Does French have a w in its alphabet?
It has had to use the “w” for many centuries because of the influence of Germanic languages on its basic Latin structure. In very early times “w” would be rendered “gu”. They used to get very confused about this. I remember from studies of Old French that whereas “vespa” (wasp) was pronounced with a soft initial letter, giving the impression that it began with “w” and “werra” came from a Germanic word which produced our own English word “war”, people were so conscious of the fact that “werra” transmuted into the modern French word “guerre”, that they over compensated when it came to “vespa” and incorrectly started doing the same thing there, with the result that the word for wasp is “guèpe” instead of “vèpe”, which would be a more natural outcome. All the “w” words in French are of foreign origin, as are the “k” words.
