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Excuse me if this has been covered before, I tried searching, but wasn't sure what keywords to use to get the right results.
Why do we use both letters, "Q" and "u" for those words that use the letter Q? What is the purpose of the U? I can understand other single sound letter combos like "Sh", "Ch" and even the silent "gh" I can even forgive. But those letters have independent pronunciation identities, whereas Q totally depends on U.
What is up with that?!?
Thanks and now I will sit back and let the Internets do their thing.
-Stevan in Oregon
Welcome. I am interested in researching your question, and I am still looking for what is the best source of information on the rise of qu in English. I can tell you that it came into English wholesale, as a fused digraph, at the time of Middle English. The beginning of the Middle English period is under some discussion (end of the 11th century or following), but all agree it effectively ended in the middle to late 1400s when Chancery Standard English, developed around 1413-1422, really began to have widespread effect.
It came in from French. Because it came in as a fused digraph, the letter q almost never appears in isolation except for foreign words.
When it came in, it began to be used in place of older common digraphs, such as cw (e.g., O.E. cwen → M.E. quene: queen), O.E. cwæð, (c.f. quoth) to say.
I will continue to search for some more complete and detailed history of qu in English and let you know when I have found it.
I found this on Bartleby:
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume I. From the Beginnings to the Cycles of Romance.
spelling in Middle English
The striking change in the written language of England during the twelfth century was, to a considerable extent, a matter of mere spelling. As was pointed out in the preceding section, soon after the Norman conquest children ceased to be regularly taught to read and write English, and were taught to read and write French instead. When, therefore, the mass of the new generation tried to write English, they had no orthographical traditions to guide them, and had to spell the words phonetically according to French rules. They used ch instead of the old c, when it was pronounced as in cirice church. The sound of the Old English sc in sceamu shame, which did not exist at that time in French, was rendered by ss, ssh, sch, or sh. The French qu took the place of cp.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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