Correspondence With Latin Y
The usage of Y in Latin dates back to the first century BC. It was used to transcribe loanwords from Greek, so it was not a native sound of Latin and was usually pronounced /u/ or /i/. The latter pronunciation was the most common in the Classical period and was used by most people except the educated ones. The Roman Emperor Claudius proposed introducing a new letter into the Latin alphabet to transcribe the so-called sonus medius (a short vowel before labial consonants), but in inscriptions was sometimes used for Greek upsilon instead.
The name of the letter was originally just υ (y; also called hy, hence "hyoid", meaning "shaped like the letter υ"). It changed to υ ψιλόν, (u psilon, meaning 'simple u') to distinguish it from οι, which had come to have the same pronunciation. Four letters of the Latin alphabet arose from it: V and Y and, much later, U and W. In the Cyrillic script, the letters U (У, у) and Izhitsa (Ѵ, ѵ) arose from it.
In some languages (most notably German), the name upsilon (Ypsilon in German) is used to refer to the Latin letter Y as well as the Greek letter.
Read more about this topic: Upsilon
Famous quotes containing the word latin:
“Americans living in Latin American countries are often more snobbish than the Latins themselves. The typical American has quite a bit of money by Latin American standards, and he rarely sees a countryman who doesn’t. An American businessman who would think nothing of being seen in a sport shirt on the streets of his home town will be shocked and offended at a suggestion that he appear in Rio de Janeiro, for instance, in anything but a coat and tie.”
—Hunter S. Thompson (b. 1939)