V
V v
Usage
Writing system	Latin script
Type	Alphabetic and Logographic
Language of origin	Latin language
Phonetic usage	[v] [w] [β̞] [f] [b] [u] [ə] [ə̃] [y] [ʋ] [ɯ] [ɤ]
Unicode codepoint	U+0056, U+0076
Alphabetical position	22
History
Development	Υ υ 𐌖 U V v
Time period	~-700 to present
Descendants	• U  • W  • ∨  • ℣  • Ꮴ  • Ꮙ  • Ꮩ
Sisters	F Ѵ У Ў Ұ Ү Ꝩ ו و ܘ וּ וֹ ࠅ 𐎆 𐡅 ወ વ ૂ ુ उ
Transliteration equivalents	Y, U, W
Other
Other letters commonly used with	v(x)
Writing direction	Left-to-Right

ISO basic Latin alphabet
AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMmNnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz

V, or v, is the 22nd letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is vee (pronounced /ˈviː/), plural vees.^[1]

History

Ancient Corinthian vase depicting Perseus, Andromeda and Ketos. The inscriptions denoting the depicted persons are written in an archaic form of the Greek alphabet. Perseus (Ancient Greek: ΠΕΡϺΕΥϺ) is inscribed as ⟨ϺVΕϺΡΕΠ⟩ (from right to left), using ⟨V⟩ to represent the vowel [u]. San (⟨Ϻ⟩) is used instead of Sigma (⟨Σ⟩).

The letter ⟨v⟩ ultimately comes from the Phoenician letter waw by way of ⟨u⟩.

During the Late Middle Ages, two minuscule glyphs of U developed which were both used for sounds including /u/ and modern /v/. The pointed form ⟨v⟩ was written at the beginning of a word, while a rounded form ⟨u⟩ was used in the middle or end, regardless of sound. So whereas valour and excuse appeared as in modern printing, have and upon were printed as "haue" and "vpon". The first distinction between the letters ⟨v⟩ and ⟨u⟩ is recorded in a Gothic script from 1386, where ⟨v⟩ preceded ⟨u⟩. By the mid-16th century, the ⟨v⟩ form was used to represent the consonant and ⟨u⟩ the vowel sound, giving us the modern letter ⟨v⟩. ⟨u⟩ and ⟨v⟩ were not accepted as distinct letters until many years later.^[2] The rounded variant became the modern-day version of ⟨u⟩, and the letter's former pointed form became ⟨v⟩.

Letter

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, ⟨v⟩ represents the voiced labiodental fricative. See Help:IPA.

In English, special rules of orthography normally apply to the letter ⟨v⟩:

• Traditionally, ⟨v⟩ is not doubled to indicate a short vowel, the way, for example, ⟨p⟩ is doubled to indicate the difference between super and supper. However, that is changing with newly coined words, such as savvy, divvy up and skivvies.
• A word-final /v/ sound (except in of) is normally spelled -⟨ve⟩, regardless of the pronunciation of the vowel before it. This rule does not apply to transliterations of Slavic and Hebrew words, such as Kyiv (Kiev), or to words that started out as abbreviations, such as sov for sovereign.
• The /ʌ/ sound is spelled ⟨o⟩, not ⟨u⟩, before the letter ⟨v⟩. This originated with a mediaeval scribal practice designed to increase legibility by avoiding too many vertical strokes (minims) in a row.

Like ⟨j⟩, ⟨k⟩, ⟨w⟩, ⟨x⟩, and ⟨z⟩, ⟨v⟩ is not used very frequently in English. It is the sixth least frequently used letter in the English language, occurring in roughly 1% of words. ⟨v⟩ is the only letter that cannot be used to form an English two-letter word in the British^[3] and Australian^[4] versions of the game of Scrabble. It is one of only two letters (the other being ⟨c⟩) that cannot be used this way in the American version.^[5][6] ⟨v⟩ is also the only letter in the English language that is never silent.^[7]

Name in other languages

• Catalan: ve (pronounced [ˈve]); in dialects that lack contrast between /v/ and /b/, the letter is called ve baixa [ˈbe ˈbajʃə] "low B/V".
• Czech: vé ['vɛː]
• French: vé ['ve]
• German: Vau [ˈfaʊ]
• Italian: vi [ˈvi] or vu [ˈvu]
• Japanese: ⟨v⟩ is called a variety of names originating in English, most commonly ブイ [bɯi] or [bui], but less nativized variants, violating to an extent the phonotactics of Japanese, of ヴィー [viː], ヴイ [vɯi] or [vui], and ヴィ [vi] are also used. The phoneme /v/ in Japanese is used properly only in loanwords, where the preference for either /v/ or /b/ depends on many factors; in general, words that are perceived to be in common use tend toward /b/.
• Polish: fał ['faw]
• Portuguese: vê [ˈve]
• Spanish: uve [ˈuβe] is recommended, but ve [ˈbe] is traditional. If ⟨v⟩ is referred to as the latter, it would have the same pronunciation as the letter ⟨b⟩ in Spanish (i.e. [ˈbe] after pause or nasal sound, otherwise [ˈβe]);^[8] thus further terms are needed to distinguish ve from be. In some countries it is called ve corta, ve baja, ve pequeña, ve chica or ve labiodental.

Pronunciation and use

Late Renaissance or early Baroque design of ⟨v⟩, from 1627

In most languages which use the Latin alphabet, ⟨v⟩ represents a voiced bilabial or labiodental sound. In English, it is a voiced labiodental fricative. In most dialects of Spanish, it represents the same sound as ⟨b⟩, that is, [b] or [β]. In Corsican, it represents [b], [v], [β] or [w], depending on the position in the word and the sentence. In contemporary German, it represents [v] in most loan-words while in native German words, it always represents [f]. In standard Dutch it traditionally represents [v] but in many regions it represents [f] in some or all positions.

In Native American languages of North America (mainly Muskhogean and Iroquoian), ⟨v⟩ represents a nasalized schwa, /ə̃/.

In Chinese Pinyin, while v is not used, the letter ⟨v⟩ is used by most input methods to enter letter ⟨ü⟩, which most keyboards lack (Romanised Chinese is a popular method to enter Chinese text). Informal romanizations of Mandarin Chinese use ⟨v⟩ as a substitute for the close front rounded vowel /y/, properly written ⟨ü⟩ in pinyin and Wade–Giles.

Related characters

Computing codes

¹ Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings.

Other representations

V is the symbol for vanadium. It is number 23 on the periodic table. Emerald derives its green coloring from either vanadium or chromium. V is also used to represent the Roman numeral of 5.

v, v., and vs can also be used as an abbreviation for the word versus when between two or more competing items (e.g. Brown v. Board of Education).

NATO phonetic	Morse code
Victor	▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ⓘ

Signal flag	Flag semaphore	American manual alphabet (ASL fingerspelling)	British manual alphabet (BSL fingerspelling)	Braille dots-1236 Unified English Braille

Notes

References

External links

• Media related to V at Wikimedia Commons
• The dictionary definition of V at Wiktionary
• The dictionary definition of v at Wiktionary