How many letters are words in Latin?

Question

In English, there are a few words that sound the same as a single letter. Some are spelled with a single letter ("I", "a") while others are just pronounced that way ("eye", "cue", "why").

How many of these words exist in Latin? I mentioned a few in another answer, but already off the top of my head I can think of more once we allow consonants. I'm curious how full of an alphabet one can make.

Answer 1

This answer is based on this question and answer concerning the classical names of the letters. Given the pronunciation of a Latin word, there is typically a unique spelling (unlike in English!) so the exercise is pretty straightforward.

Yes:

• ā: preposition
• dē: preposition
• ē: preposition
• ī: imperative of ire
• ō: interjection
• ĕs: form of esse
• tē: form of te
• ĕx or ĭx: preposition (ex)

No (with near hits):

• bē: noun bes, forms of beare
• cē: imperative cie
• ĕf: Perhaps one could argue that ex is pronounced as ef before a word starting with f, as in compounds we have efficere and others.
• gē: One might Latinize the name of the Greek goddess as Ge, but I have never encountered it or even Gaea. One would expect Terra or Tellus in this use.
• hā: If one argues that the initial h- is not pronounced, then this sounds like the preposition. But that would draw the very name of this letter into question. As cmw points out in a comment, this is used in Plautus for laughter, but it can also be seen as a part of a longer word hahae or similar, and the a is short.
• cā: —
• ĕl: —
• ĕm: This looks it could be an accusative for of is, but it is not.
• ĕn: interjection ēn
• pē: noun pes
• cū: pronoun cui
• ĕr: forms of esse, nouns era and erus
• ū: —
• y ([ī]) graeca: —
• zēta: —

There seem to be eight letters that are words.

As Draconis points out in a comment, some letters have alternate names (esse, elle, emme…). These do not seem to bring any new letters to the list, but S gets a new word in esse. This also produces the close hit ille ≈ elle.