I’ve tried to see if this has been asked before and can’t find it.
It’s clear that “W” in most fonts is 2 Vs stuck together, yet it’s pronounced DoubleU, not DoubleVee
Anyone know why?
I know the Romans only had a V and not a U, but I didn’t think anyone knew how they pronounced their language (according to a friend who studied it anyway) so I don’t think the reason can have anything to do with that - although I’m more than prepared to be corrected!
So, any ideas?
I think the reason is right there in your third paragraph. Like I and J, U and V have only recently been asserting their individiual identities. Their linked form is regarded as double-U in English, and double-V in Danish (pronounced “doppel vay”, IIRC). Pronunciation of all three is related, but never quite the same, in many languages. Germans pronounced W the way we pronounce V; Russia’s Ivan could arguably be rendered Juan; Britain’s Ian is related, as is John. It’s easier to understand how the Welsh could come up with a word like “cwm” if it’s a doubled U, rather than a doubled V.
So basically, when the W was created as a letter, saving space in the line, some folks figured it was more like their V, twice, some figure it was more like their U twice. I don’t know how U, V, or W would properly be pronounced in Old English, but I can easily imagine a number of possibilities. In any case I’m not sure there were any doubled Us or Vs in Old English, since the last couple of batches of Romantic influence hadn’t yet asserted themselves in the British Isles at that point.
Hopefully, I can convince you to accept “hopefully” as a disjunct adverb.
Frankly, I would be lying if I said I were confident.
Perhaps this subject is simply too complex for me to explain.
Unfortunately, I would be lucky to explain my way out of a paper bag.
The pronuciation of classical Latin is believed to be pretty much figured out. Check out Vox Latina, by William Sidney Allen, for an excruciatingly detailed account of the pronunciation, and how it was determined.
You can listen to the news in classical Latin at http://www.yle.fi/fbc/latini - YLE radio in Finland broadcasts it every week 
Arjuna34
According to the little blurbs the American Heritage Dictionary has before each section concerning the letter:
U and V were used interchangeably as far as phonetic values went, representing both the vowel and the consonant, until the 17th century. The earlier convention was that v was used at the beginning of words, u in the middle. It attributes invention of the w to medieval monks adapting the alphabet to Old English who joined together two miniscule u’s to represent the w sound which appeared in Old English, but not Latin. “Minuscule” is a form of writing, BTW, not just a reference to the size of their penmanship, though the terms are related.
Not that this answers your question or anything, but in Spanish a W is pronounced doble ve (I think that’s the pronunciation, although I may be a bit off) and it translates to double V.
Mr. Armageddon
“Just when you thought you had all the answers, I went and changed the questions!”–Roddy Piper
And, just to add another language, in French V and W are pronounced “vey” and “doubla-vey”. (My apologies for bad phonetic spelling.)
I would say an upper case W is two V together but a lower case w is more like two u together.
In Castillian Spanish the name is “uve doble” = double vee but the letter is not really part of the traditional Spanish or latin alphabets and has only been introduced with the use of English words, much like Ñ is being introduced into English.