V Explained

V
Letter:	V v
Script:	Latin script
Type:	Alphabet
Typedesc:	ic and logographic
Language:	Latin language
Phonemes:	[{{IPAlink|v}}] [{{IPAlink|w}}] [{{IPAlink|β̞}}] [{{IPAlink|f}}] [{{IPAlink|b}}] [{{IPAlink|u}}] [{{IPAlink|ə}}] [ə̃] [{{IPAlink|y}}] [{{IPAlink|ʋ}}] [{{IPAlink|ɯ}}] [{{IPAlink|ɤ}}]
Unicode:	U+0056, U+0076
Alphanumber:	22
Fam1:	G43T3
Fam6:	Υ υ
Fam8:	U
Usageperiod:	~−700 to present
Children:	U W ∨ ℣ Ꮴ Ꮙ Ꮩ
Sisters:	F Ѵ У Ў Ұ Ү Ꝩ ו و ܘ וּ וֹ ࠅ ወ વ ૂ ુ उ
Equivalents:	Y, U, W
Associates:	v(x)
Direction:	Left-to-right
Sample Pronunciation Alphabet:	/t͡h//ð//v//vh/

V, or v, is the twenty-second letter of 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), plural vees.^[1]

Name

• Catalan; Valencian: ve (in Catalan; Valencian pronounced as /ˈve/); in dialects that lack contrast between pronounced as //v// and pronounced as //b//, the letter is called Catalan; Valencian: ve baixa in Catalan; Valencian pronounced as /ˈbe ˈbajʃə/, "low B/V".
• Czech: vé in Czech pronounced as /'vɛː/
• French: vé pronounced as /fr/
• German: Vau pronounced as /de/
• Italian: vi pronounced as /it/ or Italian: vu pronounced as /it/
• Japanese

is called a variety of names originating in English, most commonly Japanese: ブイ pronounced as /ja/ or pronounced as /ja/, but less nativized variants, violating to an extent the phonotactics of Japanese, of Japanese: ヴィー pronounced as /ja/, Japanese: ヴイ pronounced as /ja/ or pronounced as /ja/, and Japanese: ヴィ pronounced as /ja/ are also used. The phoneme pronounced as //v// in Japanese is used properly only in loanwords, where the preference for either pronounced as //v// or pronounced as //b// depends on many factors; in general, words that are perceived to be in common use tend toward pronounced as //b//.

• Polish: fał in Polish pronounced as /'faw/
• Portuguese: vê pronounced as /pt/
• Spanish; Castilian: uve pronounced as /es/ is recommended, but Spanish; Castilian: ve pronounced as /es/ is traditional. If is referred to as the latter, it would have the same pronunciation as the letter in Spanish (i.e. pronounced as /es/ after pause or nasal sound, otherwise pronounced as /es/);^[2] thus further terms are needed to distinguish Spanish; Castilian: ve from Spanish; Castilian: be. In some countries it is called Spanish; Castilian: ve corta, Spanish; Castilian: ve baja, Spanish; Castilian: ve pequeña, Spanish; Castilian: ve chica or Spanish; Castilian: ve [[labiodental]].

History

The letter ultimately comes from the Phoenician letter waw by way of .

During the Late Middle Ages, two minuscule glyphs of U developed which were both used for sounds including pronounced as //u// and modern pronounced as //v//. The pointed form was written at the beginning of a word, while a rounded form 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 and is recorded in a Gothic script from 1386, where preceded . By the mid-16th century, the form was used to represent the consonant and the vowel sound, giving us the modern letter . and were not accepted as distinct letters until many years later.^[3] The rounded variant became the modern-day version of, and the letter's former pointed form became .

Use in writing systems

Pronunciation of (v) by language! Orthography! Phonemes

Catalan	pronounced as /link/ or pronounced as /link/
Cherokee romanization	pronounced as /link/
(substitute for in Pinyin)	pronounced as /link/
Choctaw (substitute for (ʋ))	pronounced as /link/
Dutch	pronounced as /link/ or pronounced as /link/
English	pronounced as /link/
Esperanto	pronounced as /link/
French	pronounced as /link/
Galician	pronounced as /link/
German	pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/
Indonesian	pronounced as /link/
Italian	pronounced as /link/
Irish	pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/
Malay	pronounced as /link/
Muscogee	pronounced as /link/ ~ pronounced as /link/
Old Norse	pronounced as /link/
Portuguese	pronounced as /link/ or pronounced as /link/
Spanish	pronounced as /link/
Turkish	pronounced as /link/

English

In English, represents a voiced labiodental fricative.

Special rules of orthography normally apply to the letter :

• Traditionally, is not doubled to indicate a short vowel, the way, for example, is doubled to indicate the difference between super and supper. However, that is changing with newly coined words, such as, divvy up and skivvies.
• A word-final sound (except in of) is normally spelled -, 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 sound is spelled, not, before the letter . This originated with a mediaeval scribal practice designed to increase legibility by avoiding too many vertical strokes (minims) in a row.

Like,,, and, 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. is the only letter that cannot be used to form an English two-letter word in the British^[4] and Australian^[5] versions of the game of Scrabble. It is one of only two letters (the other being) that cannot be used this way in the American version.^{[6] [7]} is also the only letter in the English language that is never silent.^[8]

Romance languages

The letter represents pronounced as /link/ in several Romance languages, but in others it represents the same sound as, i.e. pronounced as /link/, due to a process known as betacism. Betacism occurs in most dialects of Spanish, in some dialects of Catalan and Portuguese, as well as in Aragonese, Asturleonese and Galician.

In Spanish, the phoneme has two main allophones; in most environments, it is pronounced pronounced as /pronounced as /link//, but after a pause or a nasal it is typically pronounced as /link/. See Allophones of /b d g/ in Spanish phonology for a more thorough discussion.

In Corsican, represents pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ or pronounced as /link/, depending on the position in the word and the sentence.

Other languages

In most languages that use the Latin alphabet, represents a voiced bilabial or labiodental sound.

In contemporary German, it represents pronounced as /link/ in most loanwords, while in native German words, it always represents pronounced as /link/.

In standard Dutch, it traditionally represents pronounced as /link/, but in many regions, it represents pronounced as /link/ in some or all positions.

In the Latinization of the Cherokee syllabary, represents a nasalized schwa, pronounced as /link/.

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

Other systems

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, (IPA|v) represents the voiced labiodental fricative.

Other uses

See main article: article and V (disambiguation).

• V is used to represent the Roman numeral 5.
• 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, 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).

Related characters

Descendants and related letters in the Latin alphabet

• U u : Latin letter, originally the same letter as
• W w : Latin letter, descended from
• Ỽ ỽ : Middle Welsh
• with diacritics: Ṽ ṽ Ṿ ṿ Ʋ ʋ ᶌ^[9]
• IPA-specific symbols related to : pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/
• ᶹ : Modifier letter small with hook is used in phonetic transcription^[9]
• : Modifier letter small with right hook is a superscript IPA letter^[10]
• Ʌ ʌ ᶺ: Turned
• ⱴ : with curl
• Uralic Phonetic Alphabet-specific symbols related to :^[11]
  • • • • • • • ^[12]

Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets

Semitic letter Waw, from which the following symbols originally derive:

• • Υ υ : Greek letter Upsilon, from which derives
    • Y y : Latin letter, which, like, also derives from Upsilon (but was taken into the alphabet at a later date)
    • Ѵ ѵ : Cyrillic letter izhitsa, also descended from Upsilon
    • У у : Cyrillic letter, also descended from Upsilon via the digraph of omicron and upsilon
      • Ү ү : Cyrillic letter, descended from and izhitsa, is used in the scripts for languages in the former Soviet Union and currently the Russian Federation, as well as in Mongolian. Most commonly, it represents pronounced as //y// or pronounced as //ʏ//.

Ligatures and abbreviations

• ℣ : Versicle sign^[13]
• Ꝟ ꝟ : Forms of were used for medieval scribal abbreviations^[14]

Other representations

Computing

Other

Notes and References

1. "V", Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1989); Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1993); "vee", op. cit.
2. Book: Díez Losada, Fernando . La tribuna del idioma . 2004 . Editorial Tecnologica de CR . es . 978-9977-66-161-2 . 176 .
3. Book: Pflughaupt . Laurent . trans. Gregory Bruhn . Letter by Letter: An Alphabetical Miscellany . 2009-06-21 . 2008 . . 978-1-56898-737-8 . 123–124 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130510104124/http://books.google.com/books?id=63Qnbt2CMiMC&pg=PA124 . 2013-05-10 . live .
4. Collins Scrabble Dictionary Revised 6th edition (2022) Harper Collins
5. Web site: 2-Letter Words with Definitions. Australian Scrabble Players Association (ASPA). 20 February 2013. 8 May 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20130305065759/http://www.scrabble.org.au/words/twos.htm. 5 March 2013. live. dmy-all.
6. Web site: Hasbro staff . 2014 . Scrabble word lists:2-Letter Words . Hasbro . 11 March 2014 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140407014234/http://www.hasbro.com/scrabble/en_US/2LetterList.cfm . 2014-04-07 .
7. [Official Scrabble Players Dictionary]
8. News: Every Letter Is Silent, Sometimes. 5 March 2023. 5 March 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230305065324/https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/mums-the-letter-when-letters-dont-say-a-thing/v. live.
9. Web site: L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS. 2004-04-19. Peter. Constable. 2018-03-24. https://web.archive.org/web/20171011014355/http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2004/04132-n2740-phonetic.pdf. 2017-10-11. live.
10. Web site: L2/20-252R: Unicode request for IPA modifier-letters (a), pulmonic. 2020-11-08. Kirk. Miller. Michael. Ashby. 2022-10-13. 2021-07-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20210730010133/https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2020/20252r-mod-ipa-a.pdf. live.
11. Web site: L2/02-141: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS. 2002-03-20. Michael. Everson. Michael Everson. etal. 2018-03-24. https://web.archive.org/web/20180219081033/http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2002/02141-n2419-uralic-phonetic.pdf. 2018-02-19. live.
12. Web site: L2/06-215: Proposal for Encoding 3 Additional Characters of the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet. 2006-04-07. Klaas. Ruppel. Jack. Rueter. Erkki I.. Kolehmainen. 2018-03-24. https://web.archive.org/web/20170706090340/http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2006/06215-n3070.pdf. 2017-07-06. live.
13. News: Roman Liturgy Fonts containing the response and versicle characters – Roman Liturgy. Roman Liturgy. 7 September 2011. 2016-06-24. https://web.archive.org/web/20160723025939/http://www.romanliturgy.org/?p=144. 2016-07-23. live.
14. Web site: L2/06-027: Proposal to add Medievalist characters to the UCS. 2006-01-30. Michael. Everson. Peter. Baker. António. Emiliano. Florian. Grammel. Odd Einar. Haugen. Diana. Luft. Susana. Pedro. Gerd. Schumacher. Andreas. Stötzner. 2018-03-24. https://web.archive.org/web/20180919051622/https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2006/06027-n3027-medieval.pdf. 2018-09-19. live.