Why Does English require the letter "y"?

[Mr. A. Nemo]

To me, it seems extraneous. In that other letters can be substitued readily.

How did "y" find itself into the english alphabet and why?

[Blake]

I fail to understand. Do you suggest spelling 'yellow' as 'jellow', Or perhaps spell 'yon' as 'ion' or 'Jon'? Isn't that going to get a little confusing?

If you were going to pick on letters, I would have thought that 'Z' and 'K' would have been the obvious ones to pick on, since in most cases they really can be replaced with no confusion. On the other hand we have need in English for a 'Y' sound.

[Zagadka]

y

- \Y-\, or I- \I-\ . [OE. y-, i-, AS. ge-, akin to D. & G. ge-, OHG. gi-, ga-, Goth. ga-, and perhaps to Latin con-; originally meaning, together. Cf. Com-, Aware, Enough, Handiwork, Ywis.] A prefix of obscure meaning, originally used with verbs, adverbs, adjectives, nouns, and pronouns. In the Middle English period, it was little employed except with verbs, being chiefly used with past participles, though occasionally with the infinitive Ycleped, or yclept, is perhaps the only word not entirely obsolete which shows this use.

That no wight mighte it see neither yheere. --Chaucer.

Neither to ben yburied nor ybrent. --Chaucer.

Note: Some examples of Chaucer's use of this prefix are; ibe, ibeen, icaught, ycome, ydo, idoon, ygo, iproved, ywrought. It inough, enough, it is combined with an adjective. Other examples are in the Vocabulary. Spenser and later writers frequently employed this prefix when affecting an archaic style, and sometimes used it incorrectly.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
There? *shrugs* I always thought it represented a short "i". It is generally looked at like that in other languages (that, or an accented "i")

[Zagadka]

Originally posted by Blake
I fail to understand. Do you suggest spelling 'yellow' as 'jellow', Or perhaps spell 'yon' as 'ion' or 'Jon'? Isn't that going to get a little confusing?

"Yon"? O_o Interesting choice. "Your" makes more sense. "Your" isn't nearly the same as "ur" (really, "you" isn't like "u" either)... they have a soft "i" sound, as you point out in the difference between "ellow" and "yellow"... it could be expressed "i`ellow", I suppose, but English doens't use accents.

Hell, look at poor Russian. They have a half dozen i/e sounds (i, i`, [y]eh, [y]oh, ya, and ee) that frequenly get strung together.

If you were going to pick on letters, I would have thought that 'Z' and 'K' would have been the obvious ones to pick on

Really? How do you spell "zoo" without "z"? I would follow other languages and drop the useless S, replacing it with a soft C, hard K, and slurred Z.

[Zagadka]

Originally posted by Blake
I fail to understand. Do you suggest spelling 'yellow' as 'jellow', Or perhaps spell 'yon' as 'ion' or 'Jon'? Isn't that going to get a little confusing?

"Yon"? O_o Interesting choice. "Your" makes more sense. "Your" isn't nearly the same as "ur" (really, "you" isn't like "u" either)... they have a soft "i" sound, as you point out in the difference between "ellow" and "yellow"... it could be expressed "i`ellow", I suppose, but English doens't use accents.

Hell, look at poor Russian. They have a half dozen i/e sounds (i, i`, [y]eh, [y]oh, ya, and ee) that frequenly get strung together.

If you were going to pick on letters, I would have thought that 'Z' and 'K' would have been the obvious ones to pick on

Really? How do you spell "zoo" without "z"? I would follow other languages and drop the useless S, replacing it with a soft C, hard K, and slurred Z.

[pravnik]

Y apparently found its way into the alphabet after the Roman conquest of Greece in 1 AD. The greek letter Upsilon was adopted into the Latin alphaber as the letter Y to transliterate borrowed Greek words into Latin. Upsilon had a ue sound that Latin didn't have, so it took on the sound of its nearest Latin equivalent, i.

[Blake]

Well, I did say it could mostly be replaced. It's mostly the AMerican inability to distinguish between suit (syoot) and soot that causes the problem. ;-)

And I picked 'Yon' simply because we alraedy have the words 'Jon' and 'ion'. There's no such word as 'iour', or even 'jour' doesn't really exist in english so eitehr would be suitable alternatives.

[Snooooopy]

Y?

Y not?

:)

[Mr. A. Nemo]

Ugh.. seems I didn't think it through for many many words. I was mostly thinking that a final letter, where "y" sounds like "ee" is unnecessary and better replaced with "i" or "ee".

But if anyone would like to tackle "c" versus "k" while we're here.. feel free.

[Diceman]

I'd drop C. It's redundant with S and K.

[DRomm]

Perhaps we should convert to the Decibet, the ten character alphabet as described by Dan Aykroyd on SNL, transcribed http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75rdecabet.phtml . Life would be soooo much simpler.

[Popup]

If you really have to get rid of a character, than why not choose the real latecomer in the bunch J.
Cecil on I / J in Why is there an I Street and a K Street but no J Street in Washington, D.C.? (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_262b.html)J is a late addition to the alphabet, having initially been introduced as an alternative form of I. It began to be used to signify our modern consonant J around 1600, but the two letters continued to be used interchangeably for years thereafter, e.g., jngeniously, ieweller. As late as 1820 some dictionaries still weren't alphabetizing I and J words separately.

[nineiron]

How would my middle-aged relatives then do the YMCA dance at weddings?

[RealityChuck]

If you did eliminate Y, what advantage would it be? Why is having a "redundant" letter a bad thing?

[sailor]

In Spanish the letters I and Y are called, respectively, Latin I and Greek I.

[Mycroft Holmes]

Originally posted by DRomm
Perhaps we should convert to the Decibet, the ten character alphabet as described by Dan Aykroyd on SNL, transcribed http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75rdecabet.phtml . Life would be soooo much simpler.


This (http://www.tiscarolsplace.com/Humor/chenglish.htm) might help also. :p

[Skammer]

Originally posted by Diceman
I'd drop C. It's redundant with S and K.

Fine, but how would you spell chat, patches or Charlie's Cheese Chateaux?

[Snooooopy]

Dropping C would wreak havoc on cuss words:

Fuk you!
Dik sukker!
Wrap your lips around my big kok!
Kunt!

[scm1001]

Originally posted by Skammer
Fine, but how would you spell chat, patches or Charlie's Cheese Chateaux?

shat, patshes, and sharlies sheese shato
of corse

[jjimm]

Whie not drop the letter wie? Ies, interesting question. I can't possiblee think of anee use it has. Except, since it currentlee has several different uses, I personallee feel that to replace its functionalitee, we'd have to devise several different vowel combinations, thus increasing the amount of ink used, and therefore not being as environmentalee friendlee.

[Urban Ranger]

One letter to drop is Q, even though I don't really hate the Kueen.

[scm1001]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
One letter to drop is Q, even though I don't really hate the Kueen.

don't you mean kween?

[knock knock]

I tried to post this awhile ago, between Mr. A. Nemo's post and Diceman's, but there were technical difficulties. Since I really don't feel like editing it to take into account the new comments, I'll just post it in its entirety.

We need k. How else would you spell "make"? mace? macce? We need s. How else would you spell "sake"? zake? cake? Maybe we could get rid of c, replacing soft c with s and hard c with k. This is similar to what Zagadka suggested (dropping s and making c always soft), but easier, since we're used to soft s but we're not used to c always being soft. “ck” would become “k” when possible, and “kk” when necessary (e.g. “pik me!”, “They pikked someone else”, “are you chikken?” Also, we kould probably drop "x" in favor of "z" or "ks" (e.g. boks, miksing, maksimum, zylofone, Zeroks, Zerkses.) And we kould drop "q", replasing "qu" with "kw" as in "kome kwickly", "I kwit", "I work at the Kwik-E-Mart", "Bomb Irak!", and "Don't be so inkwisitive".

These changes might work for the language, but mathematisians & physisists wouldn't like 'em. They'd have to find a new variable to use all the time (you sertainly don't want to label something the eks aksis) and a new speed of light (E=Ms2 ?). There would also be komplaints from advertisers & Major League Baseball, bekause whenever "x" replases "cks" it makes the word fun! No one would want to root for a team kalled the "White Socks" or eat a sereal kalled "Kicks".

After re-reading what I've written (and updating all the relevant language), the main problem that I see is replacing "ch". "sh" is already taken (e.g. chip -> ship), and "kh", while rare, is okkasionally used. There are 403 entries with "kh" in this diktionary (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary) (e.g. lakh, khaki), and it would be weird to say "kh" like we now say "ch" if k was always hard. If we did drop "s" and we made "c" coft, then we'd have the came problem with replacing "sh".

Maybe "jh" could replase "ch", as in "just jhill", "Jheers!", "Taks the rijh!", "jhange is good", "slised jheddar jheese," and "pass the natjhos". The only eksisting words I found with "jh" are the obskure geographik "Jhelum", "Jharkhand", and "Jhansi" and the abbreviation "JHVH" (a variant of YHWH).

When “ch” has another pronunciation, we could either use jh or find other replacements (e.g. likhen, Shateaux (or Jhateaux), and Mishigan (or Mijhigan)). Also tricky is "cc". When it doesn't have a "k" sound, that kould be replased by ks or jh or some other appropriate letter kombination, e.g. I've had great suksess in Bojhe Ball.

What do you think? Kould we drop c, q, and x to get down to a nise 23? I'm already getting used to writing like this. I think that if people used the new & improved language here, it wouldn't take long for it to katjh on with the general publik. Hek, it's a lot better than 1337.

And now for my eksiting eksit.

[knock knock]

Maybe I'm not getting so used to typing this way. Those three paragraphs should read:

After re-reading what I've written (and updating all the relevant language), the main problem that I see is replasing "ch". "sh" is already taken (e.g. chip -> ship), and "kh", while rare, is okkasionally used. There are 403 entries with "kh" in this diktionary (e.g. lakh, khaki), and it would be weird to say "kh" like we now say "ch" if k was always hard. If we did drop "s" and we made "c" coft, then we'd have the came problem with replacing "sh".

Maybe "jh" could replase "ch", as in "just jhill", "Jheers!", "Taks the rijh!", "jhange is good", "slised jheddar jheese," and "pass the natjhos". The only eksisting words I found with "jh" are the obskure geographik "Jhelum", "Jharkhand", and "Jhansi" and the abbreviation "JHVH" (a variant of YHWH).

When “ch” has another pronunsiation, we kould either use jh or find other replasements (e.g. likhen, Shateaux (or Jhateaux), and Mishigan (or Mijhigan)). Also trikky is "cc". When it doesn't have a "k" sound, that kould be replased by ks or jh or some other appropriate letter kombination, e.g. I've had great suksess in Bojhe Ball.

[SpoilerVirgin]

This whole idea of eliminating letters from the alphabet is old news...very old news. It was one of the predictions (http://future.newsday.com/2/fbak0305.htm) made by the Ladies' Home Journal in 1900 for the year 2000.There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary. Spelling by sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas, and will be more extensively spoken than any other. Russian will rank second.So far it seems like the alphabet is becoming more stable -- maybe because communication is so widespread. Then again, maybe by 2100 we'll all be using l33t5p33k.

[Zagadka]

Most languages that have the "ch" problem have a character for "ch" instead of a letter combination. Take a look at Russian.

http://www.friends-partners.org/oldfriends/language/russian-alphabet.html

[knock knock]

Well, whaddayaknow? The Ladies' Home Journal sekonds my motion. And don't go into tekhnicalities about whether a sekonding kan happen a sentury before the proposal.

We kould follow Zagadka's suggestion about the single letter and reinstate "c" to replase "ch", but we'd have to watc out, bekause it kould get trikky using the same letter for new purposes.

I don't think anyone here is predikting that the language aktually will make these canges (I know I'm not), just looking to see what canges kould be made.

No, I think I like it better as "jhanges." The lone c is just too konfusing - its other sound is too familiar, and there is a lot of similarity between the "ch" sound and the "j" sound (although adding an "h" after the "j" doesn't really kapture the differense between the two). Any linguists here kould be more presise about the phonemes, ets.

Also, I was thinking that if we took q, x, and c off the keyboard, then everyone would have to relearn how to type, so we kould use the opportunity to replase werty keyboards with a slightly adjusted version of dvorak.

[Hari Seldon]

A suksesful reform of Englic speling wood:
* turn the c into the sh
* bring back the eth and thorn
* turn the x into ks and give the x the value of zh
* get rid of awl doubled leters
* get rid of horors like sure and sugar
(I'm sure I could thing of a few more things) and
* render the whole store of Englic litratyoor obsolete

The real problem is that to regularize English spelling, you would have to pick a dialect as standard and that is impossible for so many reasons that I can't begin to cite them. But words that are homonyms in some dialects are not in others and these vary so much that the idea is not coherent. For example, I have an aynt Ann, while my daughter has a friend from central Mass who has an ahnt Aynn.

[elfkin477]

Originally posted by Blake
Well, I did say it could mostly be replaced. It's mostly the AMerican inability to distinguish between suit (syoot) and soot that causes the problem. ;-)


Which Americans have trouble telling them apart? Suit has an almost "ew" sound in it and soot rhymes with foot :p You mean the ones who say Mary, Marry and Merry the same, I bet. (I don't get that, none of them sound the same. OTOH conquered and Concord sound more alike to me than Concord and Concorde. Regional difference, eh?)