Is "y" pronounced /ʍaɪ/ or /waɪ/? Depending on how "y" is pronounced and whether or not one is in a region with wine-whine merger, it may or may not be homophonic with "why". Thewhy article also makes this distinction. --Telofy06:57, 7 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

It's pronounced /waɪ/. This is homophonous with "why" only in accents with the wine-whine merger; in accents without it, "why" is /ʍaɪ/. But "y" is /waɪ/ in both kinds of accents.Angr19:34, 7 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

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The homophones include "WI" and "WY", presumably the abbreviations for Wisconsin and Wyoming, respectively, as I can attest that "WI" meaning "Women's Institute" is pronounced "double-you eye". Surely these arenot homophones of "y", or else how would you be able to distinguish between them? Further, "NY" is pronounced "en why", isn't it, not "nye"? Aren't all two-letter abbreviations of US states pronounced either letter by letter or in the same way as the full form? —Paul G15:15, 23 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

I've not heard either pronounced as "y". I have heard "Wisc." pronounced as a homophone of "whisk" and so on for some of the older state abbreviations (Mass., Miss., Wash., Cal., Mo.; don't know about others). I agree that the prevailing pronunciations of the two-letter postal abbreviations in the US are as you say.DCDuringTALK17:03, 23 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Removed the two homophones. Striking.​—msh210℠18:13, 6 August 2009 (UTC)Reply

Is there any reference or basis for the pronunciation of the French contraction of "il" being pronounced /iː/ as opposed to the other meanings being pronounced /i/? According toAppendix:French pronunciation we don't have any length distinction in French vowels, and I also wouldn't know any such distinction. Also being French, I don't see how that sense of "y" would include a longer vowel. Any ideas? –Jérôme (talk)15:11, 19 October 2016 (UTC)Reply

I don't remember why I thought it was long when I added that pronunciation. But don't forget that there are still dialects of French that do have a length distinction, and Quebec is one of them (although the length manifests itself as diphthongization), but in that case /i/ in Quebec would always be analyzed as long as opposed to the short /ɪ/. --WikiTiki8916:01, 19 October 2016 (UTC)Reply

For Québécois, I would propose to document onAppendix:French pronunciation how the pronunciation works. As far as I understand, Québécois has a historical length distinction for /ɛ/, but the distinctions /i~ɪ, u~ʊ, y~ʏ/ are later developments depending on surrounding consonants. I propose that Québecois pronunciations can be specified in addition to the main pronunciation, but the main pronunciation should definitely use only phonemes fromAppendix:French pronunciation, which can of course be changed if necessary. Let me remove the length mark now then.–Jérôme (talk)09:20, 21 October 2016 (UTC)Reply

The first basic distinction to do regards its tonicity --Backinstadiums (talk)15:39, 27 September 2019 (UTC)Reply

How do Spanish speakers know if, for example,ochenta menos setenta y seis means80 - 76 = 4 or80 - 70 + 6 = 16? Is this information they page should include (maybe as a usage note)? --96.244.220.17800:02, 20 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

jy reads "From the name of the letteri (of whichj was originally a variant) by affixing the /d͡ʒ/ sound to it)" --Backinstadiums (talk)11:51, 20 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

What is the plural of the English nominal meanings (abbreviations)? --Backinstadiums (talk)09:13, 3 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Does anyone know how 'y' started referring to the palatal semivowel /j/? Is there any evidence thaty organically started denoting /j/ or it has merged with a ligature ofij (see Wiki article forIJ for more), similar to howw is a ligature ofvv?90.201.149.2510:52, 13 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

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