" sounds were represented by the Latin letter "V" (at the time, not yet distinct from "U").

Archelaos 2y ago
In this context I would also add, that there is still a reminisense of the ⟨u⟩ representing the /v/ ord /w/ sounds in many modern European languages, where it is generally used in <qu> to represent the sound /kv/ or /kw/. However, there are exception, for example in Swedish, where <kv> is common. My favorite example is the word "kvinna" for woman.