The letters U and V on Marseilles decks

Interesting discovery on the Fournier Marseille...

I recently acquired the Fournier Marseille, and so far, I am loving it. But I noticed some, as you can say, inconsistencies with the wording on the cards.

On Marseille decks, the letter v is substituted for the letter u correct? Well, on this Marseille, the v is indeed used like this, for example, on the lovers, the v is used, but on the Hanged Man, a u is used at the end of Pendu. I noticed that u's are used on the Minors as well(the coupes) suit.

I was wondering, what is up with this? Are all Marseille decks like this?

Thanks for highlighting this, Phoenix.

The letters 'v' and 'u' were one and the same until late mediaeval times (as were the 's' and 'f'), and so there are variations as to the apparent spelling.

More recent decks occasionally continue to use this variant visual depiction - but it shouldn't be seen, in my view, as a different spelling, rather as a different 'font'. In addition, there occurs, of course, various spellings for the same word.

It certainly may be useful to observe how certain cards are either named or spelled, and investigate possible significances.

Were they used interchangeably in the same deck? Because that is what is happening.

jmd said:

It certainly may be useful to observe how certain cards are either named or spelled, and investigate possible significances.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion. I may actually look into that in the coming days.

When you ask if they 'were' used interchangeably in the same deck, I think it would probably be fairer to state that what we are now seeing as two letters was not then seen as such - but it is, nonetheless, in modern times that the 'v' look has been retained somewhat unexplicably (though I personally like the ancient form it thereby carries), despite it being changed in numerous places where ambiguity may have resulted if not.

For example, knowing that 'v' and 'u' are the same, there is no ambigvity in that word, but quite a few in 'eve'.

The older general printing rule for lower ca∫e was that 'v' was always v∫ed at the beginning of a word; 'u' everywhere el∫e. In vpper ca∫e, 'V' was the only letter that exi∫ted.

A ∫imilar rule gouerned 'i' and 'j'. 'I' is the only vpperca∫e letter; in lower ca∫e, 'j' only appears at the end of a long ∫equence of 'i's. This is important mo∫tly in Latin, where many words end in -ij.

Not at all ∫ure how this impacts the Mar∫eilles deck v∫age of the two letters.

Thanks ihcoyc - and I do stand corrected!

[delete]