Does any language using the Latin alphabet have a unique name for "w"?

Question

In English, we call w "double-u", referring to the original representation of [w], which looked like uu, or two us. Then, in French, they pronounce it "double-veh", presumably because the modern form looks like two vs or "veh".

The question is: do all languages which utilise the Latin alphabet do a similar thing, giving a name to the letter which refers to either the letters u or v? Or the converse question: is there any language which has a unique name for w, whose etymology is not linked to another letter in any recognisable way?

Yes, the letter is pronounced /we/ in German, which is not derived from either /?u/ or /fau/. — robert, Aug 24 '14 at 21:51
Originally there was no difference between "U" and "V" in the Latin alphabet. When "w" was invented, it was indeed a doubled form of that letter, hence some languages call it "double u" yet others "double v". — Joe Pineda, Sep 02 '14 at 02:20
@LưuVĩnhPhúc of course it did, in Latin at least. Emperor Claudius, being the keen amateur linguist he was, readily noticed that slight ambiguity in Latin's spelling (having same letter for both "u" and "w" sounds) and proposed a new letter, an upside-down "F", to denote the "w" sound. He went on and invented 2 other ones for "bs" and "y" sounds - the last one solving the ambiguity still present in modern Romance spellings of using "i" for both "ee" as in "bee" and "y" as in "young". — Joe Pineda, Sep 15 '14 at 21:06

Lưu Vĩnh Phúc · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-23T09:13:09.837

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In many Germanic languages it's /ve/, as fdb said

In other Germanic languages, including German, its name is similar to that of English V

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W#Name
In Polish it's /vu/. In Italian it's also pronounced as /vu/ in common acronyms for brevity
In Somali it's /wæʉ̯/

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/W#Somali

edited Oct 23 '18 at 09:13

answered Jul 05 '17 at 13:03

Lưu Vĩnh Phúc

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As stated, Germans and Poles call V /faw/ and W /ve/ and /vu/ respectively, so there is no direct link between them. – Arsen Jul 05 '17 at 13:31
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I didn't say there are any relation between German and Polish – Lưu Vĩnh Phúc Jul 05 '17 at 13:34
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@LưuVĩnhPhúc I think Arsen is saying there's no link between the names for and , as specified in the question. – Draconis Jul 05 '17 at 16:14
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There's a similar phenomenon to that of Italian in Belgian French, where the usual /dublœve/ is instead /we/ in acronyms. Other French dialects don't do this afaik – Eau qui dort Jul 05 '17 at 19:29
In Welsh, the letter is simply pronounced /u/; there's no ambiguity because is not pronounced /u/. – Mark Beadles Jul 06 '17 at 21:11
@MarkBeadles interesting. So is w a vower or consonant in Welsh? – Lưu Vĩnh Phúc Jul 07 '17 at 01:58
@LưuVĩnhPhúc It's considered a vowel, although it can also be used as a semivowel. – Mark Beadles Jul 07 '17 at 11:25

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 24 '14 at 22:37

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As Robert said, it is /ve/ in German, and thus also in Dutch.

answered Aug 24 '14 at 22:37

fdb

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...and thus also in Afrikaans! – musicallinguist Aug 26 '14 at 19:17
It's /we/ in Dutch; /ve/ is the letter V. /w/ may be realised phonetically as [ʋ] in Netherlandic dialects but it still contrasts with /v/. – Cairnarvon Feb 24 '21 at 20:37

Does any language using the Latin alphabet have a unique name for "w"?

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