The Etymology of the word “YOU”
Etymology of the word “YOU”
Can you spell “YOU” as the letter “U”?
How are phrasal verbs used in speaking English?
Brian Collins
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As explained by Brain “The reason why we wound up with you and thou was French spelling”.
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Etymology of the word “YOU”
Etymology of the word “You”
Thank you, Brian Collins and Quora.
Fix your English Grammar
English Literature and Linguistics
Why isn’t the word “you” spelled with just the letter “U”?
Etymology of the word “You”
Brian Collins
Fix your English Grammar
How can I become fluent in English?
Etymology of the word “You”
How are phrasal verbs used in speaking English?
Etymology and surprising origins of words
Etymology and surprising origins of words
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How are phrasal verbs used in speaking English?
How are phrasal verbs used in speaking English?
The Etymology of the word “You”
Answer by Brian Collins, ( PhD candidate in linguistics at University of Queensland ). All credit goes to Brian Collins, Thank you!why I can understand English, but I can’t speak English well
7.5 / 10 why I can understand English, but I can’t speak English well
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Thank you, Brian Collins and Quora.
Out of those, you and yew survived into Early Modern English, but yew was largely abandoned as spelling was standardised.
It might blow your mind but <u> is ambiguous. We have:
- uniform
- urea
- cute
- mute
- humour
…which all have a /ju/ sound in most dialects of English (with a /j/ <y> sound as a component — e.g., urea starts with the same /j/ or <y> consonant as yes).
However, we also have:
- under
- umbrage
- umbrella
- humble
- blunt
…which all have an /ʌ/ or /ʊ/ sound in them, depending on the dialect.
The reason why we wound up with you and thou was French spelling. In Middle English, thou and you had the same vowel sound (one shifted as a result of the Great Vowel Shift while the other didn’t). French spelled the closest sound to /u/ as <ou>.
French did this because Latin words with the sequence /ɔl/ and /ol/ lost the /l/, and became a diphthong /ow/. This then shifted to /u/ eventually, and has remained roughly there ever since (example words are fou which came from follem, pulsat which became pousse).
I also suspect that Middle and Old English scribes incorrectly believed the pronoun you came from a word that used to begin with */g/. They spell it with the same convention as words like yesterday which really did etymologically begin with /g/. This is the reason why every variant of the word always had a <g> or a <ȝ> or something representing a lost /g/ sound, as opposed to a single letter.
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Reference: Brian Collins, “Why isn’t the word “you” spelled with just the letter “U”?” originally appeared on Quora, the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Fix your English Grammar
Etymology of the word “You”
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Etymology of the word You