section_path: Phonology/Vowels/Simple vowels
section_name: Simple vowels
paragraph_text: Simple vowels
  
  In Classical Latin, ⟨ U ⟩ did not exist as a letter distinct from V; the written form ⟨ V ⟩ was used to represent both a vowel and a consonant. ⟨ Y ⟩ was adopted to represent upsilon in loanwords from Greek, but it was pronounced like ⟨ u ⟩ and ⟨ i ⟩ by some speakers. It was also used in native Latin words by confusion with Greek words of similar meaning, such as sylva and ὕλη.
  
  Classical Latin distinguished between long and short vowels. Then, long vowels, except for ⟨ i ⟩, were frequently marked using the apex, which was sometimes similar to an acute accent ⟨ Á É Ó V́ Ý ⟩. Long /iː/ was written using a taller version of ⟨ I ⟩, called i longa " long I ": ⟨ ꟾ ⟩. In modern texts, long vowels are often indicated by a macron ⟨ ā ē ī ō ū ⟩, and short vowels are usually unmarked except when it is necessary to distinguish between words, when they are marked with a breve ⟨ ă ĕ ĭ ŏ ŭ ⟩. However, they would also signify a long vowel by writing the vowel larger than other letters in a word or by repeating the vowel twice in a row. The acute accent, when it is used in modern Latin texts, indicates stress, as in Spanish, rather than length.
  
  Although called long vowels, their exact quality in Classical Latin is different from short vowels. The difference is described in the table below:
  
  This difference in quality is posited by W. Sidney Allen in his book Vox Latina. However, Andrea Calabrese has disputed this assertion, based in part upon the observation that in Sardinian and some Lucanian dialects, each long and short vowel pair merged, as opposed to in Italo-Western languages in which short /i/ and /u/ merged with long /eː/ and /o:/ (c.f. Latin 'siccus', Italian 'secco', and Sardinian 'siccu').
  
  A vowel letter followed by ⟨ m ⟩ at the end of a word, or a vowel letter followed by ⟨ n ⟩ before ⟨ s ⟩ or ⟨ f ⟩, represented a short nasal vowel, as in monstrum.