How the Letter W Was Born from the Fall of Rome

A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W

The letter W is a child of the fall of Rome. When Germanic-speaking rulers took over the western Roman Empire, scribes needed to spell names like Clovis and Odoacer, but Latin had no letter for the /w/ sound. Starting in sixth-century Francia, they doubled U to create W. The letter spread to England, where it competed with the rune wynn before becoming standard. W also disrupts spelling, as in was, wand, and wash, by rounding and backing the following vowel.