why "y" and not "u"

Eric and Karol-Ann Weiss eweiss at gte.net
Wed Sep 20 19:49:29 EDT 2000


Maybe this has been asked before ... but why in most or many books is
"y" the English transliteration for upsilon, rather than "u". I know
many English words derived from Greek words have a "y" where the Greek
original has upsilon. But why did this scholarly convention develop and
why does it persist? I don't think the omicron-upsilon diphthong is
translitered "oy" (unless you're a Yiddish-speaking Greek scholar!) - so
if it's transliterated as "ou" then why is upsilon by itself
transliterated by "y"?

--
"Eric S. and Karol-Ann Weiss"
http://home1.gte.net/eweiss/index.htm
S.D.G.





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