Vyatka

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

or VIATKA, a large provtreme keenness of vision, while the sud-ince in European Russia; area, 59,329 square miles; pop. about 3,700,000, comprising many Tartar tribes and some 50,000 Mohammedans. The products are corn, rye, barley, oats, flax, and hemp. Forests of fir, oak, elm and birch are extensive. Before the World War it had manufactures of woolens, linens, potash, leather, copper, firearms, anchors, gun carriages, etc. The capital, of the same name, is a well-built town, containing 17 churches and a cathedral with an altar of solid silver, and is the commercial center of the province. W W, w, the 23d letter of the English alphabet. It takes its form and its name from the union of two V's the character V having formerly the name and force of U. The name "double u" is not, however, a very suitable one, being given to the letter from its form of composition, and not from its sound. In the Anglo- Saxon alphabet W had a distinctive character of its own, the modern letter being adopted in the 13th century. W represents two sounds: (1) The distinctive sound properly belonging to it, being that which it has at the beginning of a syllable, and when followed by a vowel, as in was, will, woe, forward, housework, etc.; (2) at the end of syllables, in which position it is always preceded by a vowel, it has either no force at all (or at most only serves to lengthen the vowel), as in law, paw, grow, lawful, etc.; or it forms the second element in a diphthong, as in few, new, now, vow, etc., being in in such cases really a vowel, and equivalent to the u in bough, neutral, etc. It is formed by opening the mouth with a close, circular configuration of the lips, the organs having exactly the same position as they have in pronouncing the oo in foot. Wis hence often spoken of as a vowel; but it is not so, as may be seen by comparing woo, wood, and woman, in which w is not equivalent to oo.