was carved by the Romans as V,
and is still represented this way on modern buildings. The Romans actually used their V as both
a vowel and a consonant, a practice which kept on until the Renaissance. The
Greek U — upsilon — was also used as both
a vowel and consonant. U and V were interchangable until the 1500’s, first being differentiated
on the continent, and then later in England in the 1600’s, though V was sometimes used until
as late of the 1700’s. In modern English, U has at least six different sounds.
