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U (minuscule: u) is the twenty-first letter and the fifth vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet and the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is u (pronounced /ˈjuː/ⓘ), plural ues.[1][2][3][a]

Name

In English, the name of the letter is the "long U" sound, pronounced /ˈjuː/. In most other languages, its name matches the letter's pronunciation in open syllables.

Pronunciation of the name of the letter ⟨u⟩ in European languages

History

U derives from the Semitic waw, as does F, and later, Y, W, and V. Its oldest ancestor goes back to Egyptian hieroglyphs, and is probably from a hieroglyph of a mace or fowl, representing the sound [v] or the sound [w]. This was borrowed to Phoenician, where it represented the sound [w], and seldom the vowel [u].

In Greek, two letters were adapted from the Phoenician waw. The letter was adapted, but split in two, with Digamma or wau ⟨Ϝ⟩ being adapted to represent [w], and the second one being Upsilon⟨Υ⟩, which was originally adapted to represent [u], later fronted, becoming [y].

In Latin, a stemless variant shape of the upsilon was borrowed in early times as U, taking the form of modern-day V–either directly from the Western Greek alphabet or from the Etruscan alphabet as an intermediary–to represent the same /u/ sound, as well as the consonantal /w/, num–originally spelled NVM–was pronounced /num/ and via was pronounced [ˈwia]. From the 1st century AD on, depending on Vulgar Latin dialect, consonantal /w/ developed into /β/ (kept in Spanish), then later to /v/.    

During the late Middle Ages, two minuscule forms developed, which were both used for /v/ or the vowel /u/. The pointed form ⟨v⟩ was written at the beginning of a word, while a rounded form ⟨u⟩ was used in the middle or end, regardless of sound. So whereas 'valour' and 'excuse' appeared as in modern printing, 'have' and 'upon' were printed 'haue' and 'vpon', respectively. The first recorded use of ⟨u⟩ and ⟨v⟩ as distinct letters is in a Gothic alphabet from 1386, where ⟨v⟩ preceded ⟨u⟩. Printers eschewed capital ⟨U⟩ in favor of ⟨V⟩ into the 17th century and the distinction between the two letters was not fully accepted by the French Academy until 1762.[4][5] The rounded variant became the modern-day version of U and its former pointed form became V.

Use in writing systems

English

In English, the letter ⟨u⟩ has four main pronunciations. There are "long" and "short" pronunciations. Short ⟨u⟩, found originally in closed syllables, most commonly represents /ʌ/ (as in 'duck'), though it retains its old pronunciation /ʊ/ after labial consonants in some words (as in 'put') and occasionally elsewhere (as in 'sugar'). Long ⟨u⟩, found originally in words of French origin (the descendant of Old English long ⟨u⟩ was respelled as ⟨ou⟩), most commonly represents /juː/ (as in 'mule'), reducing to /uː/ after ⟨r⟩ (as in 'rule'), ⟨j⟩ (as in 'June') and sometimes (or optionally) after ⟨l⟩ (as in 'lute'), and after additional consonants in American English (a do–dew merger). (After ⟨s⟩, /sjuː,zjuː/ have assimilated to /ʃuː,ʒuː/ in some words.)

The letter ⟨u⟩ is used in the digraphs ⟨au⟩/ɔː/, ⟨ou⟩ (various pronunciations, but usually /aʊ/), and with the value of long ⟨u⟩ in ⟨eu⟩, ⟨ue⟩, and in a few words ⟨ui⟩ (as in 'fruit'). It often has the sound /w/ before a vowel in the sequences ⟨qu⟩ (as in 'quick'), ⟨gu⟩ (as in 'anguish'), and ⟨su⟩ (as in 'suave'), though it is silent in final ⟨que⟩ (as in 'unique') and in many words with ⟨gu⟩ (as in 'guard').

Additionally, the letter ⟨u⟩ is used in text messaging, the Internet, and other written slang to denote 'you', by virtue of both being pronounced /juː/.

Certain varieties of the English language (i.e. British English, Canadian English, etc.) use the letter U in words such as colour, labour, valour, etc. In American English, the letter is not used, and the words mentioned are spelled as color and so on.

It is the thirteenth most frequently used letter in the English language, with a frequency of about 2.8% in words.[8]

Other languages

In most languages that use the Latin alphabet, ⟨u⟩ represents the close back rounded vowel/u/ or a similar vowel.[9]

Other systems

The International Phonetic Alphabet uses ⟨u⟩ for the close back rounded vowel.

Other uses

  • The symbol 'U' is the chemical symbol for uranium.
  • In the context of Newtonian mechanics, 'U' is the symbol for the potential energy of a system.
  • 'u' is the symbol for the unified atomic mass unit, and 'U' is the symbol for one enzyme unit.
  • In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the close back rounded vowel is represented by the lowercase ⟨u⟩.
  • 'U' is also the source of the mathematical symbol ∪, representing a union. It is used mainly for Venn diagrams and geometry.
  • It is used for micro- in metric measurements as a replacement for the Greek letter μ (mu), of which it is a graphic approximation when that Greek letter is not available, as in "um" for μm (micrometer).
  • Some universities, such as the University of Miami and the University of Utah, are locally known as "The U".
  • 'U' (or sometimes RU) is a standard height unit of measure in rack units, with each U equal to 44.50 millimetres (1.75in). 
  • 'U' is used as the symbol of the World War II organization Ustaše.
  • U is an honorific in Burmese.[10]
  • The prefix U+ (then a number) is used to indicate a codepoint as being in the Unicode character encoding system (to distinguish it from other encoding systems). For example, the codepoints for the letters ⟨U⟩ and ⟨u⟩ are given formally as U+0055ULATIN CAPITAL LETTER U and U+0075uLATIN SMALL LETTER U.

Ancestors, descendants and siblings

  • ⟨𐤅‎⟩: Semitic letter Waw, from which the following symbols originally derive:
    • ⟨Υ υ⟩: Greek letter Upsilon, from which U derives
      • ⟨V v⟩: Latin letter V, descended from U
        • ⟨W w⟩: Latin letter W, descended from V/U
      • ⟨Y y⟩: Latin letter Y, also descended from Upsilon
      • ⟨У у⟩: Cyrillic letter U, which also derives from Upsilon
      • ⟨Ү ү⟩: Cyrillic letter Ue
    • ⟨Ϝ ϝ⟩: Greek letter Digamma
      • ⟨F f⟩: Latin letter F, derived from Digamma
  • IPA-specific symbols related to U: ⟨ʊ⟩⟨ɥ⟩
  • Uralic Phonetic Alphabet-specific symbols related to U:[11]
    • U+1D1CᴜLATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL U
    • U+1D41ᵁMODIFIER LETTER CAPITAL U
    • U+1D58ᵘMODIFIER LETTER SMALL U
    • U+1D64ᵤLATIN SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER U
    • U+1D1DᴝLATIN SMALL LETTER SIDEWAYS U
    • U+1D1EᴞLATIN SMALL LETTER SIDEWAYS DIAERESIZED U
    • U+1D59ᵙMODIFIER LETTER SMALL SIDEWAYS U
  • Teuthonista phonetic transcription-specific symbols related to U:[12]
    • U+AB4EꭎLATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH SHORT RIGHT LEG
    • U+AB4FꭏLATIN SMALL LETTER U BAR WITH SHORT RIGHT LEG
    • U+AB51ꭑLATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED UI
    • U+AB52ꭒLATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH LEFT HOOK
    • U+AB5FꭟMODIFIER LETTER SMALL U WITH LEFT HOOK
  • U+1DB8ᶸMODIFIER LETTER SMALL CAPITAL U: used for phonetic transcription[13]
  • ⟨Ꞿ ꞿ⟩: Glottal U, used in the transliteration of Ugaritic[14]
  • U with diacritics: ⟨Ŭ ŭɄ ʉ ᵾ⟩[13]⟨ᶶ⟩[13]⟨Ꞹ⟩[15]⟨ꞹ⟩[15]⟨Ụ ụ⟩⟨Ü ü⟩⟨Ǜ ǜ⟩⟨Ǘ ǘ⟩⟨Ǚ ǚ⟩⟨Ǖ ǖ⟩⟨Ṳ ṳ⟩⟨Ú ú⟩⟨Ù ù⟩⟨Û û Ṷ ṷ⟩⟨Ǔ ǔ⟩⟨Ȗ ȗ⟩⟨Ű ű⟩⟨Ŭ ŭ⟩⟨Ư ư⟩⟨Ứ ứ⟩⟨Ừ ừ⟩⟨Ử ử⟩⟨Ự ự⟩⟨Ữ Ữ⟩⟨Ủ ủ⟩⟨Ū ū⟩⟨Ū̀ ū̀⟩⟨Ū́ ū́⟩⟨Ṻ ṻ⟩⟨Ū̃ ū̃⟩⟨Ũ ũ⟩⟨Ṹ ṹ⟩⟨Ṵ ṵ⟩⟨ᶙ⟩[13]⟨Ų ų Ų́ ų́ Ų̃ ų̃⟩⟨Ȕ ȕ⟩⟨Ů ů⟩
    • U+A7B8ꞸLATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH STROKE and U+A7B9ꞹLATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH STROKE are used in the Mazahua language and feature a bar diacritic.

Ligatures and abbreviations

Other representations

Computing

Other

Notes

  1. ↑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.

References

  1. ↑"U". Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. 1989.
  2. ↑Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged. 1993.
  3. ↑Brown, Goold; Kiddle, Henry (1870). The institutes of English grammar. New York, W. Wood & co. p.19. 
  4. ↑cf. "U," in Dictionnaire de l'Académie Françoise, 4th ed., 2: 893. 2 vols. Paris: Chez la Veuve de Bernard Brunet, Imprimeur de l'Académie Françoiſe, 1762. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k12803850/f901.item; and "U," in Dictionnaire de l'Académie Françoise, 4th ed., 2: 893. 2 vols. Paris: Chez la Veuve de Bernard Brunet, Imprimeur de l'Académie Françoiſe, 1762. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k12803850/f901.item.
  5. ↑Pflughaupt, Laurent (2008). Letter by Letter: An Alphabetical Miscellany. Translated by Bruhn, Gregory. Princeton Architectural Press. pp.123–124. ISBN  978-1-56898-737-8. Retrieved June 21, 2009.
  6. ↑Odinye, Sunny Ifeanyi (January 2015). "Phonology of Mandarin Chinese: Pinyin vs. IPA". ResearchGate. Retrieved May 17, 2021.
  7. ↑"Indonesian Alphabet and Pronunciation". Archived from the original on May 8, 2021. Retrieved May 17, 2021.
  8. ↑"Frequency Table". pi.math.cornell.edu. Retrieved May 8, 2025.
  9. ↑"Latin". Ancient Scripts. Archived from the original on June 11, 2017. Retrieved June 8, 2017.
  10. ↑Pun, Sharon (August 4, 2018). "The meaning behind Myanmar names". Frontier Myanmar. Archived from the original on February 14, 2021. Retrieved February 9, 2021.
  11. ↑Everson, Michael (March 20, 2002). "L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS"(PDF). Archived(PDF) from the original on February 19, 2018. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  12. ↑Everson, Michael; Dicklberger, Alois; Pentzlin, Karl; Wandl-Vogt, Eveline (June 2, 2011). "L2/11-202: Revised proposal to encode "Teuthonista" phonetic characters in the UCS"(PDF). Archived(PDF) from the original on October 11, 2017. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  13. 1234Constable, Peter (April 19, 2004). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS"(PDF). Archived(PDF) from the original on October 11, 2017. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  14. ↑Suignard, Michel (May 9, 2017). "L2/17-076R2: Revised proposal for the encoding of an Egyptological YOD and Ugaritic characters"(PDF). Archived(PDF) from the original on March 30, 2019. Retrieved March 8, 2019.
  15. 12Jacquerye, Denis (January 22, 2016). "L2/16-032: Proposal to encode two Latin characters for Mazahua"(PDF). Archived(PDF) from the original on March 30, 2019. Retrieved June 19, 2018.
  • Wikimedia Commons logo Media related to U at Wikimedia Commons
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