Is the letter "Y" really necessary?

Question

I mean what job does that letter have that other letters cannot do? ex.

to say "you" it could also be spelled as "eu" lol.

but honestly. are all those grammar rules necessary? why were they created??

like the "ph" sounding like "f" rule.. i dont see any reason for that.

how were all these rules developed and why were they made?

Answer 1

whY do You ask.

Answer 2

It was necessar'y' using it in your question.. so there's your answer.  

Answer 3

Y you ask? Y not? Y now? Y not? please tell me Y.....

Answer 4

Maybe if you hadn't ditched English class and actually showed up, you would've learn all of this.

I have a rhetorical question for you - how many different ID's do you have in these Answer forums?

Answer 5

The origin of the the letter y and the ph combination go back to ancient Greek. The Greek y was pronounced like the French u or German ü, a sound in between ee and oo. Greek words imported into Latin kept this y as a distinct letter, and possibly sound as well.

Greek also had "aspirated" consonants such as ph and th which sounded just like they were spelled, with a puff of air following the first sound. It's easy to see how 'p-h' became simply 'f' (th is a little more complicated but it's the same idea).

So the Greek spelling tended to be preserved even as its pronunciation in other languages changed.

By the way, English is unique in that it altered the pronunciation of its vowels about 500 years ago in what is called the Great Vowel Shift. Every other Indo-European language still uses the original values, where a,e,i,o,u are sounded ah,ay,ee,oh,oo. You can see how the sounds moved one position away from where they started, further complicating our spelling.

An English y represents the "consonantal i" usually written j in other languages - notice the similarity between i and j. W is the consonantal u (with no y sound in front), written as a literal double-u. If English were to return to standard vowels 'you' could then be written 'iu' or 'ju' and y would be no longer needed.

Answer 6

It's the James Bond of the alphabet. Quiet and discreet, living in a twilight world between vowel and consonant. When I play hangman with the kids I use 'crypt'. By the time they've used up their vowels, I've won!!!

Answer 7

They're not really rules, they're expressions and explanations of what is considered universal usage of language, and they developed over long periods of time.

As for the letter 'y', it is a very interesting part of the alphabet. It's considered a semi-vowel, and sometimes takes the sound of the letter 'i'.

Answer 8

i think the letter x is less necessary the only time i hear it its pronouced like s