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The close back rounded vowel, or high back rounded vowel, [1] is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is u , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is u. In most languages, this rounded vowel is pronounced with protruded lips ('endolabial'). However, in a ...
There was also a pair of back vowels of mid-height, /o/ and /oː/, both of which were written o (the longer vowel is often ō in modern editions). The same four vowels existed in the Middle English system. The short vowels were still written u and o , but long /uː/ came to be spelt as ou , and /oː/ as oo .
Because the u at the time looked like a V, the double U looked like two Vs, W was placed in the alphabet after V. U developed when people began to use the rounded U when they meant the vowel U and the pointed V when the meant the consonant V. J began as a variation of I, in which a long tail was added to the final I when there were several in a ...
U is a vowel of Indic abugidas. In modern Indic scripts, U is derived from the early "Ashoka" Brahmi letter after having gone through the Gupta letter .As an Indic vowel, U comes in two normally distinct forms: 1) as an independent letter, and 2) as a vowel sign for modifying a base consonant.
The Great Vowel Shift was a series of chain shifts that affected historical long vowels but left short vowels largely alone. It is one of the primary causes of the idiosyncrasies in English spelling. The shortening of ante-penultimate syllables in Middle English created many long–short pairs. The result can be seen in such words as,
Others come from loss of /j/ or /w/ between vowels, e.g. PG frijōndz > OE frīond > frēond "friend"; PG saiwimiz "sea (dat. pl.)" > *sǣƿum > OE sǣm. Back mutation : Short e , i and (in Mercian only) a are sometimes broken to short eo , io , and ea when a back vowel follows in the next syllable.
U, or 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 / ˈ j uː / ⓘ ), plural ues .
Back mutation (sometimes back umlaut, guttural umlaut, u-umlaut, or velar umlaut) is a change that took place in late prehistoric Old English and caused short e, i and sometimes a to break into a diphthong (eo, io, ea respectively, similar to breaking) when a back vowel (u, o, ō, a) occurred in the following syllable. [24] Examples: