I'm french and I was wondering why in the english alphabet the W is pronounced "double you" and not "double...

Question

... vi" although it represents 2*V and not 2*U ?

Answer 1

"The Origin of the W

Once upon a time there were the Greeks. The Greeks had a letter, called psi, that would become our modern-day W. It was a little used letter and quickly fell out of fashion and was not included in the Latin alphabet when it was in vogue. Enter Old English. The medieval English revived the "w"-sound, but since the letter for it died with the ancient Greeks, they were at a loss for how to write it. So, what did they do? In occasions where they wanted to write "w", they wrote "uu"-- double U's. The two U's served them fine for years and years, then along comes the renaissance and three new letters were created: J, V, and our friend, the W. Though we now had a letter, the name "double U" stuck."

I found this on a website.

Answer 2

Wynn (looks like a cross between D and P) (also spelled Wen) is a letter of the old English alphabet. It was used to represent the sound /w/.

While the earliest Old English texts represent this phoneme with the digraph , scribes soon borrowed the rune wynn (ᚹ) for this purpose. It remained a standard letter throughout the Anglo-Saxon era, eventually falling out of use (perhaps under the influence of French orthography) during the Middle English period, circa 1300 (Freeborn 1992:25). It was replaced with once again, from which the modern developed.

Answer 3

OK, the V/U thing is a holdover from Latin, when V=U. There was no U with the rounded bottom.

W is a double-"u" sound. It's a dipthong--a combination of "ooo" and "uh" (and I'd use the phonetic alphabet but I can't too well on the internet.) The rounded oooo-part flows into the w-uh part (lips rounded.) It's a double-U, despite the fact that it looks like 2 V's put together.

And if you go to Mexico and try to spell something with a "doble-V" (double V) they put down, V-V. Which makes no sense. So you have to say "doble-U", so that they put down a W. Despite that I learned to say "doble V" for W in Spanish class.

Answer 4

That is a great question and that isn't the only inconsistency in our language. You will see that a lot. I was always confused by the vowels: a,e,i,o,u "and sometimes y." And the rule "I before E, except after C." There are some words that don't follow that rule.

I guess the only thing I can think of is that Double U sounds better than Double V. Good question though!

Answer 5

If you wrote it with 2 U's together it would ba a uu. Why when you read the letters that are engraved in a court house it says COVRT OF LAW?

Answer 6

good observation. i never really thought of it till now. it sounds like its just a stupid change that the english alphabet made.

Answer 7

Because originally, when double u's were written, they were rounded like two u's.

Answer 8

Because it's English. Nothing about our language is supposed to make sense. Some people say it is one of the hardest to learn.

Answer 9

i think its because the lowercase version looks like uu, i cant type it with this font though, and im half cajun french :)

Answer 10

Good kwestion