U

U
ISO basic Laitin alphabet

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

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]

Uisage

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

N n : Latin letter N (an upside-doun "U u")
Υ υ : Greek letter Upsilon
У у : Cyrillic letter U
V v : Latin letter V
W w : Latin letter W
Μ μ : Greek letter Mu
Ŭ ŭ : Latin letter U wi breve
Ü ü : Latin letter U wi diaeresis/umlaut
Ʉ ʉ : Latin letter U wit bar

Computin codes

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

NATO phonetic	Morse code
Uniform	··–

		[[File:Sign language {{{fingerspelling}}}.svg\|90px]]
Seegnal banner	Banner semaphore	American manual alphabet (ASL fingerspellin)	Braille dots-136

References

↑ "U", Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993)
↑ 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.
↑ 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

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 v t e
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
Related
Derivations Diacritics History ISO/IEC 646 Leet o letters Numerals Palaeography Punctuation Unicode

[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.

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