Friday November 6, 2009
Why ‘y’ is special
Ramblings: By Dr LIM CHIN LAM
THE English alphabet consists of 26 letters, with five vowel-letters, “a”, “e”, “i”, “o”, and “u”, interspersed among 21 consonant-letters. Of all the letters of the alphabet, “y”, the 25th letter, is special.
Firstly, it is a letter that is definitively used in the transliteration of Greek to English. The Greek letter “upsilon” is transliterated sometimes as “u” in English (as in the word kudos) but singularly as the letter “y” (as in the words cycle, phylum, psychiatry, pygmy; and in combining forms such as hydro-, hyper-, psycho-, synchro-, -mony, -pathy).
Secondly, “y”, although classified as a consonant-letter, can also function as a vowel – with the sound /i/ (as in crypt, gypsy, hydrology, idyll, mighty, psychiatry, pyramid, pyrrhic, surly, tyranny), as well as with the diphthong /ai/ (as in fly, defy, myself, hydrology, hyperactive, psychiatry). It even represents a schwa (as in myrrh).
Thirdly, the letter “y” per se is used as a suffix in many different ways, as elaborated below.
-y as a noun-forming suffix
The word-ending -y (representing the Greek –ia, -eia; the Latin –ia, -ium; the French –e, –ie; and the Anglo-Saxon –ig) already occurs in words such as melancholy and sophistry. As a suffix, it is used to denote (1) a state or condition or quality when added to verbs and adjectives and nouns (destiny, jealousy, photography, sophistry); and (2) an action or its result when added to nouns and verbs (butchery, robbery, victory, injury, inquiry, perjury).
[Note that: (1) burglary may be an abstract noun, meaning “the act of burglary”; or it may be a common noun, meaning “an incident of burglary”, so that the plural form burglaries may also be used; (2) the noun remedy may also be used as a verb; and (3) nouns such as charity, flurry, and hurry are exceptions in that the ending -y is not a suffix but an integral part of the words.]
-y as an adjective-forming suffix
The word-ending -y is a native English suffix. It is added to nouns, as well as the conjunction if, to denote “somewhat of the nature of” (dreamy, folksy, yellowy), or “full of or having the quality of” (dirty, greasy, iffy, messy, silly, spongy, sunny); and to verbs to denote “apt to” (choosy, frisky, picky, sticky).
[Note that: (1) adjectives such as busy and jolly are exceptions in that the ending -y is not a suffix but an integral part of the words; and (2) raunchy is not formed from raunch, which is actually a back-formation from raunchy.]
-y as a variant of -ey or -ie
The suffix –y, a variant of -ey or –ie, is a modern suffix of obscure origin. It is used in several situations: (1) to form hypocoristic (or “baby talk”) words or pet names (aunty/auntie, baby, doggie, dolly, hanky, pussy); (2) to form euphemistic terms (barbie, an Australian euphemism for “barbecue”; bubbly, for “champagne”; hubby, for “husband”); (3) to form words of endearment or familiarity (dearie, girlie, goalie, lassie, matey, telly); (4) to form diminutive names (Aussie, Billy, Lizzie, Ricky, Wally); and (5) to form nicknames and offensive or derogatory terms (fatty, shorty, sickie).
[Note that: (1) caddy is a word in its own right: it is not a term of affection for “cad”; and (2) crony is another word in its own right, and not a term of endearment for “crone”.]
Miscellanea in parting
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the regulatory body that oversees Internet domain names and addresses, recently approved the use of Hebrew, Hindi, Korean and other scripts not based on the Latin alphabet (AFP report carried in The Star, Oct 31, 2009, page W45). In actuality, the alphabet already in use for the Internet is not quite the Latin alphabet (whose final version had 23 letters) but the fuller English alphabet of 26 letters.
What’s the difference? The Latin alphabet was derived and modified from the Greek alphabet (of 24 letters). By the time of Cicero (106-43 BC), it consisted of 21 letters – originally in the form of only majuscules (uppercase letters), the alternative minuscules (lowercase letters) being introduced later and completely developed by the 8th century.
Additional letters were subsequently added, to give a total of 23 letters. The English alphabet of 26 letters is based on the Latin alphabet, but with the addition of the letters “j”, “u”, and ”w” lacking in the Latin (Wormald, R.D., ed., 1951. Longmans’ Latin Course. London: Longmans, Green & Co.; Stearn, W.T., 1973. Botanical Latin: History, Grammar, Syntax, Terminology and Vocabulary. 2nd ed. Newton Abbot, Devon: David & Charles (Holdings) Ltd.)
In some old books, the consonant “i” was represented by “j” – and vice versa (e.g. Jesus spelt as Iesus). Then, too, the letters “u” and “v” were used interchangeably. I do not intend to go further into the evolution of the English alphabet from the Latin, and, in turn, that of the Latin alphabet from the Greek. The effort may prove too much that I might end up iumping into a fjiord.
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