Y 34243 225993122 2008-07-16T10:42:37Z RJaguar3 4156654 rv edit test (using [[WP:HG|Huggle]]) {{otherusesof}} {{refimprove|article|date=January 2007}} {{wiktionarypar2|Y|y}} {{Latin alphabet navbox|uc=Y|lc=y}} The letter '''Y''' is the twenty-fifth letter in the modern [[Latin alphabet]]. Its name in [[English language|English]] is spelled '''wye''' or occasionally '''wy''' ({{pronEng|waɪ}}), plural '''wyes.'''<ref>"Y" ''Oxford English Dictionary,'' 2nd edition (1989); ''Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1993); "wy," op. cit.</ref> {{IPA|}} ==History== [[Image:Proto-semiticW-01.png|right]] The original ancestor of Y was the Semitic letter ''[[Waw (letter)|Waw]]'', which was also the ultimate origin of the modern letters [[F]], [[U]], [[V]], and [[W]]. See [[F]] for details. In [[Ancient Greek]], Υψιλον (''[[Upsilon]]'') represented {{IPA2|/u/}}, then later on {{IPA|/y/}} &mdash; [[close front rounded vowel]]. The [[Ancient Rome|Romans]] had already borrowed this as the letter V, to represent both the vowel {{IPA|/u/}} as well as the consonant {{IPA|/w/}}, but in later times, because the pronunciation of ''Ypsilon'' in Greek had shifted to {{IPA|/y/}}, they borrowed it directly in its original form, stem and all, as Y &mdash; mainly to represent names and words taken from Greek. The letter Y was used in [[Old English language|Old English]], as in [[Latin]], to represent {{IPA|/y/}}; however, some claim that this use was an independent invention in England created by stacking a V and an I, unrelated to the Latin use of the letter. Regardless, it is fairly likely that the letter, although technically named ''Y Græca'' (IPA {{IPA|[u gre:ka]}}) meaning 'Greek u' in contradistinction from native Latin {{IPA|/u/}}, came to be analyzed as the letter [[V]] (called {{IPA|/uː/}}) atop the letter [[I]] (called {{IPA|/iː/}}). The letter was thus referred to as {{IPA|[uː iː]}}, which after {{IPA|/uː/}} became the glide {{IPA|/w/}} and after English's [[Great Vowel Shift]] naturally became {{IPA|/waɪ/}}. By [[Middle English]], {{IPA|/y/}} had lost its [[roundedness]] and merged with {{IPA|/i/}}, and Y came to be used with the same values as I, {{IPA|/iː/}} and {{IPA|/ɪ/}} as well as {{IPA|/j/}}. Those dialects that retained {{IPA|/y/}} spelled it with U, under French influence. The [[Modern English]] use of Y is a direct continuation of this Middle English use. Thus the words ''myth'' [of Greek origin] and ''gift'' [of Old English origin], which originally contained high front rounded vowels, both have {{IPA|[ɪ]}}. With the introduction of printing, the letter Y was used by [[William Caxton|Caxton]] and other printers in [[England]] to represent the [[thorn (letter)|letter thorn]] (Þ, þ) which was lacking from continental [[typeface]]s, resulting in the use of ''ye'' for the word ''the''. ==Usage== In Spanish, Y is called ''i/y griega'', in Catalan ''i grega'', in French and Romanian ''i grec'', in Polish ''igrek'' - all meaning "Greek i" (except for Polish, where it is simply a phonetic transcription of the Latin name); in most other European languages the Greek name is still used; in German, for example, it is called ''Ypsilon'' (or also sometimes spelt "Üpsilon") and in Portuguese it's called ''ípsilon'' or ''ípsilo'' (although in Portuguese there is also the name "Greek i"). [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/portuguese.htm] The letter Y was originally established as a vowel. In the standard English language, the letter Y is traditionally regarded as a consonant, but a survey of almost any English text, will show that Y more commonly functions as a vowel. In many cases, it is known as a [[semivowel]] (a type of consonant). After fronting from {{IPA|/u/}}, [[Greek language|Greek]] {{IPA|/y/}} de-rounded to {{IPA|/i/}}. In [[English language|English]] [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]], ''-y'' is a [[diminutive]] suffix. The y axis means the vertical axis in graphs. ===Other Germanic and Scandinavian Languages=== When not serving as the second vowel in a [[diphthong]], it has the sound value {{IPA|/y/}} in the [[Scandinavian language]]s and {{IPA|/ʏ/}} in [[German language|German]]. Y can never be a consonant (except for [[loanword]]s), but in diphthongs, as in the name Meyer, it serves as a variant of "i". In [[Dutch language|Dutch]], Y appears only in [[loanword]]s and names and usually represents {{IPA|/i/}}. It is often left out of the Dutch alphabet and replaced with the "[[IJ (digraph)|ligature IJ]]". In [[Afrikaans language|Afrikaans]], a development of Dutch, Y denotes the diphthong [EI], probably as a result of mixing lower case i and y or may derive from the IJ ligature. ===Spanish=== In the [[Spanish language]], Y was used as a word-initial form of I that was more visible. (German has used [[J]] in a similar way.) Hence ''[[el yugo y las flechas|el Yugo y las Flechas]]'' was a symbol sharing the initials of [[Isabella I of Castille]] (''Ysabel'') and [[Ferdinand II of Aragon]]. This spelling was reformed by the [[Royal Spanish Academy]] and currently is only found in proper names spelt archaically, such as [[Ybarra]] or [[CYII]], the symbol of the [[Canal de Isabel II]]. [[X]] is also still used in Spanish with a different sound in some archaisms. Appearing alone as a word, the letter Y is a [[grammatical conjunction]] with the meaning "and" in [[Spanish language|Spanish]] and is pronounced {{IPA|/i/}}. In [[Spanish name|Spanish family name]]s, ''y'' can separate the father's surname from the mother's surname as in "[[Santiago Ramón y Cajal]]". Catalan names use ''i'' for this. Otherwise, Y represents {{IPA|/[[ʝ]]/}} in Spanish. When coming before the sound {{IPA|/i/}}, Y is replaced with E: "español e inglés". This is to avoid pronouncing {{IPA|/i/}} twice. The letter Y is called "I/Y griega", the "Greek I", after the Greek letter [[Ypsilon]]. ===Other Languages=== [[Italian language|Italian]], too, has Y (''i greca'' or ''ipsilon'') in a small number of loanwords. In [[Polish language|Polish]] and [[Guaraní language|Guaraní]], it represents the [[close central unrounded vowel]] (IPA: /ɨ/) In [[Finnish language|Finnish]] and [[Albanian language|Albanian]], Y is always pronounced {{IPA|/y/}}. In [[Lithuanian Language|Lithuanian]] Y is 15th letter and is a vowel. It is called ''the long i'' and is pronounced /i:/ like in English ''see''. In [[Faroese language|Faroese]] and [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]], it's always pronounced {{IPA|i}}. It can also be the part of diphthongs: ey and oy (Faroese only). In [[Azerbaijan]]i Y is pronounced as {{IPA|ya}}. In contrast, in the Latin transcription of [[Nenets language|Nenets]] (''Nyenec'') the letter "y" [[palatalization|palatalizes]] the preceding consonant. The letter Y shows how letters change their function. When used as a vowel in [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]], the letter ''y'' represents the [[close front unrounded vowel]]. When used as a monophthong, it is functionally equivalent to the Vietnamese letter ''i''. Thus, ''Mỹ Lai'' does not rhyme but ''mỳ Lee'' does. There have been efforts to replace all such uses with ''i'' altogether, but they have been largely unsuccessful. In [[Quechua]] and [[Aymara language|Aymara]], Y is always {{IPA|/j/}}. ==Significance in the IPA== In the [[help:IPA|International Phonetic Alphabet]], {{IPA|[y]}} corresponds to the [[close front rounded vowel]], and the slightly different character {{IPA|[ʏ]}} corresponds to the [[near-close near-front rounded vowel]]. It is indicative of the rarity of front rounded vowels that {{IPA|[y]}} is the rarest sound represented in the IPA by a letter of the Latin alphabet, being cross-linguistically less than half as frequent as [[voiceless uvular plosive|{{IPA|[q]}}]] or [[voiceless palatal plosive|{{IPA|[c]}}]] and only about a quarter as frequent as [[voiceless velar fricative|{{IPA|[x]}}]]. ==Codes for computing== {{Letter |NATO=Yankee |Morse=–·–– |Character=Y |Braille=⠽ }} In [[Unicode]] the [[majuscule|capital]] Y is codepoint U+0059 and the [[lower case]] y is U+0079. The [[ASCII]] code for capital Y is 89 and for lowercase y is 121; or in [[Binary numeral system|binary]] 01011001 and 01111001, correspondingly. The [[EBCDIC]] code for capital Y is 232 and for lowercase y is 168. The [[numeric character reference]]s in [[HTML]] and [[XML]] are "<tt>&amp;#89;</tt>" and "<tt>&amp;#121;</tt>" for upper and lower case respectively. ==See also== *{{Unicode|[[Υ|Υ, υ]]}}, the Greek upsilon *{{Unicode|[[У|У, у]]}}, the Cyrillic U *{{Unicode|[[Ү|Ү, ү]]}}, the Cyrillic Ue (Straight U) *{{Unicode|[[Ɏ]]}}, a Y with a stroke in the Latin alphabet *{{Unicode|[[Ƴ]]}}, a hooked Y in the Latin alphabet *{{Unicode|[[¥]]}}, a currency symbol * In the Japanese [[resale price maintenance]] system for music and print publications, ''[[saihan seido]]'', [[Japanese typographic symbols#Organization-specific symbols|the typographic symbol]] {{unicode|Ⓨ}} marks the first date for the fixed price and {{unicode|[[Ⓧ]]}} marks the last date. ==References== {{Commons|Y}} {{reflist}} {{Latin alphabet}} [[Category:Latin letters]] [[Category:Vowel letters]] [[af:Y]] [[als:Y]] [[ar:Y]] [[arc:Y]] [[ast:Y]] [[az:Y]] [[br:Y (lizherenn)]] [[ca:Y]] [[cs:Y]] [[co:Y]] [[cy:Y]] [[da:Y]] [[de:Y]] [[et:Y]] [[el:Y]] [[es:Y]] [[eo:Y]] [[eu:Y]] [[fa:Y]] [[fr:Y (lettre)]] [[fur:Y]] [[gan:Y]] [[gd:Y]] [[gl:Y]] [[ko:Y]] [[hr:Y]] [[ilo:Y]] [[is:Y]] [[it:Y]] [[he:Y]] [[ka:Y]] [[kw:Y]] [[sw:Y]] [[ht:Y]] [[la:Y]] [[lv:Y]] [[lt:Y]] [[hu:Y]] [[mzn:Y]] [[nah:Y]] [[nl:Y (letter)]] [[ja:Y]] [[no:Y]] [[nn:Y]] [[nrm:Y]] [[uz:Y (harf)]] [[pl:Y]] [[pt:Y]] [[ro:Y]] [[qu:Y]] [[ru:Y (латиница)]] [[simple:Y]] [[sk:Y]] [[sl:Y]] [[fi:Y]] [[sv:Y]] [[tl:Y]] [[th:Y]] [[vi:Y]] [[tr:Y]] [[uk:Y (латиниця)]] [[vo:Y]] [[yo:Y]] [[zh-yue:Y]] [[bat-smg:Y]] [[zh:Y]]