How is it logically possible for a single letter to have 3 syllables? Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to pronounce the letter ‘W’ using just one syllable as ‘wee’ similar to how letters 2 thru 5 are pronounced ‘bee’, ‘cee’, ‘dee’ and ‘eee’?
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W was originally literally uu (two i.e. double Us) a thousand years ago:
> In Old English, [W] originally was written -uu-, but by 8c. began to be expressed by the runic character wyn (Kentish wen), which looked like this: ƿ (…)
>
> In 11c., Norman scribes introduced -w-, a ligatured doubling of Roman -u- which had been used on the continent for the Germanic “w” sound, and wyn disappeared c. 1300.
Source: [https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=w](https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=w)
The name comes from the fact it’s literally two U’s together (W being a separate letter is a late addition to the language), hence double U.
If it was pronounced with a single descriptive sound, it wouldn’t be wee. It’d be something closer to wuh.
From what i’ve heard, it’s mostly because V is V, but double-u
Has an U and an U since a lot of ppl write it UU.
It’s to do with the fact that it used to be 2 latter “u”s. Hence double-u. In French, where the letter never used to exist, it’s called double-v.
Here’s a video from jan Misali about the history and evolution of the letter ‘w’, although I think it’s aimed a bit older than an ELI5.
Better to r/asklinguistics about this.
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