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Y is the twenty-fifth letter of the Latin alphabet.
See V. In Greek Υψιλον (Ypsilon) was pronounced /u/ (later on /y/, now /i/; see English myth and gift which both have /I/). The Romans borrowed Y directly from the Greek, because they felt that V no longer adequately represented Greek /y/. The English name of the letter - /waI/ - is of unknown origin.
In Spanish, Y is called i griega, in Catalan i grega and in French and Dutch i grec (all mean "Greek i"); in most other European languages the Greek name is still used. The letter Y was originally established as a vowel. It is now established both as a vowel and as a consonant. On Wheel of Fortune, the letter Y counts as a consonant.
The letter y was used by Caxton and other printers in mediaeval England to represent the thorn.
Originally, Y was a vowel letter in Greek, representing [u] (later on, front rounded [y], and in Modern Greek, [i]), and it normally has the sound value [y] in German, in Finnish and other Scandinavian languages. The letter Y nicely shows how letters change their function. In Afrikaans, Y denotes the diphthong [EI], probably as a result of mixing lower case i and y or may derive from the IJ ligature. In Dutch, Y appears only in loanwords and names and is usually pronounced [i]. It is often left out of the Dutch alphabet and replaced with the "Dutch Y". Italian, too, has Y only in very few loanwords.
In Castilian 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 was a symbol sharing the initials of Isabella I of Castile (Ysabel) and Ferdinand II of Aragon.
This spelling was reformed by the Royal Spanish Academy and currently is only found in proper names spelt archaicly, 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.
Yankee represents the letter Y in the NATO phonetic alphabet.
Meanings for Y
- "The Y" is short for:
- In biochemistry, Y is the symbol for tyrosine.
- In chemistry, Y is the symbol for yttrium.
- In computer science, Y is the name of a case of mathematical combinator; see Y combinator.
- In electrical engineering, Y is the symbol for admittance, the inverse of impedance.
- In film, Y is the name of a 1987 Swedish film; see Y (film).
- In games, Y is the name of a modern board game, played on a triangle-shaped board; see Y (game)
- In geography,
- In mathematics, y is the usual symbol for the variable represented on the vertical axis (ordinate) in analytic geometry.
- In the Metric system,
- In sociology, Y refers to Generation Y.
- In statistics and analysis, y denotes the dependent variable.
- In Unix,
y is a command to join the output of two streams.
- In video games, Y is an abbreviation for Yoshi, a Nintendo character.
Two-letter combinations starting with Y:
af:Y ca:Y cs:Y da:Y de:Y el:Y eo:Y es:Y fr:Y it:Y la:Y
nl:Y ja:Y pl:Y sl:Y sv:Y vi:Y zh:Y
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