In English, the name of the letter is the "long O" sound, pronounced /ˈoʊ/. In most other languages, its name matches the letter's pronunciation in open syllables.
Pronunciation of the name of the letter ⟨o⟩ in European languages
Its graphic form has remained fairly constant from Phoenician times until today. The name of the Phoenician letter was ʿeyn, meaning "eye", and its shape originates simply as a drawing of a human eye (possibly inspired by the corresponding Egyptian hieroglyph, cf. Proto-Sinaitic script). Its original sound value was that of a consonant, probably [ʕ], the sound represented by the cognate Arabic letterع ʿayn.[2]
The use of this Phoenician letter for a vowel sound is due to the early Greek alphabets, which adopted the letter "omicron" to represent the vowel /o/. The letter was adopted with the value in the Old Italic alphabets, including the early Latin alphabet. In Greek, a variation of the form later came to differentiate this long sound (omega, meaning "large O") from the short o (Omicron, meaning "small o"). The Greek omicron gave rise to the corresponding Cyrillic letter O.[2][3]
The letter ⟨o⟩ is the fourth most common letter in the English alphabet.[4] Like the other English vowel letters, it has associated "long" and "short" pronunciations. The "long" ⟨o⟩ as in boat is actually most often a diphthong/oʊ/ (realized dialectically anywhere from [o] to [əʊ]). In English, there is also a "short" ⟨o⟩ as in fox, /ɒ/, which sounds slightly different in different dialects. In most dialects of British English, it is either an open-mid back rounded vowel[ɔ] or an open back rounded vowel[ɒ]; in American English, it is most commonly an unrounded back [ɑ] to a central vowel [a].[5]
Common digraphs include ⟨oo⟩, which represents either /uː/ or /ʊ/; ⟨oi⟩ or ⟨oy⟩, which typically represents the diphthong /ɔɪ/, and ⟨ao⟩, ⟨oe⟩, and ⟨ou⟩ which represent a variety of pronunciations depending on context and etymology.[5]
In other contexts, especially before a letter with a minim, ⟨o⟩ may represent the sound /ʌ/, as in 'son' or 'love'. It can also represent the semivowel/w/, as in choir or quinoa.[citation needed]
"O" in isolation is a word, also spelled "oh" and pronounced /oʊ/. Before a noun, usually capitalized, it indicates direct address (the vocative case), as in the titles "O Canada" or "O Captain! My Captain!" or in certain verses of the Bible.[6]
Other languages
⟨o⟩ is commonly associated with the open-mid back rounded vowel[ɔ], mid back rounded vowel[o̞] or close-mid back rounded vowel[o] in many languages. Other languages use ⟨o⟩ for various values, usually back vowels which are at least partly open. Derived letters such as ⟨ö⟩ and ⟨ø⟩ have been created for the alphabets of some languages to distinguish values that were not present in Latin and Greek, particularly rounded front vowels.[citation needed]
0 (zero). The capital letter O may be mistaken or misused for the number 0, as they appear quite identical in some typefaces. Early typewriters did not have a 'zero' key.
Notes
^Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.[citation needed]
References
^"O" Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989);Chambers-Happap, "oes" op. cit.Oes is the plural of the name of the letter. The plural of the letter itself is rendered Os, O's, os, o's.
