Why Is Q Always Followed By U?

support name explained on patreon for ad-free videos exclusive podcasts and blog posts and to help choose what names get explained click the link in the description a digraph is when we use two characters of an alphabet to make one singular sound there are many examples of this in english think of c and h coming together to make the ch sound or even s and h to make the sound we can even use two of the exact same letter to make an entirely different sound like how two o's make the ooh sound diagraphs are great because instead of making up new characters to fill up our alphabet we can just put two we already have together and when they are done working together they can still be used separately to make their own sounds this isn't always the case however one letter in the english language likes to be a bit difficult it is never used on its own and can only be used as part of a digraph that of course is the letter q in english q is only ever used in a word as part of a digraph that digraph being q followed by the letter u though unlike u q can be used on its own this means q is pretty done dependent on you well you can go around paddling around with all the other letters not the best of relationships that's for sure the q u digraph makes a sound that could be compared to a k and w working together it sounds like a k and w in words such as quick quilt quiet frequent and quail however this actually isn't the only sound q u is able to make as in some instances it actually makes a hard k sound think of words like unique or baroque or liquor despite only ever being used along with you q does actually have a designated sound unto itself it's something of a standard k sound so while q can make a sound all by itself why didn't we ever even use it why is it always followed by the letter u and before you type your comments yes i'm fully aware that q isn't always followed by you in english it just is most of the time there are quite a few words we use in english that feature a queue not followed by you wikipedia has a whole page dedicated to them words we use in english that feature a queue not followed by you all seem to come from the same root that root being the fact that they are words borrowed from other languages that do not follow rqu rule perhaps the two most common ones are the country names of qatar and iraq but there are also words like burka too one of particular interest is suk a suk is a type of market and what's interesting about this word is it has a u followed by a q the opposite order we tend to expect these letters to be in wikipedia also claims that there are just four words in english which have a queue not followed by you which are not borrowed two of those are freak and tranq which are simply shortenings of frequency and tranquilizer another one is kiana a type of fabric created in the early 60s what was given this name however i'm not too sure and the final one is qwerty as in the first six letters of the keyboard would have taken on a life of their own so from these what you can gather is that words that feature a queue not followed by you in english either borrowed or rather modern constructs so while we have some exceptions by and large q is followed by you in english that cannot be denied and while this video will be focusing on english please do let me know what kind of relationship q and you have in your language down in the comments below to understand this complex relationship we have to look into the history of the letter q while we aren't sure on exactly where it comes from most sources seem to point to the earliest ancestor of the letter q being the phoenician word of course the phoenicians were not so much one group or national people but rather it's a word we've applied to various ancient peoples who lived around the eastern mediterranean had something of a shared language and culture cough was the 19th letter of the alphabet and we can see from its shape alone that it's the ancestor of our modern q while we aren't 100 sure on the origins of the shape of this letter many sources believe it would have originated as a glyph of some sort relating to a needle and thread or sewing in general of some kind this letter is thought to have made a very hard k sound right from the back of the throat phoenician was a semitic language meaning it relates to modern languages like arabic and hebrew these modern semitic languages are also rather known for their hard k sounds this really explains to us why so many of the words we use in english that feature a k without a u are borrowed from semitic languages like arabic and their words of qatar and burka while this hard case sound is present in semitic languages it was not as commonplace in ancient greece what has that got to do with anything well the early greek alphabet was actually based on the alphabet of the phoenicians when these characters were adapted for the greeks some changes were made however for the sake of this video we only need to focus on one of those changes that being the cough letter being changed into a letter called copper in the greek alphabet copper once again made something of a k sound if you hadn't guessed by now q and k have quite an intertwined relationship k is actually one of the stranger letters to come about it could honestly have a video unto itself what copper made a k sound so did the greek letter of kappa having two letters made the same sound proved to not be too useful for the greeks to combat this the greeks decided that cap would be used in most cases when a hard k sound was needed so what about copper then well the greeks decided that copper would still be used to make something of a k sound but only when the k sand was preceded by a rounded vowel sound rounded vowels the vowel sounds we make by putting our lips into a rounded shape unsurprisingly a vowel that's often rounded is of course u so when a word featured a k sound and a u sound copper was used instead of kappa this means that it was the greeks that first placed q and u together well at least the ancestors of q and u anyway this is all well and good except we have a slight issue if you look at the modern greek alphabet you won't actually find the letter of copper this is because over time the greeks just felt they had no real use for this letter so instead just flat out replace it with kappa to the greeks copper was just redundant though while the greeks may have found copper as being redundant the etruscans did not the etruscans were a civilization on the italian peninsula that preceded rome however they recited more on the northern half of the peninsula the etruscan alphabet was borrowed from the greek alphabet but they however borrowed it before the greeks ditched copper this meant that copper was a mainstay in their alphabet the etruscans kept the tradition of only using copper before a rounded vowel in fact they actually fine-tuned it somewhat instead of being used before any rounded vowel they only used cop up for an o or u sound once again keeping the two letters together while the mighty roman empire would eventually overtake the italian peninsula and so much of europe they actually adopted some things from the etruscans most noticeably for us the etruscan alphabet was the basis of the latin alphabet however some things did change in this transition it was the romans who gave q the shape it has to this day as they did many other letters the roman latin alphabet also lacked a k so when a hard k sound was needed c was used in its place this is why some believe latin names like caesar and cicero should be pronounced like keizer and kikolo then when the romans needed to represent a not as hard k sound in the written form they went with a q and a u which at the time was a v as we covered in our w video from a while back the romans did this simply because it was what the etruscans and greeks did before them when they wished to represent that sound it was the romans who seem to have truly cemented q being used exclusively with a u this pretty much explains to us why q is always followed by you q and the sound it makes on its own had no real value to the romans and later on would have no value to us there are other ways we can represent that sound in the written form like with the letters of just k and c however the sound q can make when attached to the letter u is rather unique and does have value to us because of this q is allowed to stay a part of the english alphabet despite the fact this only purpose is to be paired up with you while the romans seemly made this choice there's still a long way to go from this being a mainstay of the english language rome would of course eventually come crumbling in on itself and with the fall of rome it came the fall of latin latin became a dead language meaning no group of people spoke it as their native language though while latin may have died it left a huge legacy many languages evolved from latin we call these the romance languages as they relate to the romans romance languages include the likes of italian spanish portuguese romanian and of course french like with latin french also seems to exclusively use the queue when followed by you it would be the french language that would introduce q followed by you to the shores of britain and into the english language this was drawing the norman conquests which all kicked off in 1066. i'm sure by now you all know the events of 1066. william of normandy defeating king howe to become king of england and in turn bringing the french language and culture to the island the norman conquest shapes so much of modern britain what's interesting is that the english language before the norman conquest did actually have the q u sound in it we've had queens over here long before the normans arrived in 1066. so how was this sound represented in writing well instead of using a q and a u a c and a w were used instead this meant that was that queen was spelled as quen instead i mean it gets the job done that's for sure perhaps in some alternative dimension queen is still spelled like this in english however thanks to the normans all the way back in 1066 not only was q added to the english lexicon but so was the rule that must always be followed by you what's also interesting is that the kw pronunciation of qu actually stopped being used in france after the norman conquest instead qu was pronounced with just a hard k this explains to us why someone's in english use the kw pronunciation of q u while words brought from the french later down the line used just a hard k pronunciation of q u it's safe to say that these two letters have been on quite a journey together from q's inception with the phoenicians it was then adopted by the greeks who placed it with you and from there these two letters have traveled from etruscan to latin to french and finally into english though despite all the languages and nations they've had to go through to get to where they are today they managed to stay together through thick and thin despite you being in a bit more of an open relationship with all the other letters still they managed to make it work thank you to all my patrons who support name explain on a monthly basis patron is vital to name explain and donating just two dollars a month allows you to enjoy ad-free videos and bonus patron exclusive content it also allows you to help choose what names get explained in upcoming videos and it gets your name here with all these awesome people thank you so much for all the support you guys give name explain thank you so much reaching the end of the video check out another video and subscribe to stay in the loop on all things name explain don't forget to follow my instagram while i'm name explain yt and also join the facebook group friends of name explain both of which will be linked down below anyway i hope you enjoyed this video and once again thank you all so much

Channel: Name Explain

Views: 89,950

Keywords: name explain, etymology, educational video, langauge, word origins, why is q followed by u, q u

Id: Wbm4MCe_vxo

Length: 12min 6sec (726 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 16 2021