New Books in Language and Translation Danny Bate, "Why Q Needs U: A History of Our Letters and How We Use Them" (Bonnier Books, 2025)
Mar 21, 2026
Dr. Danny Bate, a linguist and writer who explores historical languages, guides listeners through the secret lives of letters. He traces alphabet order, why Q pairs with U, the rise of J/W/U, shifting writing directions, and how uppercase and lowercase evolved. Short, surprising stories reveal how our everyday letters traveled through time and cultures.
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Why Western Scripts Flip Direction
- Writing direction changed from right-to-left (Phoenician) to left-to-right with Greek adoption, possibly because Greeks added explicit vowels.
- Greeks experimented with boustrophedon before settling left-to-right, and letter shapes (like B) once pointed toward writing direction.
How Soft C Emerged From Latin Sound Shifts
- The soft vs hard C arose from context-dependent sound changes in post-classical Latin before Romance languages diverged.
- Front vowels like E and I triggered C to shift (e.g., Latin 'centum' > Old French 'tente'), producing the modern soft C.
H Became The Alphabet's Multitool
- Letter H became a multipurpose partner to form digraphs (TH, SH, CH) for sounds absent in Latin, because H's original sound faded in Romance tongues.
- H stayed free to pair with others, avoiding diacritics used by languages like Czech or Polish.
