Why is the letter ‘W’ pronounced as though it has 3 syllables?

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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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6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

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)

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