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We have a few possibilities floating around for Latin consonantal <u>. The first point to note is that Latin <u> seems to have changed to /B/ just about everywhere quite early on. The WGmc phonology we move over to also has /B/, which is <b>. So, if we have /B/ for <u>, then the distinction between <b> and <u>/<v> is going to be lost after the Romans cross the Rhine - similar to the situation in modern Spanish I suppose. WGmc also has <w>, which as this eventually becomes /v/ in High German I''m assuming was actually /P/ (like modern Dutch), rather than /w/ (like modern English). It would be quite nice to preserve this phoneme, as <w> /v/ is a distinctive German feature. So, we could have Latin consonantal <u> being interpreted as /P/ by the Germanians, if the /w/ > /B/ change hadn't already taken place. This would then keep it distinct from <b> and so enable it to survive. The downside to that is if <b> and <w>/<v> remain distinct, we are going to have a lot of non-German looking datives ending in <b> or <bs> (< -BUS), rather than being able to switch them to a more German looking <v> or <f>. A price worth paying though to keep <w>? Finally, <qu> is usually treated quite distinctly in Latin and German (up until the High German shift of */P/ to /v/ at least), which I'm guessing is down to it being [k_w] rather than [kw] (or maybe <qu> is /kw/, but other <u> is /P/?)? At some point late in the development of High German it seems to merge with the other <w>s to become /kv/. I guess we need to follow a similar path with the Germanican? Thoughts? *braces himself* Pete. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]