Y

25th letter in the English alphabet, derived through the later Latin alphabet from the Greek letter upsilon (Υ, υ). In English it represents the same vowel sounds as i when used as a vowel, as in ‘myth’, ‘tryst’, and ‘try’. As a semivowel, with the phonetic sound /j/, as in ‘yoke’ and ‘yacht’, it is a palatal approximant.

It did not exist in the North Semitic alphabet. After the Roman conquest of Greece in the 2nd century BC, Greek words were borrowed by the Latin language, and the symbol y was adopted from the Greek alphabet in order to be used in the transliteration of Greek words.