# Native Spanish words containing W (why does the Spanish alphabet even contain W?) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 23, 2024, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-spanish-words-containing-w-why-does-the-spanish-alphabet-even-contain-w/1004669 "2024-07-23T08:40:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-spanish-words-containing-w-why-does-the-spanish-alphabet-even-contain-w/1004669/21 "2024-07-25T17:39:57Z")
Is there a “W” in Spanish “Scrabble”? If so - how many points is it worth? “W” is rare in French as well - thus its 10-point score in French “Scrabble”. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-spanish-words-containing-w-why-does-the-spanish-alphabet-even-contain-w/1004669/22 "2024-07-25T18:00:52Z")
> [@zimaane](#): > > Autocorrect should add the accent marks, at least in French. Idk about German. When I text in German I just switch to the German keyboard and the umlauted vowels are right there with their own keys (but you need to long press “s” to get ß). Of course the keyboard switches from QWERTY to QWERTZ, but I don’t touch type anyway. Similarly the Spanish keyboard has a key for ñ (but you still need to long press for the other accented letters. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-spanish-words-containing-w-why-does-the-spanish-alphabet-even-contain-w/1004669/23 "2024-07-25T18:14:30Z")
> [@Mark\_Finn](#): > > Is there a “W” in Spanish “Scrabble”? If so - how many points is it worth? “W” is rare in French as well - thus its 10-point score in French “Scrabble”. According to Wikipedia, Spanish Scrabble outside North America do not include “W” or “K” while those sold in North America do. There is also variation with “CH”, “LL”, and “RR” tiles depending on locale. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-spanish-words-containing-w-why-does-the-spanish-alphabet-even-contain-w/1004669/24 "2024-07-25T18:19:31Z")
> [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](#): > > There is also variation with “CH”, “LL”, and “RR” tiles depending on locale. Yeah, always fun to argue if those are single or double letters. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-spanish-words-containing-w-why-does-the-spanish-alphabet-even-contain-w/1004669/25 "2024-07-25T18:19:59Z")
On my Android phone, if I’m typing in French or Spanish, I’ll just type the word without accents and then choose (hopefully) the correct one from the suggestions. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-spanish-words-containing-w-why-does-the-spanish-alphabet-even-contain-w/1004669/26 "2024-07-25T18:59:15Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Yeah, always fun to argue if those are single or double letters. IME, RR never really got as much traction AFAIK, probably because it did not actually turn into a different enough sound. (The international meeting of the Academias gave up on CH and LL being treated as self-standing “letters” back in the 90s and eventually made it uniformly official that they were NOT in this century) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-spanish-words-containing-w-why-does-the-spanish-alphabet-even-contain-w/1004669/27 "2024-07-25T19:07:18Z")
In the versions of Scrabble with, say, “LL”, are you allowed to spell words with a double L using two L tiles? I.e., would [L][L][A][M][A] be a legal word? ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-spanish-words-containing-w-why-does-the-spanish-alphabet-even-contain-w/1004669/28 "2024-07-25T19:28:08Z")
It may depend on the specific version, but I have a “Simpsons Scrabble en Español” where the rules say that words with CH, LL, and RR must use the corresponding two-letter tiles, so “llama” must be played with exactly 4 tiles. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-spanish-words-containing-w-why-does-the-spanish-alphabet-even-contain-w/1004669/29 "2024-07-25T19:28:20Z")
According to Wikipedia, no: > Using one _C_ and one _H_ tile in place of the _CH_ tile, two _L_ tiles for the _LL_ tile, or two _R_ tiles for the _RR_ tile is also not allowed in Spanish Scrabble. You also cannot use a blank as “W” or “K”. Note that the extent of my Spanish is what one picks up living in AZ. I did not know until this thread that “W” was not native to Spanish. This might explain why I had so much trouble spelling my name (which starts with “W”) when I was in Spain last year. What is Spanish for the letter “W”? ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-spanish-words-containing-w-why-does-the-spanish-alphabet-even-contain-w/1004669/30 "2024-07-25T19:30:40Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Are there any natively-Spanish words that use this letter? If not, why is it even there? (I would have thought languages don’t generally have spare letters that they keep in storage just in case they want to import a foreign word) Italian is the same way; the letters J, K, W, X, and Y are used only in loanwords, but the letters exist in the alphabet and have ways to pronounce them (for example, J is “long I”, and W is “double V”). ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-spanish-words-containing-w-why-does-the-spanish-alphabet-even-contain-w/1004669/31 "2024-07-25T19:54:30Z")
There was much derision when the Real Academia de la Lengua Española introduced the spelling [güisqui](https://dle.rae.es/g%C3%BCisqui) for whisky, somewhere around 1980. It is still in the dictionary with that spelling, with a reference to its synonym whisky (properly written) and nobody uses that hispanized spelling except in jest, as far as I am aware. I guess we have that letter because it is used in many words abroad that would look silly if we tried to change that letter for something else, for instance the Capital of the USA and its first president. We could try to do as the Russians do, who write Shakespeare **Уи́льям Шекспи́р** , that is: Uíliam Shekspir. But that is not the way the Spanish Academy chose, and it looks less bad in Russian IMO because they hide behind a different alphabet. So yes, it is a useful letter, the Academy included it 1969, but it is only used for loanwords, foreign names and the like. > [@DPRK](#): > > ps I tend to pronounce Los Angeles with an /x/ 🙂 Which is the right way to do it! Kudos! > [@Mark\_Finn](#): > > Is there a “W” in Spanish “Scrabble”? If so - how many points is it worth? Not only there is no “W” or “K” in the Spanish scrabble (pronounced ess-cráble) edition, that is the ones sold outside the USA, it is not even allowed to use the two blank tiles as a “W” or a “K”. But it seems the Spanish versions sold in the USA have three aditional pieces, 103 instead 100 in total. [Cite](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrabble#Distribuci%C3%B3n_de_letras_en_el_Scrabble_de_habla_hispana) (Spanish wikipedia) The cite does not say it explicitly, but it seems those would be Ws and Ks. > [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](#): > > What is Spanish for the letter “W”? _Uve doble_, which means literally “double V”. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-spanish-words-containing-w-why-does-the-spanish-alphabet-even-contain-w/1004669/32 "2024-07-25T21:12:58Z")
Yeah, really, in Scrabble in general, whatever the version, they prefer if you did not re-compound the letters. > [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > There was much derision when the Real Academia de la Lengua Española introduced the spelling [güisqui](https://dle.rae.es/g%C3%BCisqui) for whisky, somewhere around 1980. As someone of the close-to-US sphere of the Spanish-speaking world, earning the language as a grade-school child, the notion of having the English “W” be rendered as a “gu-” confused me. To me, the phonemes I was hearing behind “water”, “Western” and “whisky”, transposed in Spanish “obviously” to my ears more like _“huáter”, “huestern”_ and _“huisqui”_ (or _“juisqui”_ ). And my teachers went just for the "say it like an “u” " technique. I do recall a history book in the 1970s referring to Gualterio Raleigh. As mentioned in an earlier post that probably did it for a lot of people at some point: “Nope, Walter it’s going to be, just like Mr. Mercado. Bring on the W.” And of course, for Latin America we assume the English phoneme and not the Germanic as back in the mother country. Because we knew which one we’d get more use of. > [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > > [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](#): > > > > What is Spanish for the letter “W”? > > _Uve doble_, which means literally “double V”. That is another one the various professors and broadcasters had been amusing us with for years – if we _call_ the letter “doble-ve”, “doble-u”, “uve-doble” or what. My take would be as long as you can understand what is being said, never mind. Like with whether we refer to the Y as “i griega” or “ye”. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-spanish-words-containing-w-why-does-the-spanish-alphabet-even-contain-w/1004669/33 "2024-07-25T21:35:10Z")
You’re right, the “uve doble” is Spain’s Spanish, “doble ve” is South American, and just as valid. “Doble-u” is new to me, but that is just my ignorance. I was only answering to **Marvin\_the\_Martian** ’s question, who had trouble being understood when spelling his name in Spain. “Uve doble” would have solved it. Letting this thread sink in for a while I have come to the conclusion that one of the reasons the Academy accepted “W” as a Spanish letter was also that there was space for it in a normal keyboard, specially considering that both in QWERTZ and QWERTY configurations it plays a prominent role. I guess the placing on the keyboard preceded and influenced the decision by the Academy (no cite for that). ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2024, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-spanish-words-containing-w-why-does-the-spanish-alphabet-even-contain-w/1004669/34 "2024-07-25T22:29:25Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > I do recall a history book in the 1970s referring to Gualterio Raleigh. As mentioned in an earlier post that probably did it for a lot of people at some point: “Nope, Walter it’s going to be, just like Mr. Mercado. Bring on the W.” Whatever about Shakespeare, but you’ll be amazed to hear I know a guy from Latin America named Guillermo 🙂 I do not want to go off on too much of a tangent, but evidently what (assuming it even exists in the alphabet) counts as a single letter, what as a letter with an accent, and what as a digraph or ligature varies from language to language. So, e.g., in English W is today a single letter, but LL and CH count as two letters, whereas in Spanish the latter two are single “letters”. In French Ä is a letter with an accent, but in Swedish it counts as a single letter. We could go on in this vein for a while. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-spanish-words-containing-w-why-does-the-spanish-alphabet-even-contain-w/1004669/35 "2024-07-26T00:17:51Z")
French is similar. There are no native French words beginning with “k” or “w.” French dictionaries use “kangarou” and “wagon” (railway car - pronounced with a “v” sound). The “K” sound is usually represented by a “c” (franc) and the “w” by “ou” (oui). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-spanish-words-containing-w-why-does-the-spanish-alphabet-even-contain-w/1004669/36 "2024-07-26T00:53:43Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Yeah, really, in Scrabble in general, whatever the version, they prefer if you did not re-compound the letters. Well, English doesn’t have any compound letters (maybe W was at one point, but it’s unambiguously a single letter now). Many word games will treat “Qu” as a single letter, because it’d be too difficult to use Q by itself, but Scrabble doesn’t even do that (and the Official Scrabble Dictionary recognizes several words with a Q without a U). ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-spanish-words-containing-w-why-does-the-spanish-alphabet-even-contain-w/1004669/37 "2024-07-26T20:44:53Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > As someone of the close-to-US sphere of the Spanish-speaking world, earning the language as a grade-school child, the notion of having the English “W” be rendered as a “gu-” confused me. Can you explain it? What was the thinking behind using “gu” to spell a “w” sound? ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2024, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-spanish-words-containing-w-why-does-the-spanish-alphabet-even-contain-w/1004669/38 "2024-07-28T00:17:10Z")
French also has “wattman” (driver of a tram/streetcar, but maybe it coukd be a driver of any electric public transit vehicle). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-spanish-words-containing-w-why-does-the-spanish-alphabet-even-contain-w/1004669.md?page=1)