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Episode 161: Y U and I Have a Problem

The History of English Podcast

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What Is Upsilon?

Greek letter Iota eventually passed into English as Iota, meaning something very small. The sound at the beginning of Iota evolved into a J sound. Both versions of that Greek letter's name have made their way into modern English. So what about the letter U? Was it also a Greek letter? Well, sort of. It's actually the original version of both our modern letter U and our modern letter Y.

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