Jump to content

U

Frae Wikipedia, the free beuk o knawledge
U
U
ISO basic Laitin 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

Cursive script 'u' and capital 'U' in the U.S. D'Nealian script style

U (named u /ˈjuː/, plural ues[1][2]) is the twinty-first letter in the ISO basic Latin alphabet an a vowel in the Inglis alphabet. Seembol 'U' is the chemical seembol for uranium.

History

[eedit | eedit soorce]

The letter U ultimately comes frae the Semitic letter Waw bi wey o the letter Y. See the letter Y for details.

Durin the late Middlin Ages, twa forms o 'v' developit, which wur baith uised for its auncestor 'u' an modren 'v'. The pyntit fairm 'v' wis written at the beginnin o a wird, while a roondit fairm 'u' wis uised in the middlin or end, regairdless o soond. Sae whauras 'valor' an 'excuse' appeared as in modren printin, 'hae' an 'upon' wur printed 'haue' an 'vpon'. The first distinction atween the letters 'u' an 'v' is recordit in a Gothic alphabet frae 1386, whaur 'v' precedit 'u'. Bi the mid-16t century, the 'v' fairm wis uised tae represent the consonant an 'u' the vowel soond, givin us the modren letter 'u'. Caipital 'U' wis nae acceptit as a distinct letter till mony years later.[3]

In maist leids that uise the Latin alphabet, 'U' represents the close back roondit vowel /u/.

In Inglis the letter is pronoonced differently in different wirds. In closed syllables, it commonly represents /ʌ/ ("short U" as in 'duck') or /ʊ/ (as in 'put'). In open syllables, it commonly represents /u(ː)/ (as in 'blue') or /ju(ː)/ ("long U" as in 'mule'). Addeetionally, the letter U is uised in text messagin an internet an ither written slang tae denote 'you', bi virtue o baith bein pronoonced [juː].

In French the letter represents the close front roondit vowel; /u/ is representit bi 'ou'.

U is an aa the mathematics seembol for Union, which is uised mainly for Venn diagrams an geometry.

Relatit letters an ither similar characters

[eedit | eedit soorce]

Computin codes

[eedit | eedit soorce]
Character U u
Unicode name LATIN CAIPITAL LETTER U     LATIN SMAA LETTER U
Encodins decimal hex decimal hex
Unicode 85 U+0055 117 U+0075
UTF-8 85 55 117 75
Numeric chairacter reference U U u u
EBCDIC faimily 228 E4 164 A4
ASCII 1 85 55 117 75
1 An aa for encodins based on ASCII, includin the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 an Macintosh faimilies o encodins.

Ither representations

[eedit | eedit soorce]

References

[eedit | eedit soorce]
  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, page 19.
    Ues is the plural of the name of the letter; the plural of the letter itself is rendered 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 978-1-56898-737-8. Retrieved 21 Juin 2009.

Freemit airtins

[eedit | eedit soorce]
  • Media relatit tae U at Wikimedia Commons
  • The dictionar defineetion o U at Wiktionary
  • The dictionar defineetion o u at Wiktionary


The ISO basic Laitin 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
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
Related