One of the few things I remember from my French classes in high school was that the letter is called “double V” in that language. Why did English opt for the “U” instead?
You can hear the French pronunciation here if you’re unfamiliar with it:
https://www.frenchlearner.com/pronunciation/french-alphabet/
V and W are right next to each other in alphabetical order, which seems to lend further credence to the idea that it should be “Double V” and not “Double U”. In fact, the letter U immediately precedes V, so the difference is highlighted in real-time as you go through the alphabet:
- …
- U
- V
- W
- X
- Y
- Z
It’s obviously not at all important in the grand scheme of things, but I’m just curious why we went the way we did!
Cheers!
So to put it in plain words:
The English are an illiterate bunch of alcoholics who base their entire language on the way it’s pronounced when you’re in the pub.
While the French are a stuck up bunch of pretend aristocrats who based their entire language on the scripts of the court.
How would you explain the Japanese? I’m only curious because something that draws me to the language is its “common sense” approach to pronunciation.
Super basic example: か ka が ga
When they import words from other languages the phonetic interpretation makes so much more sense to me. This actually drives me away from learning a lot of European languages.
Nah man, that’s just English.
Other European languages are mostly completely phonetic with exceptions. English is a mess.
You would just have to learn the clusters. Like in French “eaux” makes an /o/ sound, but it’s always that same sound, wherever you encounter it.
Polish looks like letter salad for the uninitiated, but is also consistent in its own rules. Cz = tsh, sz = sh and so on. Once you’ve cracked the code, it’s not difficult to pronounce polish words.
Ever looked at Finnish? I know a lot of people say of a lot of their own languages that “we say things like they’re written”, but we really do. There’s like one phone (linguistics term, not telephone) in the language. It’s the velar nasal that is in the word “language”, ironically. Other than that, purely phonetic. You can put any word in front of me and I’ll pronounce it the same way any other Finn would, where as in English, asking “how do you pronounce that” is common as hell.
Anyway, look at some of these examples:
A horse = hevonen [ˈheʋonen]
Peasoup = hernekeitto [ˈherneˌkːei̯tːo]
Come = tule! [ˈtuˌle]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Finnish
Wow, not really off the mark.
Upper class English spoke French in Shakespeare’s time, seeing the English language as the tongue of the commoners, lower class folk.
Part of what made Shakespeare’s plays different - he brought comedy similar to Moliere’s into English.
Thank you. That was helpful