A commenter already told us when we started with Abrapalabra: “They will have problems when they reach the W”. Indeed, we have had them. The W is the letter that heads the fewest words in the dictionary: only 28 in the last edition. Approximately 0.02%.

As the dictionary itself explains, this consonant is used to represent “the voiced bilabial consonant phoneme -/b/- in words of Germanic origin, such as Wamba, Wagnerian, Westphalian, and place names and anthroponyms of Polish or Dutch , as in Kowalski, Van der Weyden, and a semiconsonant /u/ in Anglicisms, as in Washingtonian or Whiskey, as well as in voices transcribed from other languages, as in wau”.

W was the last letter to be incorporated into the Spanish alphabet, as this article in La Nueva España recalls. It was officially incorporated with the publication of the Orthography of 1969. "It reaches our alphabet to represent phonemes of the Germanic languages, but many will be surprised that it was already used in the Middle Ages in the writing of certain foreign names."

Many words with w in origin had previously been incorporated into the dictionary, but changing the w to v, as in the case of wagon or toilet, for example. As they add in Curiosidario, “in which the w has been replaced by a v, the origin of the words is usually English; while they are usually German in which it has been replaced by gu (war, gualda, guard)”.

In some cases, the RAE has proposed adaptations to Spanish, as in the case of güisqui, the use of which it recommends, but almost no one follows, as admitted by the Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas, which adds that this adaptation "allows us to avoid frequent errors that are committed when trying to reproduce the English spelling. Other attempts at adaptation that are not very well established, such as whiskey, should be discarded. To designate the establishment where whiskey and other liquors are served, the use of the form whiskey is recommended: «An attempted robbery occurred during the early morning in a whiskey shop»”.

The X is the penultimate letter that heads the most words: 45, barely 0.05% of the total. The letter has Greek origin, although it must be said that the Greeks represented the sound /ks/ with a sign derived from the Phoenician samek, leaving the X sign for the voiceless guttural sound /x/ corresponding to the j of modern Spanish.

The Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts explains that “in the Middle Ages, the spelling x represented a voiceless fricative palatal sound, whose pronunciation was very similar to that of today's English sh or French ch. Thus, words like dixo (today he said) or traxo (today he brought) were pronounced [dísho] or [trásho] (where [sh] represents a sound similar to the one we make when we want to impose silence)”.

This archaic sound “is preserved in the Spanish of Mexico and other areas of America in words of Nahuatl origin, such as Xola [shóla] or mixiote [mishióte] (not in Xochimilco, where the x sounds like /s/ ), and in the archaic pronunciation of certain surnames that retain their ancient graphic form, such as Ximénez or Mexía”.

The dictionary adds that in the 16th century, this sound evolved “until it became the voiceless fricative velar sound /j/, which in modern writing is represented by the letters j or g (before e, i)”.

The spelling is preserved in several American place names, such as Mexico, Oaxaca, and Texas, and in American variants of some personal names, such as Ximena. Of course, all these names must be pronounced with the /j/ sound. “There are also traces of this archaic x in some Spanish place names that today are commonly pronounced with a [k + s] sound, such as Almorox, Borox, Guadix and Sax. Their respective demonyms (almorojano, borojeño, guadijeño and sajeño) show that, originally, the x they contain was pronounced /j/”.

But let's get to the words. With the W, we highlight the following:

Wahhabism. Fundamentalist Muslim movement that defends a radical return to the purity of original Islam and opposes all kinds of innovations.

Walkman. Portable cassette player with headphones. It comes from the Sony trademark and the curious thing about this word is that it has been in the dictionary since 2001, when nobody used these devices anymore.

But they are so few, that we leave you the other 26:

W. Wagnerian, na. Wahhabi. Wahhabi. Walkie-talkie. Washingtonian, na. water polo player Water polo. Watt. Wow. Web. Weber. Weimares, sa. Wellingtonia. welterweight Western. Westphalian, na. whiskery Whiskey. Wifi. Winch. Windsurfing. Windsurfing. Windsurfer. Wolfram. Tungsten.

Y with the X:

Xenism. Foreign term that retains its original spelling; p. eg software.

Xenoglossy. Glossolalia (unintelligible language). Gift of tongues (‖ supernatural ability to speak tongues).

Xerophyte, the. Said of a plant organism: adapted to life in a dry environment.

Xylophage, ga. said of an insect: that gnaws the wood.

Xyloprotective, ra. Said of a product, a substance, etc.: That serve or are used to protect wood.

And these are the other 40:

X. Xanthine. Xanthoma. xeca. Xecudo, yes. Xeno-. Xenophobia. Xenophobic, ca. Xenophobic, wow. Xenon. Xero-. Xerocopia. Xerox. Xerophytic, ca. Xerophyte, ta. Xerophthalmia. Xerography. Xerograph. Xerographic, ca. Xeroteca. Xi. xicaque. Xiphoid, a. xiphoid. xylem. Xilo-. xylophone. Xylophonist. Xylophone. Woodcut. Woodcut, ca. Xylograph, fa. xylorgan. Xinca. Xiote. Xóchil. Xocoatole. Xocoyote. Xolo, the.

Pop quiz: the V

*Text written by Jaime Rubio with contributions from Mari Luz Peinado, Héctor Llanos, Gloria Pina, María Sánchez, Pablo Cantó, Anabel Bueno and Lucía González.

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