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I, U, Y Were Dual-Purpose Letters
- The letters I, U, and Y historically represented both vowel and consonant (semi-vowel) sounds.
- That overlap explains why English spelling uses I and U for sounds that behave like both vowels and consonants.
Gothic Script Caused Letter Confusion
- Gothic (blackletter) handwriting used vertical strokes called minims that made I and U hard to distinguish.
- That visual confusion pushed scribes to invent orthographic workarounds still visible in modern spelling.
W Is A Rounded Variant Of U
- W and U share articulation: both use lip-rounding and similar tongue positions, making W a semi-vowel version of U.
- Linguists often treat initial W and medial U as the same sound in different syllable positions.