Latin upsilon

The letter Ʊ (minuscule: ʊ), called Latin upsilon or sometimes inverted omega, horseshoe u, or bucket, is a letter of the International Phonetic Alphabet used to transcribe a near-close near-back rounded vowel. Graphically, the lower case is a turned small-capital Greek letter omega (Ω) in many typefaces (e.g. Arial, Calibri, Candara, Liberation, Lucida, Noto, Times New Roman), and historically it derives from a small-capital Latin U (ᴜ), with the serifs exaggerated to make them more visible.^[1] However, Geoffrey Pullum interpreted it as an IPA variant of the Greek letter upsilon (υ) and called it Latin upsilon, the name that would be adopted by Unicode, though in IPA a letter closer to an actual Greek upsilon is also used for the voiced labiodental approximant; Pullum called this letter script V^[2] and Unicode calls it V with hook.

Writing systemLatin script

TypeAlphabetic and Logographic

Sound values

• [ʊ] [u̘]

InUnicodeU+01B1, U+028A

Quick facts Usage, Writing system ...

Latin upsilon
Ʊ ʊ
Usage
Writing system	Latin script
Type	Alphabetic and Logographic
Sound values	[ʊ] [u̘]
In Unicode	U+01B1, U+028A
History
Development	Υ υ Ʊ ʊ
Other
Writing direction	Left-to-Right
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

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Horseshoe is used in the African reference alphabet, and national alphabets such as those of Anii^[3] and Tem. It most often has the value of /u/ with retracted tongue root.