The letter u ultimately comes from the Phoenician letter waw by way of the letter y. See the letter y for details. During the late Middle Ages, two forms of 'v' developed, which were both used for its ancestor 'u' and modern 'v'. 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 'through' 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' into the 17th century and the distinction between the two letters was not fully accepted by the French Academy until 1762.
Pronunciation and use
English
In English, the letter has four main pronunciations. There are "long" and "short" pronunciations. Short, found originally in closed syllables, most commonly represents , though it retains its old pronunciation after labial consonants in some words and occasionally elsewhere. Long, found originally in words of French origin, most commonly represents , reducing to after , and sometimes after , and after additional consonants in American English. In a few words, short represents other sounds, such as in 'business' and in 'bury'. The letter is used in the digraphs , , and with the value of "long u" in,, and in a few words . It often has the sound before a vowel in the sequences , , and , though it is silent in final -que and in many words with . Additionally, the letter is used in text messaging and internet and other written slang to denote 'you', by virtue of both being pronounced. One thing to note is that certain varieties of the English language use the letter U in words such as colour, labour, valour, etc.; however, in American English the letter is not used and said words mentioned are spelled as color and so on.
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 atomic mass unit and 'U' is the symbol for one Enzyme unit. In IPA, the close back rounded vowel is represented by the lower case ⟨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 as for micro- in metric measurements as a replacement for the Greek letterμ, of which it is a graphic approximation, when that Greek letter is not available, as in "um" for μm. Some universities, such as the University of Miami and the University of Utah, are locally known as "The U". U is a standard height unit of measure in rack units, with each U equal to.
Related characters
Ancestors, descendants and siblings
?: Semitic letter Waw, from which the following symbols originally derive
