ABSTRACT
Initially, I thought that perhaps the W originated from some horned mammal, like a bull or some other large grazing animal. But, no, its origins are much less glamorous. The roots of the W are similar to those of the J, both the Germans and English used two U’s to indicate their W sounds. The German’s W is much sharper than the English W, closer to the sound of our V. Initially, they used two U’s (or Latin V’s), which were drawn, and/or set very close to each other, eventually the two U’s (or Latin V’s) were merged into a single letterform.
