YΦXΨΩ were the letters added by the ancient greeks to the early northsemitic (phoenician) alphabet.
SHAPE: In very few
ancient cities of the
Western-Eastern greek alphabet groups it had the form
V.
SOUND: The addition of this new letter was intended to represent the [u] sound
(later written as OY). Here is the story: The indoeuropean semiphone
waw appeared in greek 1) as vowel [u] (letter
Y) and 2) as consonant [v] (letter
F). It is said that the northsemitic letter: wāw in its Samaritan version influenced
digamma F [v] and by its Phoenician sound influenced
Y [u]. Very soon, in ancient
Attic the Upsilon was pronounced [y] as in french
tu and the
OY combination represented [u]. The /y/ pronunciation survived till the 9/10th century
e.v. It was a
'dichronic' (two-valued) vowel: short [y] or long [y
:].
After the 3rd century e.v. the
Y and
OI pronunciation coincided within the
iotacistic tendency of turning many sounds to [i] (See this Y-OI interchange at
this inscription). After the middle times, Upsilon was pronounced [i].
Y was always preceded by a /h/ sound. In
hellenistic times, this lost /h/ took the form of
daseia breathing mark. Although it is not pronounced in modern greek, it is retained in most european languages.
GRAMMAR: ALL words starting with Upsilon received the hellenistic diacritic mark:
daseia to represent a /h/ preceding sound. It is not pronounced in greek. (check
discussion on breathing accent marks).
NAME: ETYMOLOGY-SPELLING: Initial name/spelling was
«
». The Romans called it
y Graecum since they had no sound [y] (their U was pronounced [u]). The coincidence of Y and
OI diphthong pronunciation after 3rd century e.v. gave the idea to the
byzantines to name it
ψιλόν [i
psi`lon] = i light, thin (in analogy to
e psilon which during some time had represented the
EI diphthong). Hence its final name
ὕψιλoν (now written with a daseia, following the rule -see GRAMMAR-).
COMBINATIONS: DIGRAMMES:
OY for [u] sound
For vowel+Y check
AY, EY, the rare HY
and
rare YI.
MORE GREEK WORDS STARTING WITH Y
always with daseia:
•υπέρ=above,over - hyper
•υπό=under - hypo υπoκριτής= answerer,actor,hypocrit
•υγιεινή= hygiene
•ύπνoς=sleep -hypnotic
•υδρ...=water... - hydraulics
n]