To toss a few more dictionaries into the ring, in Mexican Spanish, and for
all I know Peninsular Spanish as well, v is usally pronouned b--to live is
bibir.
And of course in German v is pronounced f.
Mark Veiss
At 09:31 AM 2/20/2005, you wrote:
> > Have just consulted White's Latin dictionary, and learn that 'u' and 'v'
> > were both derived from the Greek letter upsilon, although by the time they
> > reached the Latin language they were clearly differentiated into vowel and
> > consonant respectively.
>
> Neat, Joanna.
>
>I'd always assumed the u-is-a-vowel, v-is-a-consonant was a late arrival.
>
> More fool me.
>
> :-(
>
>This suggests that Renaissance English *printing* (no paleographer, me) was
>running backwards, a Red Queen's Race.
>
>My sense still is that the u/v distinction in mid 16th / early 17th C
>England was both simply orthographic (like, it had sod all to do with how
>the letters were actually pronounced) and positional.
>
> And dropped-out by about 1700.
>
> D'uh!!!
>
>Anyone able to give a definitive answer on this, and thus prevent Joanna and
>me beating ourselves to death with alternate dictionaries?
>
> <g>
>
>Robin
>
> There was a world,
> there was a world, my dear,
> where u and y met and ...
>
> ... the hand that rocked the cradle, afore it kicked the bucket
>
> chortled sweetly
>
> endlessly rocking:
>
> VEE!!!
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