One of the few things I remember from my French classes in high school was that the letter is called “double V” in that language. Why did English opt for the “U” instead?
You can hear the French pronunciation here if you’re unfamiliar with it:
https://www.frenchlearner.com/pronunciation/french-alphabet/
V and W are right next to each other in alphabetical order, which seems to lend further credence to the idea that it should be “Double V” and not “Double U”. In fact, the letter U immediately precedes V, so the difference is highlighted in real-time as you go through the alphabet:
- …
- U
- V
- W
- X
- Y
- Z
It’s obviously not at all important in the grand scheme of things, but I’m just curious why we went the way we did!
Cheers!
You know how the Romans wrote U? V.
Like J is a variant of I, U is a variant of V. Julius Caesar would have written his name IVLIVS
In some languages, especially English, the shapes were used interchangeably until well after the invention of the printing press. There are old, modern English dictionaries in existence where you’ll find words with “i” and “j” sorted in the “wrong” order or intermixed, and likewise for “u” and “v” for precisely this reason.
The letter w was born during that mixed up time, and so it got the double-u name, despite the fact that the shape doesn’t seem to match any more.
(For more fun, look up the letter wynn, “Ƿ” which if it had survived into Middle English, might be what we’d be using instead.)
An example of the u|v mixup people can look at the Slovenian language.
They have the v where other languages have a u, but they say it like a u.
example: automobile vs avtomobil
The 2nd Slovenian in this thread, stuff is getting interesting.