Upsilon
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Upsilon (Template:IPAc-en, Template:IPAc-en;[1][2]Template:RefnTemplate:RefnTemplate:Refn[3] uppercase Υ, lowercase υ; Template:Langx ýpsilon Template:IPA) or ypsilon Template:IPAc-en[1] is the twentieth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, Template:Langx has a value of 400. It is derived from the Phoenician waw 
.
Etymology
The name of the letter was originally just "υ" (y; also called hy, hence "hyoid", meaning "shaped like the letter υ"), but the name changed to "υ ψιλόν" (=υ psilon, 'u-plain' or 'u-simple') to distinguish it from οι, which had come to have the same Template:IPA pronunciation.[4]
Pronunciation
In early Attic Greek (6th century BCE), it was pronounced Template:IPAblink (a close back rounded vowel like the English "long o͞o").[5][6] In Classical Greek, it was pronounced Template:IPAblink (a close front rounded vowel), at least until 1030.[7] In Modern Greek, it is pronounced Template:IPA; in the digraphs Template:IPA and Template:IPA, as Template:IPA or Template:IPA; and in the digraph Template:IPA as Template:IPA. In ancient Greek, it occurred in both long and short versions, but Modern Greek does not have a length distinction.
As an initial letter in Classical Greek, it always carried the rough breathing (equivalent to h) as reflected in the many Greek-derived English words, such as those that begin with hyper- and hypo-. This rough breathing was derived from an older pronunciation that used a sibilant instead; this sibilant was not lost in Latin, giving rise to such cognates as super- (for hyper-) and sub- (for hypo-).
Upsilon participated as the second element in falling diphthongs, which have subsequently developed in various ways.
Correspondence with Latin Y
The usage of Y in Latin dates back to the first century BC. It was used to transcribe loanwords from Greek, so it was not a native sound of Latin and was usually pronounced Template:IPA or Template:IPA. The latter pronunciation was the most common in the Classical period and was used mostly by uneducated people. The Roman Emperor Claudius proposed introducing a new letter into the Latin alphabet to transcribe the so-called sonus medius (a short vowel before labial consonants), but in inscriptions, the new letter was sometimes used for Greek upsilon instead.
Four letters of the Latin alphabet arose from it: and U, Y and, much later, V and W. In the Cyrillic script, the letters U (У, у) and izhitsa (Ѵ, ѵ) arose from it.
In some languages, including German and Portuguese, the name upsilon (Ypsilon in German, ípsilon in Portuguese) is used to refer to the Latin letter Y as well as the Greek letter. In some other languages, the (Latin) Y is referred to as a "Greek I" (i griega in Spanish, i grec in French), also noting its Greek origin.
Usage
- In particle physics the capital Greek letter ϒ denotes an Upsilon particle. Note that the symbol should always look like in order to avoid confusion with a Latin Y denoting the hypercharge. This may be done either with a font such as FreeSerif or with the dedicated Unicode character U+03D2 ϒ.
- Automobile manufacturer Lancia has a model called the Ypsilon.
- In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the symbol Template:Angbr IPA is used to represent a labiodental approximant.
- In astrophysics and physical cosmology, ϒ refers to the mass-to-light ratio.[8]
- In statistics, it is sometimes used instead of v or nu to indicate degrees of freedom.[9]
- In the Persian language, “one Upsilon” is used to describe a positive amount close to 0 (zero).Template:Cn
Similar appearance
- A similar symbol
(Unicode ♈ U+2648) is used for the astrological sign of Aries.
Symbolism
Upsilon is known as Pythagoras' letter, or the Samian letter, because Pythagoras used it as an emblem of the path of virtue or vice.[10] As the Roman writer Persius wrote in Satire III: Template:Quote Lactantius, an early Christian author (ca. 240 – ca. 320), refers to this: Template:Quote
Character encodings
Upsilon and Coptic Ua characters.[11]
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Notes
External links
Template:Wiktionary Template:Commons category
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Template:Cite encyclopedia
- ↑ Template:Cite encyclopedia
- ↑ Template:Cite OED
- ↑ W. Sidney Allen, Vox Graeca, 3rd ed., Cambridge 1987, p. 69.
- ↑ Template:Cite book
- ↑ Template:Cite book
- ↑ F. Lauritzen, "Michael the Grammarian's irony about Hypsilon. A step towards reconstructing Byzantine pronunciation", Byzantinoslavica, 67 (2009)
- ↑ Mihalas and McRae (1968), Galactic Astronomy (W. H. Freeman)
- ↑ Template:Cite book
- ↑ Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham. The reader's handbook of famous names in fiction, allusions, references, proverbs, plots, stories, and poems, Vol. 2, p. 956. Lippincott, 1899.
- ↑ Unicode Code Charts: Greek and Coptic (Range: 0370-03FF)