Why is why spelled like why and when you say why it sounds like the letter y but why is x between w and y?

Answer 1

As usual, wikipedia has a good explanation:

"It is fairly likely that the letter, although technically named Y Græca (pronounced [u graɪka]) meaning 'Greek u' in contradistinction from native Latin /u/, came to be analyzed as the letter V (pronounced [uː]) atop the letter I (pronounced [iː]). The letter was thus referred to as [uː iː], which after [uː] became the glide [w] and after English's Great Vowel Shift naturally became [waɪ]."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y#History

A little clarification :
1) "came to be analyzed" simply means that, when people looked at the way the letter was written, they understood it as formed by placing the letter V on top of the letter I, so they used the names of those letters (at the time --in Old English) to identify it.

2) [uː iː] that is the letter u + the letter i, would be pronounced "oo-ah-ee" ("oo" ias in moon", is the sound the letter u makes; "ah-ee" is how we now pronounce the letter i). Note that "oo" at the beginning of a word, when followed by another vowel sound that takes the accent, very quickly becomes the "w-". sound.

Notice that the name "Greek u" is reflected in several European languages.


As for the position of the letters in the alphabet -- u,v and w are originally variations of one letter, hence they are listed together (as are i and j). The order of the alphabet was set long before the English spoke the name of the letter Y as "wy", and the fact that it now sounds just like the word "why" is an accident, having nothing to do with any relationship of the letters W and Y.

For what it's worth the order of the letters after T (the original end of the alphabet in the ancient Semitic parent of our alphabet) simply shows us the historical order in which these letters were added to (or added back into) the Latin/European alphabet, since it was a common practice for both the Greek & Latin alphabets to add "new" letters (even if they were old ones "re-borrowed" for a new use) to the END of the alphabet.

** U was there first (from Greek upsilon to Latin u), V & W were variants of the U [in fact the writing "V" came first], and so were placed after it;
** X was also taken over very early from the Greek alphabet (from the Greek letter named "Chi") and so appears in basically the same position as in the Greek
THEN:
** Y, as noted above was essentially the "Greek U" borrowed again with a DIFFERENT sound)
** finally Z (from Greek zeta).

Answer 2

2 pts

Answer 3

Because the english language makes absolutely no sense.

Answer 4

To make you wonder why and ask about it on Yahoo! Answers.

Answer 5

Because I said so.

Answer 6

you lost me with y

Answer 7

Why ask Why?

Answer 8

Why not?

Answer 9

huh... what? why?... ummm... huh??