2509: No 'Loue' Lost: The Break-Vp of U&V Oct 25, 2021

The distinction of U and V as it is now was neither invented nor random, but even into the 16th century, there was not a clear distinction between V and U. Often, V was used in either case if it would fall at the beginning of a word, and in the middle or end of a word, it would be a U, regardless of sound. This discernment between U and V as a phonetic marker happened starting during the renaissance, since Germanic languages and even modern Romance languages have this sounds distinct, but the process was not immediate. This is also, in part, why many words have a so-called silent E at the end, as it helped with disambiguation when the sound was [v] as in 'love' but not 'low' (or 'lou', especially before W came on the scene).

2490: How נ Became Short Oct 6, 2021

Hebrew, effectively has 3 ways of scripts, hand writing, printed, and liturgical script. These are mostly the same, and the reasons for the evolution of each helps to elucidate the differences in each. For instance the letter נ—pronounced /nun/ and an ancestor to N—(except as it appears word-final) is the same length as other letters standardly in print and new liturgical writing, but at the end of the word it goes low (ן). In hand-written script though, it is long both times and is distinguished by being straight at the end of a word, and curved otherwise. However, before a few centuries ago both forms were long in formal holy writing; the reason being that in the beginning/middle of a word, its base juts out and causes the concern of interfering with the following letter.