U (Armenian letter)

U, Ou, or Ow (uppercase: ՈՒ; title-case: Ու; lowercase: ու; Armenian: ու) is, according to the Armenian orthography reform, the 34th letter of the Armenian alphabet. Even though U was used de facto before the orthography reform, it was not officially part of the alphabet. It represents the close back rounded vowel /u/. It is romanized with the letter U or the digraph Ow.^[1] Since this letter was not made by Mesrop Mashtots, it has no numerical value,^[2] and because there is no individual letter that represents the "u" sound, it uses a digraph made up of the letter Vo and the letter Hyun (a calque from the Greek digraph ου).^[3]

U
ՈՒ Ու ու
Usage
Writing system	Armenian script
Type	Alphabetic
Language of origin	Armenian language
Sound values	[u]
In Unicode	U+0548 U+0552, U+0548 U+0582, U+0578 U+0582
Alphabetical position	34
History
Time period	1922 to present
Transliterations	U
Other
Associated numbers	None
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.

Computing codes

Character information

Preview	Ո		ո
Unicode name	ARMENIAN CAPITAL LETTER VO		ARMENIAN SMALL LETTER VO
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	1352	U+0548	1400	U+0578
UTF-8	213 136	D5 88	213 184	D5 B8
Numeric character reference	Ո	Ո	ո	ո

Character information

Preview	Ւ		ւ
Unicode name	ARMENIAN CAPITAL LETTER YIWN		ARMENIAN SMALL LETTER YIWN
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	1362	U+0552	1410	U+0582
UTF-8	213 146	D5 92	214 130	D6 82
Numeric character reference	Ւ	Ւ	ւ	ւ

Gallery

• 
  Typographical form
• 
  Handwritten form
• 
  280 dram postage stamp featuring the ՈՒ digraph
• 
  500 dram coin featuring the Ու digraph
• 
  5000 dram coin featuring the Ու digraph
• 

See also

• U (Latin)
• Ո
• Ւ
• և
• Armenian alphabet
• Mesrop Mashtots