TZSCHIRNEB, Cheerier, HEINRICII GOTTLIEB (1178-1828). A German Protestant theologian. lie was born at 1\littweida, Saxony; studied theology at Leipzig; became professor of theol ogy at Wittenberg in 1S05; at Leipzig in 1809; and prebendary of Aleisscn in 1818. lie pub lished Protestantismus mut Katholicismus aus dew Standpunkt der Politik betrachtet (1822; 4th ed. 1824) ; Das lleaktionssysleai (1824); and Der Fall des Heidentums (ed. by Niedner, 1829).
The twenty-first letter of the Eng lish alphabet. The Pluenician at phabet ended with t (q.v.) and u was the first of the letters developed in Greek and added to its alphabet to supply the deficiency of the Phm nician. Originally U was the uncial and cursive form, and V the capital form. The two were dif ferentiated about the fifteenth century ..o., when Vwas limited to representing the consonant sound. Before the fifteenth century small v and u were used interchangeably. In English u- represents a
variety of sounds besides its original value, which is that of a rounded back vowel, the n in rude. It stands also for the sound yoo, as educate, mule, value. It is pronounced like oo in rule, ruby, ruin; oo in full, pull, push; o.) in Turk, turnip, turpentine, urge; fi (unrounded) in tub, up, muff. A u is always written after q (q.v.). In this case it has the consonantal value of w, which it has also often after other consonants, especially g and s, as in quick, quartz, quote; language, anguish, guara; saner, dissuade. It is silent in guard, tongue, build, etc.
The sources of u arc as follows: Anglo-Saxon it, as sun from some; begun from begunnen; 21,111 from hnutu; Anglo-Saxon ii, as us from its; but from bit tan ; up from up; Anglo-Saxon 6, as must from moste.
In chemistry U stands for uranium.