Editing Y (section)

==History==
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
|- 
! Proto-Sinaitic
! Phoenician<br />[[Waw (letter)|waw]]
! Western Greek<br />[[Upsilon]]
! Latin<br />Y
|-
| [[File:Proto-semiticW-01.png|class=skin-invert-image|40px]]
| [[File:PhoenicianW-01.svg|class=skin-invert-image|frameless|40x40px]]
| [[File:Greek_Upsilon_normal.svg|class=skin-invert-image|40px]]
| [[File:Capitalis monumentalis Y.SVG|class=skin-invert-image|x30px|Latin Y]]
|}
The oldest direct ancestor of the letter Y was the [[Semitic alphabets|Semitic]] letter ''[[waw (letter)|waw]]'' (pronounced as {{IPA|[w]}}), from which also come [[F]], [[U]], [[V]], and [[W]]. See [[F]] for details. The Greek and Latin alphabets developed from the [[Phoenician alphabet|Phoenician]] form of this early alphabet.

The form of the modern letter Y is derived from the Greek letter [[upsilon]]. It dates back to the Latin of the first century BC, when upsilon was introduced a second time, this time with its "foot" to distinguish it. It was used to transcribe loanwords from the [[Attic Greek|Attic]] dialect of Greek, which had the non-Latin vowel sound {{IPA|/y/}} (as found in modern French ''cru'' (raw) or German ''grün'' (green)) in words that had been pronounced with {{IPA|/u/}} in earlier Greek.

Because {{IPA|[y]}} was not a native sound of Latin, Latin speakers had trouble pronouncing it, and it was usually pronounced {{IPA|/i/}}.{{Citation needed|date=September 2011}} Some Latin words of [[Italic languages|Italic]] origin also came to be spelled with 'y': Latin ''silva'' ('forest') was commonly spelled ''sylva'', in analogy with the Greek cognate and synonym ''ὕλη''.<ref>[[Oxford English Dictionary]] Second edition, 1989; online version June 2011, ''s.v.'' 'sylva'</ref>

===English===
{{refimprove section|date=March 2024}}
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
|+Summary of the sources of [[Modern English]] "Y"
|-
! rowspan="2" | Phoenician !! rowspan="2" | Greek !! rowspan="2" | Latin !! colspan="3" | &nbsp;English (''approximate'' times of changes)
|-
! Old !! Middle !! Modern
|-
| rowspan="2" | [[File:Phoenician waw.svg|class=skin-invert-image|75px]] || rowspan="2" | [[File:Upsilon uc lc.svg|class=skin-invert-image|100px]] || V → ||U → || V/U/VV/UU → ||V/U/W
|-
| Y → || '''Y (vowel {{IPA|/y/}})''' → || '''Y (vowel {{IPA|/i/}})''' → || '''Y (vowels)'''
|-
| rowspan="3" | [[File:Phoenician gimel.svg|class=skin-invert-image|75px]] || rowspan="3" |[[File:Gamma uc lc.svg|class=skin-invert-image|100px]] || colspan="4" | C →
|-
| rowspan="2" | G → || rowspan="2" |'''Ᵹ (consonantal {{IPA|/ɡ/}}, {{IPA|/j/}} or {{IPA|/ɣ/}}''') → || rowspan="2" |'''Ȝ''' '''(consonantal {{IPA|/ɡ/}}, {{IPA|/j/}} or {{IPA|/ɣ/}}''') →
|G/GH
|-
|'''Y (consonant)'''
|-
|}

====Vowel====
The letter Y was used to represent the sound {{IPA|/y/}} in [[Old English]], so Latin {{angbr|u}}, {{angbr|y}} and {{angbr|i}} were all used to represent distinct vowel sounds. But, by the time of [[Middle English]], {{IPA|/y/}} had lost its [[roundedness]] and became identical to {{angbr|i}} ({{IPA|/iː/}} and {{IPA|/ɪ/}}). Therefore, many words that originally had {{angbr|i}} were spelled with {{angbr|y}}, and vice versa.

In Modern English, {{angbr|y}} can represent the same vowel sounds as the letter {{angbr|i}}. The use of {{angbr|y}} to represent a vowel is more restricted in Modern English than it was in Middle and early Modern English. It occurs mainly in the following three environments: [[Greek words in English#The written form of Greek words in English|for upsilon in Greek loan-words]] (''s'''y'''stem'': Greek σ'''ύ'''στημα), at the end of a word (''rye, city''; compare ''cities'', where S is final), and in place of I before the ending ''-ing'' (''dy-ing'', ''ty-ing'').

====Consonant====
As a consonant in English, {{angbr|y}} normally represents a [[palatal approximant]], {{IPA|/j/}} ('''''y'''ear'', '''''y'''ore''). In this usage, the letter Y has replaced the [[Middle English]] letter ''[[yogh]]'' (Ȝȝ), which developed from the letter [[G]], ultimately from Semitic ''[[gimel]]''. Yogh could also represent other sounds, such as {{IPA|/ɣ/}}, which came to be written ''[[gh (digraph)|gh]]'' in Middle English.

====Confusion in writing with the letter ''thorn''====
When printing was introduced to Great Britain, [[William Caxton|Caxton]] and other English printers used Y in place of Þ ([[thorn (letter)|thorn]]: Modern English ''th''), which did not exist in continental [[typeface]]s. From this convention comes the spelling of ''the'' as ''ye'' in the mock archaism ''[[Ye olde|Ye Olde Shoppe]]''. But, in spite of the spelling, pronunciation was the same as for modern ''the'' (stressed {{IPA|/ðiː/}}, unstressed {{IPA|/ðə/}}). Pronouncing the article ''ye'' as ''yee'' ({{IPA|/jiː/}}) is purely a modern [[spelling pronunciation]].<ref>{{Citation
  | contribution = Ye
  | year = 1996
  | title = The New Fowler's Modern English Usage
  | editor-last = Burchfield
  | editor-first = R.W.
  | edition = 3rd
  | pages = 860
  | place = Oxford
  | publisher = Clarendon Press
  }}
</ref>

===Other languages===
In some of the [[Nordic languages]], {{angbr|y}} is used to represent the sound {{IPA|/y/}}. The distinction between {{IPA|/y/}} and {{IPA|/i/}} has been lost in [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]] and [[Faroese language|Faroese]], making the distinction purely orthographic and historical. A similar merger of {{IPA|/y/}} into {{IPA|/i/}} happened in Greek around the beginning of the 2nd millennium, making the distinction between iota (Ι, ι) and upsilon (Υ, υ) purely a matter of historical spelling there as well. The distinction is retained in [[Danish language|Danish]], [[Norwegian language|Norwegian]], and [[Swedish language|Swedish]].

In the [[West Slavic languages]], {{angbr|y}} was adopted as a sign for the close central unrounded vowel {{IPA|/ɨ/}}; later, {{IPA|/ɨ/}} merged with {{IPA|/i/}} in Czech and Slovak, whereas Polish retains it with the pronunciation {{IPA|[ɘ]}}. Similarly, in [[Middle Welsh]], {{angbr|y}} came to be used to designate the vowels {{IPA|/ɨ/}} and {{IPA|/ɘ/}} in a way predictable from the position  of the vowel in the word. Since then, {{IPA|/ɨ/}} has merged with {{IPA|/i/}} in Southern Welsh dialects, but {{IPA|/ɘ/}} is retained.