U

U, 21st letter in the English alphabet. The Semitic alphabet ended with T, which is now followed by the four new letters, U, V, W, and Y, developed at various periods from the Semitic letter vau. The letter vau was derived from an Egyptian hieroglyph. From the Phoenician symbol, the form of which was intermediate between F and Y, the Greeks evolved two characters, digamma, which survives as our letter F, and upsilon, which had the value of u. The form V was carried to Italy, where it represented a u sound as well as the English w sound.