Why do we English call W "double-U" while in the rest of Europe it is called "double-V"?

Question

I am English, living in France and with many German and Dutch and Swiss friends. It is them who want the answer. Serious answers only please!

Answer 1

W originated in the Middle Ages as a ligature of two V's. The creation of the ligature seems to be an invention of the English medieval scribes, who didn't have a grapheme to note the /w/ sound in Old English. U was already used for the /u/ sound (it should be noted that the Romans had no such scruples, since /u/ and /w/ were written in their language with a single letter, V). To mitigate this gap, the English scribes used "uu" from about the seventh century, but it wasn't used very much at first because Old English already had the letter wynn, a runic letter resembling modern uppercase P, to represent the /w/ sound.

In the eleventh century, following the victories of William the Conqueror, the Norman scribes reintroduced the digraph uu in a bound form. The letter W had thus been born. V and U, however, were not universally distinguished from each other until about the sixteenth century--at first V was written in a lowercase form, and U in an uppercase form. Many modern renderings of Middle English text standardize the distribution of U and V (modern English "have" would have been written "haue" in Middle English, for example).

Answer 2

you would possibly want to miss about him... ...or bombard him with politics and clarify that technically you're literally not eu because you're literally not an ecu citizen and don't have an ecu passport or that once u . s . a . of america received independence from Europe they created their personal nationality. also, you would possibly want to enlighten him and clarify that how a concepts American sovereignty stretches has no longer something to do with you. tell him to positioned the previous at the back of him and end moaning, he might want to do a lot extra constructive in life if he in basic terms embraced the actual incontrovertible truth that he can stay and study in freedom interior of a multicultural society. Remind him that he's fortunate to stay the position he does! besides, if he has lived in u . s . a . of america when you consider that he replaced into 5 then he's unofficially American too.

Answer 3

Maybe because of handwriting differences? That's just one idea. OK, so which of these looks better: uu or vv, obviously the double v. But try pronouncing the so-called double v. Does it sound anything like the first consonant in the word "word"?

Answer 4

One possibility I can think of is that it's actually supposed to be written as UU, of course connected. Another one might be that, if the w sound came, in at least acknlowledged form, with the Roman's conquest, with their Latin language, where the Vs are pronounced as our modern Ws, the early formers of English might have wanted to differentiate the language, even in naming the letters.

Answer 5

I suppose it is because we English speakers, just have to be different, I mean we dont write UU do we ? So V V makes sense. I can see your friends point, we speak but dont always write what we speak in our language.

Answer 6

I don't know...
actually I never knew it was called anything else in other parts of the world.....
interesting...
I will have to keep an eye on this question so I may find out the answer myself.

Answer 7

coz it looks like a double V vv but i think its because in the old days they had curly writing so it looked more like a UU.
i dont know im making it up, but it sounds good.
xx

Answer 8

the english language we use today are mostly made up of 'borrowed' words from Europe, therefore, most words mean/sound the same.

Answer 9

Because in Europe u just use one way " v" and "u" you just read the way you came where ever they came part from.

Answer 10

in spanish it's also double-v.