Board 8 > Explain the letter "W" to me.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Firstly, why does a single letter of the alphabet have three syllables? Secondly, why isn't a double v?

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In Danish it's called double v

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They pronounce it like that in French. V is pronounced "vay" and W is pronounced "doo-bluh-vay".

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And in Indonesian it's called we (pronounced like the 'weh' in Chocobo's kweh).

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Raka_Putra posted...

And in Indonesian it's called we (pronounced like the 'weh' in Chocobo's kweh).

I read this as "Chewbacca's kweh" and was confused

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Because it was originally a double u.

This isn't very complicated.

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Uwu

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Uuuu

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The Spanish translation is also the equivalent of "double v"

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Look at old inscriptions, etc and it's easy to see why it's called that.
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If you spell "W," is it "d-o-u-b-l-e (space) u," or just "w?"

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BakusaiTenketsu posted...

If you spell "W," is it "d-o-u-b-l-e (space) u," or just "w?"

... every letter is "spelt" by itself. if you "spell it out" you're doing a phonetic transcription

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duhbbelyoo

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It comes from a time when peasants couldn't afford to use certain letters due to excessive taxes on long names. The longer your name, the more prestige you had. A revolution was had and as a result, the two u's were agreed upon to be one letter as a compromise, saving everyone lots of money. This is also when the letter Thorn was dropped, as commoner and noble alike agreed that it was a thorn in their sides. Every time someone tried to open up a pub called 'Ye Olde Tavern' it would fail because snarky people would mob it crying out "Whateth beith thine 'Y', it shalth forever beith known 'Thorn'" and then they would promptly die because they had the plague.


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I don't think the /w/ sound exists in Greek, but it used to in archaic Greek. And back then it was called digamma so this is a tradition that goes waaaay back

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dubbelfahkwahs

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg2j7mZ9-2Y
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