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{{wiktionarypar2|W|w}}
{{Latin alphabet navbox|uc=W|lc=w}}
'''W''' is the [[23 (number)|twenty-third]] letter in the [[Latin alphabet]]. Its name in [[English language|English]] is spelled '''double-u''' ({{pronEng|ˈdʌbljuː}}).<ref>"W" ''Oxford English Dictionary,'' 2nd edition (1989); ''Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1993).</ref>
==History==
The earliest form of the letter W was a doubled [[V]] used in the 7th century by the earliest writers of [[Old English language|Old English]]; it is from this <uu> digraph that the modern name "double U" comes. This digraph was not extensively used, as its sound was usually represented instead by the [[rune|runic]] [[wynn]] ({{Unicode|Ƿ}}), but W gained popularity after the [[Norman Conquest of England|Norman Conquest]], and by 1300 it had taken wynn's place in common use. Other forms of the letter were a pair of Vs whose branches cross in the middle. An obsolete, cursive form found in the nineteenth century in both English and German was in the form of an "n" whose rightmost branch curved around as in a cursive "v" (compare the shape of {{Unicode|[[ƕ]]}}).
The sounds {{IPA|/w/}} (spelled with U/V) and {{IPA|/b/}} of [[Latin|Classical Latin]] developed into a [[Voiced bilabial fricative|bilabial fricative]] {{IPA|/β/}} between vowels, in [[Vulgar Latin|Early Medieval Latin]]. Therefore, V no longer represented adequately the [[Voiced labial-velar approximant|labial-velar approximant]] sound {{IPA|/w/}} of [[Old High German]]. In [[German language|German]], this [[phoneme]] {{IPA|/w/}} later became {{IPA|/v/}}; this is why German W represents that sound. In [[Dutch language|Dutch]], it became a [[labiodental approximant]] {{IPA|/ʋ/}} (with the exception of words with EEUW, which have {{IPA|/eːw/}}), or other diphthongs containing ''-uw''.
==Usage==
There are only five major European languages that use W in native words: [[English language|English]], [[German language|German]], [[Polish language|Polish]], [[Dutch language|Dutch]], and [[Welsh language|Welsh]]. English uses it to represent {{IPA|/w/}}, German and Polish use it for the [[voiced labiodental fricative]] {{IPA|/v/}} (with Polish using [[Ł]] for {{IPA|/w/}}), and Dutch uses it for {{IPA|/ʋ/}}. Unlike its use in other languages, the letter is used in [[Welsh language|Welsh]] to represent vowels as well as consonants. English also contains a number of words beginning with a ''w'' that is [[silent letter|silent]] in most dialects before a (pronounced) ''r,'' remaining from usage in [[Old English language|Anglo-Saxon]] in which the ''w'' was pronounced: ''wreak, wrap, wreck, wrench, wroth, wrinkle,'' etc. (Certain dialects of [[Scottish English]] still distinguish this digraph.)
In the [[help:IPA|International Phonetic Alphabet]], {{IPA|/w/}} is used for the [[voiced labial-velar approximant]], probably based on English.
In the [[Finnish alphabet]], "W" is seen as a variant of "V" and not a separate letter. It is however recognised and maintained in the spelling of some old names, reflecting an earlier German spelling standard, and in some modern loan words. In all cases it is pronounced /v/. In the alphabets of modern Romance languages, W is not used, except in foreign names and words recently borrowed (''le week-end'', ''il watt'', ''el kiwi''). When a spelling for {{IPA|/w/}} in a native word is needed, a spelling from the native alphabet, such as V, U, or OU, can be used instead. The same was true in the [[Swedish alphabet|Swedish]] and [[Danish alphabet]]s until 2006 and 1980, respectively, when the letter was officially acknowledged as an individual letter.
The equivalent representation of the {{IPA|/w/}} sound in the [[Cyrillic alphabet]] is [[U short|Ў]], a letter unique to the [[Belarusian language]]. The Russians, however, use the Cyrillic character [[В]], ({{IPA|/v/}} the equivalent of V in the Latin alphabet), when transliterating "W".
"Double U" is the only [[English language|English]] letter name with more than one syllable, except for the occasionally used, though somewhat archaic,''"[[œ]]"'' (its name is pronounced similar to ''"ethel"''). This gives the nine-syllable [[initialism]] '''[[World Wide Web|www]]''' the irony of being an abbreviation that takes three times as many syllables to say as the unabbreviated form. A few speakers therefore shorten the name "double u" into "dub" only, although this is rather rare and nonstandard; for example, [[University of Washington]] and [[University of Wyoming]] are both known colloquially as "U Dub", and the automobile company [[Volkswagen]], abbreviated VW, is sometimes pronounced "V-Dub". In the [[Texas]] dialect of [[American English]], the name is often condensed to two syllables rather than three, as in [[George W. Bush]]'s nickname of "[[Dubya]]".
In recent years, people with last names that begin with "W" frequently received a nickname consisting of their first initial combined with "dub." This may have been popularized by basketball players such as Chris Webber (C-Dub). The fact that many website URLs still require a "www." prefix has likewise given rise to a shortened version of the original, three-syllable pronunciation.
There has been an increasing move away from the three-syllable pronunciation as a result; the "dub" pronunciation vies with a "wuh" or "wub" pronunciation.
==Codes for computing==
{{Letter
|NATO=Whiskey
|Morse=·––
|Character=W
|Braille=⠺
}}
In [[Unicode]] the [[majuscule|capital]] W is codepoint U+0057 and the [[lower case]] w is U+0077.
The [[ASCII]] code for capital W is 87 and for lowercase w is 119; or in [[Binary numeral system|binary]] 01010111 and 01110111, correspondingly.
The [[EBCDIC]] code for capital W is 230 and for lowercase w is 166.
The [[numeric character reference]]s in [[HTML]] and [[XML]] are "<tt>&#87;</tt>" and "<tt>&#119;</tt>" for upper and lower case respectively.
==See also==
{{Commons|W}}
{{Illustrated Wikipedia|W WikiWorld.png}}
For other uses and meanings of the letter "W", see [[W (disambiguation)]]. See also:
*[[National Association of W Lovers]]
*[[U]]
*[[V]]
*[[Wh (digraph)]]
*[[Wynn]]
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{Latin alphabet}}
[[Category:Latin letters]]
[[Category:Vowel letters]]
[[Category:Latin alphabet ligatures]]
[[af:W]]
[[als:W]]
[[ar:W]]
[[arc:W]]
[[ast:W]]
[[az:W]]
[[bs:W]]
[[br:W (lizherenn)]]
[[ca:W]]
[[ceb:W]]
[[cs:W]]
[[co:W]]
[[cy:W]]
[[da:W]]
[[de:W]]
[[el:W]]
[[es:W]]
[[eo:W]]
[[eu:W]]
[[fa:W]]
[[fr:W (lettre)]]
[[fur:W]]
[[gan:W]]
[[gd:W]]
[[gl:W]]
[[ko:W]]
[[hr:W]]
[[ilo:W]]
[[is:W]]
[[it:W]]
[[he:W]]
[[ka:W]]
[[kw:W]]
[[sw:W]]
[[ht:W]]
[[la:W]]
[[lt:W]]
[[hu:W]]
[[mk:W]]
[[nah:W]]
[[nl:W (letter)]]
[[ja:W]]
[[no:W]]
[[nn:W]]
[[nrm:W]]
[[uz:W (harf)]]
[[pl:W]]
[[pt:W]]
[[ro:W]]
[[qu:W]]
[[ru:W (латиница)]]
[[se:W]]
[[simple:W]]
[[sk:W]]
[[sl:W]]
[[fi:W]]
[[sv:W]]
[[tl:W]]
[[th:W]]
[[vi:W]]
[[tr:W]]
[[uk:W (латиниця)]]
[[wuu:W]]
[[yo:W]]
[[zh-yue:W]]
[[bat-smg:W]]
[[zh:W]]