U

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U
U u
Latin letter U.svg
Usage
Writing system Latin script
Type Alphabetic
Language of origin Latin
Sound values
In  Unicode
  • U+0055
  • U+0075
Alphabetical position21
History
Development
U
U
  • Proto-semiticW-01.svg
    • PhoenicianW-01.svg
      • Phoenician waw.svg
        • Early Aramaic character - vav.svg
          • Υ υ
Time period1386 to present
Descendants
Sisters
Other
Associated graphs
Writing direction Left-to-right
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.For the distinction between [ ], / / and  , see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

U, or u, is the twenty-first letter and the fifth vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet and the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is u (pronounced /ˈj/ ), plural ues. [1] [2] [3] [lower-alpha 1]

Contents

Name

In English, the name of the letter is the "long U" sound, pronounced /ˈj/ . In most other languages, its name matches the letter's pronunciation in open syllables.

Pronunciation of the name of the letter <u>  in European languages Pronunciation of the name of the letter (u) in European languages.png
Pronunciation of the name of the letter u in European languages

History

Proto-SinaiticPhoenician
Waw
Western Greek
Upsilon
Latin
V
Latin
U
Proto-semiticW-01.png PhoenicianW-01.svg Greek Upsilon normal.svg Capitalis monumentalis V.SVG Capitalis monumentalis U.SVG

U derives from the Semitic waw, as does F, and later, Y, W, and V. Its oldest ancestor goes back to Egyptian hieroglyphs, and is probably from a hieroglyph of a mace or fowl, representing the sound [ v ] or the sound [ w ]. This was borrowed to Phoenician, where it represented the sound [ w ], and seldom the vowel [ u ].

In Greek, two letters were adapted from the Phoenician waw. The letter was adapted, but split in two, with Digamma or wau Ϝ being adapted to represent [ w ], and the second one being Upsilon Υ, which was originally adapted to represent [ u ], later fronted, becoming [ y ].

In Latin, a stemless variant shape of the upsilon was borrowed in early times as U, taking the form of modern-day V  either directly from the Western Greek alphabet or from the Etruscan alphabet as an intermediary to represent the same /u/ sound, as well as the consonantal /w/, num originally spelled NVM was pronounced /num/ and via was pronounced [ˈwia] . From the 1st century AD on, depending on Vulgar Latin dialect, consonantal /w/ developed into /β/ (kept in Spanish), then later to /v/.

During the late Middle Ages, two minuscule forms developed, which were both used for /v/ or the vowel /u/. 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 'haue' and 'vpon', respectively. The first recorded use of u and v as distinct letters is in a Gothic alphabet from 1386, where v preceded u. Printers eschewed capital U in favor of V into the 17th century and the distinction between the two letters was not fully accepted by the French Academy until 1762. [4] [5] [ better source needed ] The rounded variant became the modern-day version of U and its former pointed form became V.

Use in writing systems

Pronunciation of u by language
OrthographyPhonemes
Afrikaans /y/
Standard Chinese [6] (pinyin)/u/, /y/
Danish /u/, /ʊ/
Dutch /y/, /œ/
English /ʌ/, /juː/, //, /ʊ/, /ɜː/, /jʊə/, /ʊə/, /w/, silent
Esperanto /u/
Faroese /u/, /ʊ/
French /y/, /ɥ/
German /u/, /ʊ/
Icelandic /u/, /ʏ/
Indonesian [7] /u/
Italian /u/, /w/
Japanese (Hepburn)/ɯ/, silent
Lithuanian /ʊ/
Low German /u/, /ʊ/
Malay /u/, /w/
Norwegian /ʉ/, /ɵ/
Portuguese /u/, /w/, /ɐ/
Spanish /u/, /w/
Swedish /ʉ/, /ɵ/
Turkish /u/
Welsh /ɨ̞/, /ɨː/ or /ɪ/, //

English

In English, the letter u has four main pronunciations. There are "long" and "short" pronunciations. Short u, found originally in closed syllables, most commonly represents /ʌ/ (as in 'duck'), though it retains its old pronunciation /ʊ/ after labial consonants in some words (as in 'put') and occasionally elsewhere (as in 'sugar'). Long u, found originally in words of French origin (the descendant of Old English long u was respelled as ou ), most commonly represents /j/ (as in 'mule'), reducing to // after r (as in 'rule'), j (as in 'June') and sometimes (or optionally) after l (as in 'lute'), and after additional consonants in American English (a do–dew merger). (After s, /sjuː,zjuː/ have assimilated to /ʃuː,ʒuː/ in some words.)

The letter u is used in the digraphs au/ɔː/, ou (various pronunciations, but usually /aʊ/), and with the value of long u in eu, ue, and in a few words ui (as in 'fruit'). It often has the sound /w/ before a vowel in the sequences qu (as in 'quick'), gu (as in 'anguish'), and su (as in 'suave'), though it is silent in final que (as in 'unique') and in many words with gu (as in 'guard').

Additionally, the letter u is used in text messaging, the Internet, and other written slang to denote 'you', by virtue of both being pronounced /j/ .

Certain varieties of the English language (i.e. British English, Canadian English, etc.) use the letter U in words such as colour, labour, valour, etc. In American English, the letter is not used, and the words mentioned are spelled as color and so on.

It is the thirteenth most frequently used letter in the English language,[ when? ] with a frequency of about 2.8% in words.[ citation needed ]

Other languages

In most languages that use the Latin alphabet, u represents the close back rounded vowel /u/ or a similar vowel. [8]

Other systems

The International Phonetic Alphabet uses u for the close back rounded vowel.

Other uses

Ancestors, descendants and siblings

Ligatures and abbreviations

Other representations

Computing

Character information
PreviewUu
Unicode nameLATIN CAPITAL LETTER ULATIN SMALL LETTER UFULLWIDTH LATIN CAPITAL LETTER UFULLWIDTH LATIN SMALL LETTER U
Encodingsdecimalhexdechexdechexdechex
Unicode 85U+0055117U+007565333U+FF3565365U+FF55
UTF-8 855511775239 188 181EF BC B5239 189 149EF BD 95
Numeric character reference &#85;&#x55;&#117;&#x75;&#65333;&#xFF35;&#65365;&#xFF55;
EBCDIC family228E4164A4
ASCII [lower-alpha 2] 855511775

Other

Notes

  1. Ues is the plural of the name of the letter; the plural of the letter itself is rendered U's, Us, u's, or us.
  2. Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859, and Macintosh families of encodings.

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References

  1. "U". Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. 1989.
  2. Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged. 1993.
  3. Brown, Goold; Kiddle, Henry (1870). The institutes of English grammar. New York, W. Wood & co. p. 19.
  4. cf. "U," in Dictionnaire de l'Académie Françoise, 4th ed., 2: 893. 2 vols. Paris: Chez la Veuve de Bernard Brunet, Imprimeur de l'Académie Françoiſe, 1762. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k12803850/f901.item; and "U," in Dictionnaire de l'Académie Françoise, 4th ed., 2: 893. 2 vols. Paris: Chez la Veuve de Bernard Brunet, Imprimeur de l'Académie Françoiſe, 1762. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k12803850/f901.item.
  5. Pflughaupt, Laurent (2008). Letter by Letter: An Alphabetical Miscellany . Translated by Bruhn, Gregory. Princeton Architectural Press. pp. 123–124. ISBN   978-1-56898-737-8 . Retrieved June 21, 2009.
  6. Odinye, Sunny Ifeanyi (January 2015). "Phonology of Mandarin Chinese: Pinyin vs. IPA". ResearchGate . Retrieved May 17, 2021.
  7. "Indonesian Alphabet and Pronunciation". Archived from the original on May 8, 2021. Retrieved May 17, 2021.
  8. "Latin". Ancient Scripts. Archived from the original on June 11, 2017. Retrieved June 8, 2017.
  9. Pun, Sharon (August 4, 2018). "The meaning behind Myanmar names". Frontier Myanmar. Archived from the original on February 14, 2021. Retrieved February 9, 2021.
  10. Everson, Michael (March 20, 2002). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on February 19, 2018. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  11. Everson, Michael; Dicklberger, Alois; Pentzlin, Karl; Wandl-Vogt, Eveline (June 2, 2011). "L2/11-202: Revised proposal to encode "Teuthonista" phonetic characters in the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 11, 2017. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Constable, Peter (April 19, 2004). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on October 11, 2017. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  13. Suignard, Michel (May 9, 2017). "L2/17-076R2: Revised proposal for the encoding of an Egyptological YOD and Ugaritic characters" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on March 30, 2019. Retrieved March 8, 2019.
  14. 1 2 Jacquerye, Denis (January 22, 2016). "L2/16-032: Proposal to encode two Latin characters for Mazahua" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on March 30, 2019. Retrieved June 19, 2018.