U
U u
Usage
Writing systemLatin script
TypeAlphabetic
Language of originLatin
Phonetic usage
Unicode codepoint
  • U+0055
  • U+0075
Alphabetical position21
History
Development
G43
T3
  • Waw
      • Waw
        • Waw
          • Υ υ
Time period1386present
Descendants
Sisters
Other
Other letters commonly used with
Writing directionLeft to right

U, or u, is the 21st letter and fifth vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, 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]

History

U derives from the Semitic waw, as does F, and later, Y, W, and V. Its oldest ancestor goes 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] The rounded variant became the modern-day version of U and its former pointed form became V.

Pronunciation and use

Pronunciations of Uu
Languages in italics do not use the Latin alphabet; the table refers to latinizations
Language Dialect(s) Pronunciation (IPA) Environment
Afrikaans /y/
Chinese[6] Standard Chinese, Pinyin /u/ After the Pinyin consonants b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, h, zh, ch, sh, r, z, c, s, w[6]
/y// After the Pinyin consonants j, q, x, y. To make the /y/ sound after the consonants n or l, ü is used.[6]
Danish /u/ Usually
/ʊ/ Before two consonants
Dutch /œ/ Before two consonants
/y/ Usually
English /ɛ/ In "bury" and "burial"
/ɪ/ In "busy" and "business"
/(j)u/ Stressed and not preceding a consonant
/ʊ/ Sometimes
/ʌ/ Usually
/w/ Following q or g and preceding a vowel
silent Following q or g and preceding vowels e and i, usually in French loanwords
Esperanto /u/
Faroese /ʊ/ Before two consonants
/u/ Usually
French /y/ Usually
/ɥ/ Before vowels
German /ʊ/ Before two consonants
/u/ Usually
Icelandic /u/ Usually
/ʏ/ Before two consonants
Indonesian[7] Standard Indonesian /u/ Always
Italian /u/ Usually
/w/ Before vowels
Japanese /ɯ/ Usually
silent Unstressed, between two consonants
Lithuanian /ʊ/
Low German /ʊ/ Before two consonants
/u/ Usually
Malay /u/ Usually
/w/ Before vowels
Norwegian /ɵ/ Before two consonants
/ʉ/ Usually
Portuguese /u/ Usually
/w/ Before vowels
/ɐ/ Only in some recent loanwords
Spanish /u/ Usually
/w/ Before vowels
Swedish /ɵ/ Before two consonants
/ʉ/ Usually
Welsh Northern dialects /ɨ/
Southern dialects /ɪ/
Pronunciation of the name of the letter u in European languages

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 (see do–dew merger). (After s, /sjuː, zjuː/ have assimilated to /ʃuː, ʒuː/ in some words) In a few words, short u represents other sounds, such as /ɪ/ in 'business' and /ɛ/ in 'bury'.

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, Internet and other written slang to denote 'you', by virtue of both being pronounced /j/.

One thing to note is that 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.; however, in American English the letter is not used and said words mentioned are spelled as color and so on. It is the thirteenth most frequently used letter in the English language, with a frequency of about 2.8% in words.

Other languages

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

Other uses

Ancestors, descendants and siblings

  • 𐤅: Semitic letter Waw, from which the following symbols originally derive
    • Υ υ: Greek letter Upsilon, from which U derives
      • V v: Latin letter V, descended from U
        • W w: Latin letter W, descended from V/U
      • Y y: Latin letter Y, also descended from Upsilon
      • У у: Cyrillic letter U, which also derives from Upsilon
      • Ү ү: Cyrillic letter Ue
    • Ϝ ϝ: Greek letter Digamma
      • F f: Latin letter F, derived from Digamma
  • IPA-specific symbols related to U: ʊ ɥ
  • Uralic Phonetic Alphabet-specific symbols related to U:[10]
    • U+1D1C LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL U
    • U+1D41 MODIFIER LETTER CAPITAL U
    • U+1D58 MODIFIER LETTER SMALL U
    • U+1D64 LATIN SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER U
    • U+1D1D LATIN SMALL LETTER SIDEWAYS U
    • U+1D1E LATIN SMALL LETTER SIDEWAYS DIAERESIZED U
    • U+1D59 MODIFIER LETTER SMALL SIDEWAYS U
  • Teuthonista phonetic transcription-specific symbols related to U:[11]
    • U+AB4E LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH SHORT RIGHT LEG
    • U+AB4F LATIN SMALL LETTER U BAR WITH SHORT RIGHT LEG
    • U+AB51 LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED UI
    • U+AB52 LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH LEFT HOOK
    • U+AB5F MODIFIER LETTER SMALL U WITH LEFT HOOK
  • U+1DB8 MODIFIER LETTER SMALL CAPITAL U: used for phonetic transcription[12]
  • Ꞿ ꞿ: Glottal U, used in the transliteration of Ugaritic[13]
  • U with diacritics: Ŭ ŭ Ʉ ʉ[12] [12] [14] [14] Ụ ụ Ü ü Ǜ ǜ Ǘ ǘ Ǚ ǚ Ǖ ǖ Ṳ ṳ Ú ú Ù ù Û û Ṷ ṷ Ǔ ǔ Ȗ ȗ Ű ű Ŭ ŭ Ư ư Ứ ứ Ừ ừ Ử ử Ự ự Ữ Ữ Ủ ủ Ū ū Ū̀ ū̀ Ū́ ū́ Ṻ ṻ Ū̃ ū̃ Ũ ũ Ṹ ṹ Ṵ ṵ [12] Ų ų Ų́ ų́ Ų̃ ų̃ Ȕ ȕ Ů ů
    • U+A7B8 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH STROKE and U+A7B9 LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH STROKE are used in the Mazahua language and feature a bar diacritic

Ligatures and abbreviations

Computing codes

Character information
PreviewUu
Unicode name LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U LATIN SMALL LETTER U
Encodingsdecimalhexdechex
Unicode85U+0055117U+0075
UTF-8855511775
Numeric character referenceUUuu
EBCDIC family228E4164A4
ASCII[lower-alpha 2]855511775

Other representations

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.

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 2009-06-21.
  6. 1 2 3 Odinye, Sunny Ifeanyi (January 2015). "Phonology of Mandarin Chinese: Pinyin vs. IPA". ResearchGate. Retrieved 2021-05-17.
  7. "Indonesian Alphabet and Pronunciation". Archived from the original on 2021-05-08. Retrieved 2021-05-17.
  8. "Latin". Ancient Scripts. Archived from the original on Jun 11, 2017. Retrieved 2017-06-08.
  9. Pun, Sharon (2018-08-04). "The meaning behind Myanmar names". Frontier Myanmar. Archived from the original on 2021-02-14. Retrieved 2021-02-09.
  10. Everson, Michael (2002-03-20). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-02-19. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
  11. Everson, Michael; Dicklberger, Alois; Pentzlin, Karl; Wandl-Vogt, Eveline (2011-06-02). "L2/11-202: Revised proposal to encode "Teuthonista" phonetic characters in the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
  13. Suignard, Michel (2017-05-09). "L2/17-076R2: Revised proposal for the encoding of an Egyptological YOD and Ugaritic characters" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-03-30. Retrieved 2019-03-08.
  14. 1 2 Jacquerye, Denis (2016-01-22). "L2/16-032: Proposal to encode two Latin characters for Mazahua" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-03-30. Retrieved 2018-06-19.
  • Media related to U at Wikimedia Commons
  • The dictionary definition of U at Wiktionary
  • The dictionary definition of u at Wiktionary
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