U

Basic Latin alphabet
Aa Bb Cc Dd    
Ee Ff Gg Hh
Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn
Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt
Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz

U (pronounced  /ˈjuː/, like YOU; spelled u, plural ues)[1][2] is the twenty-first letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet.

Contents

History

The letter U ultimately comes from the Semitic letter Waw by way of the letter Y. See the letter Y for details.

During the late Middle Ages, two forms of "v" developed, which were both used for its ancestor 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 valor and excuse appeared as in modern printing, "have" and "upon" were printed haue and vpon. The first distinction between the letters "u" and "v" is recorded in a Gothic alphabet 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 "u". Capital "U" was not accepted as a distinct letter until many years later.[3]

Usage

In most languages that use the Latin alphabet, ⟨U⟩ represents the close back rounded vowel /u/. In English it commonly represents /ʌ/ or /ʊ/ ("short U") as in duck, or /ju(ː)/ ("long U") as in mule. Additionally, the letter U is used in internet and other written slang to denote you, by virtue of both being pronounced [juː].

Related letters and other similar characters

Computing codes

character U u
Unicode name LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U LATIN SMALL LETTER U
character encoding decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 85 0055 117 0075
UTF-8 85 55 117 75
Numeric character reference U U u u
EBCDIC family 228 E4 164 A4
ASCII 1 85 55 117 75

1 and all encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.

Other representations

NATO phonetic Morse code
Uniform ··–
Signal flag Flag semaphore Braille

References

  1. ^ "U" Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993)
  2. ^ Brown & Kiddle (1870) The institutes of English grammar, p 19.
    Ues is the plural of the name of the letter; the plural of the letter itself is U's, Us, u's, or us.
  3. ^ Pflughaupt, Laurent (2008). Letter by Letter: An Alphabetical Miscellany. trans. Gregory Bruhn. Princeton Architectural Press. pp. 123–124. ISBN 9781568987378. http://books.google.com/books?id=63Qnbt2CMiMC&pg=PA124. Retrieved 2009-06-21. 

External links

Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz
Letter U with diacritics
Úú Ùù Ŭŭ Ûû Ǔǔ Ůů Üü Ǘǘ Ǜǜ Ǚǚ Ǖǖ Űű Ũũ Ṹṹ Ųų Ūū Ṻṻ Ủủ Ȕȕ Ȗȗ Ưư Ứứ Ừừ Ữữ Ửử Ựự
Ụụ Ṳṳ Ṷṷ Ṵṵ Ʉʉ ᵾ ᶙ
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