V, or v, is the twenty-second and fifth-to-last
letter
Letter, letters, or literature may refer to:
Characters typeface
* Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet.
* Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...
in the
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...
, 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''.
History
![Corinthian Vase depicting Perseus, Andromeda and Ketos](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Corinthian_Vase_depicting_Perseus%2C_Andromeda_and_Ketos.jpg)
The letter V ultimately comes from the
Phoenician letter ''
waw
Waw or WAW may refer to:
* Waw (letter), a letter in many Semitic abjads
* Waw, the velomobile
* Another spelling for the town Wau, South Sudan
* Waw Township, Burma
*Warsaw Chopin Airport, an international airport serving Warsaw, Poland (IATA ai ...
'' by way of U. See
U for details.
During the
Late Middle Ages
The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the Periodization, period of European history lasting from AD 1300 to 1500. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Eur ...
, two
minuscule
Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...
glyphs of
U developed which were both used for sounds including and modern . 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 "u" and "v" 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. 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
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...
, represents the
voiced labiodental fricative
The voiced labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is v.
The sound is similar to vo ...
. 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
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word, f ...
, 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 , "divvy up" and "skivvies".
* Words that ends in a
sound (except ''of'') normally spell that sound ''-ve'', regardless of the pronunciation of the vowel before it. This rule does not apply to transliterations of Slavic and Hebrew words, such as ''Kiev'', or to words that started out as abbreviations, such as ''sov'' for ''sovereign''.
* The short u 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,
Q,
X, and
Z; V is not used very frequently in English. It is the
sixth least frequently used letter in the English language, with a frequency of about 1% in words. V is the only letter that cannot be used to form an English two-letter word in the British and Australian versions of the game of
Scrabble
''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left t ...
. It is one of only two letters (the other is C) that cannot be used this way in the American version.
The letter appears frequently in the
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...
, where it is the first letter of the second person plural pronoun and (in Italian and Catalan) the stem of the
imperfect
The imperfect (abbreviated ) is a verb form that combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state). It can have meanings similar to the English "was walking" or "used to w ...
form of most verbs.
Name in other languages
* ca, ve, pronounced ; in dialects that lack contrast between and , the letter is called ''ve baixa'' "low B/V".
* cs, vé
*french: vé
*german: Vau
* it, vi or ''vu''
* pl, fał
* pt, vê
* es, uve is recommended, but ''ve'' is traditional. If V is pronounced in the second way, it would have the same pronunciation as the letter B in Spanish (i.e. after pause or nasal sound, otherwise ); 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
In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants Place of articulation, articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.
Labiodental consonants in the IPA
The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:
The IPA c ...
''.
In
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
, V is called a variety of names originating in English, most commonly ブイ or , but less nativized variants, violating to an extent the
phonotactics
Phonotactics (from Ancient Greek "voice, sound" and "having to do with arranging") is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable struc ...
of Japanese, of ヴィー , ヴイ or , and ヴィ are also used. The phoneme in Japanese is used properly only in loanwords, where the preference for either or depends on many factors; in general, words that are perceived to be in common use tend toward .
Pronunciation and use
In most languages which use the Latin alphabet, has a
voiced
Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced.
The term, however, is used to refer ...
bilabial
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips.
Frequency
Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tlingi ...
or
labiodental
In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants Place of articulation, articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.
Labiodental consonants in the IPA
The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:
The IPA c ...
sound. In English, it is a
voiced labiodental fricative
The voiced labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is v.
The sound is similar to vo ...
. In most dialects of Spanish, it is pronounced the same as , that is, or . In
Corsican, it is pronounced , , or , depending on the position in the word and the sentence. In contemporary
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
, it is pronounced in most loan-words while in native German words, it is always pronounced . In standard
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
it is traditionally pronounced as but in many regions it is pronounced as in some or all positions.
In
Native American languages
Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large numbe ...
of North America (mainly
Muskhogean
Muskogean (also Muskhogean, Muskogee) is a Native American language family spoken in different areas of the Southeastern United States. Though the debate concerning their interrelationships is ongoing, the Muskogean languages are generally div ...
and
Iroquoian
The Iroquoian languages are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking.
As of 2020, all surviving Iroquoian la ...
), represents a nasalized central vowel, /ə̃/.
In
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
, while is not used, the letter is used by most input methods to enter letter , which most keyboards lack (
Romanised
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...
Chinese is a popular method to enter Chinese text). Informal
romanizations
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...
of
Mandarin
Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to:
Language
* Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country
** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China
** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
use V as a substitute for the
close front rounded vowel
The close front rounded vowel, or high front rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is /y/, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is y. Acr ...
/y/, properly written ''ü'' in
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
and
Wade–Giles
Wade–Giles () is a romanization system for Mandarin Chinese. It developed from a system produced by Thomas Francis Wade, during the mid-19th century, and was given completed form with Herbert A. Giles's '' Chinese–English Dictionary'' of ...
.
In
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
, the letter is mostly used in loanwords, such as ''veidhlín'' from English ''violin''. However the sound appears naturally in Irish when /b/ (or /m/) is
lenited
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
or "softened", represented in the
orthography
An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.
Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...
by (or "mh"), so that ''bhí'' is pronounced , ''an bhean'' (the woman) is pronounced , etc. For more information, see
Irish phonology
Irish phonology varies from Irish language#Dialects, dialect to dialect; there is no standard language, standard pronunciation of Irish language, Irish. Therefore, this article focuses on phenomena shared by most or all dialects, and on the ma ...
.
This letter is not used in the Polish alphabet, where is spelled with the letter
instead, following the convention of
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
.
Other systems
In the 19th century, was sometimes used to transcribe a
palatal click
The palatal or palato-alveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found, as components of words, only in southern Africa. The tongue is nearly flat, and is pulled back rather than down as in the postalveolar clicks, making a sharper sound ...
, , a function since partly taken over by .
Related characters
Descendants and related letters in the Latin alphabet
*U u : Latin letter
U, originally the same letter as V
*W w : Latin letter
W, descended from U
*Ỽ ỽ :
Middle Welsh V
*V with
diacritic
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
s:
Ṽ ṽ Ṿ ṿ Ʋ ʋ ᶌ
*
IPA
IPA commonly refers to:
* India pale ale, a style of beer
* International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation
* Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound
IPA may also refer to:
Organizations International
* Insolvency Practitioners ...
-specific symbols related to V:
*ᶹ : Modifier letter small v with hook is used in phonetic transcription
*𐞰 : Modifier letter small v with right hook is a
superscript IPA letter
*Ʌ ʌ ᶺ:
Turned v
*ⱴ :
V with curl ⱴ (lowercase only) is a letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the phonetic transcription of African languages to represent a labiodental flap. Although not an approved symbol of the International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phoneti ...
*
Uralic Phonetic Alphabet
The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) or Finno-Ugric transcription system is a phonetic transcription or notational system used predominantly for the transcription and reconstruction of Uralic languages. It was first published in 1901 by Eemil Nesto ...
-specific symbols related to V:
**
**
**
**
Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets
*𐤅:
Semitic letter
Waw
Waw or WAW may refer to:
* Waw (letter), a letter in many Semitic abjads
* Waw, the velomobile
* Another spelling for the town Wau, South Sudan
* Waw Township, Burma
*Warsaw Chopin Airport, an international airport serving Warsaw, Poland (IATA ai ...
, from which the following symbols originally derive
**Υ υ :
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
letter
Upsilon
Upsilon (, ; uppercase Υ, lowercase υ; el, ''ýpsilon'' ) or ypsilon is the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, grc, Υʹ, label=none has a value of 400. It is derived from the Phoenician waw .
Etym ...
, from which V derives
***Y y : Latin letter
Y, which, like V, also derives from Upsilon (but was taken into the alphabet at a later date)
***Ѵ ѵ : Cyrillic letter
izhitsa
Izhitsa or Izhica (Ѵ, ѵ; italics: ; OCS: Ѷжица, Russian: Ижица, Ukrainian: Іжиця) is a letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet and several later alphabets, usually the last in the row. It originates from the Greek letter upsilon ...
, also descended from Upsilon
***У у :
Cyrillic
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = G ...
letter
u, also descended from Upsilon via the digraph of omicron and upsilon
**** Ү ү :
Cyrillic
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = G ...
letter
Ү, descended from У and izhitsa and 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 /y/ or /ʏ/.
Ligatures and abbreviations
*℣ :
Versicle
In Christian liturgical worship, preces ( ; ), also known in the Anglican prayer book tradition as the suffrages, are short petitions that are said or sung as versicles and responses by the officiant and congregation respectively. It is one of th ...
sign
*Ꝟ ꝟ : Forms of V were used for medieval
scribal abbreviation
Scribal abbreviations or sigla (grammatical number, singular: siglum) are abbreviations used by ancient and medieval scribes writing in various languages, including Latin, Greek language, Greek, Old English and Old Norse. In modern manuscrip ...
s
Computing codes
:
1
Other representations
V is the symbol for
vanadium
Vanadium is a chemical element with the symbol V and atomic number 23. It is a hard, silvery-grey, malleable transition metal. The elemental metal is rarely found in nature, but once isolated artificially, the formation of an oxide layer ( pas ...
. It is number 23 on the periodic table.
Emerald
Emerald is a gemstone and a variety of the mineral beryl (Be3Al2(SiO3)6) colored green by trace amounts of chromium or sometimes vanadium.Hurlbut, Cornelius S. Jr. and Kammerling, Robert C. (1991) ''Gemology'', John Wiley & Sons, New York, p ...
derives its green coloring from either
vanadium
Vanadium is a chemical element with the symbol V and atomic number 23. It is a hard, silvery-grey, malleable transition metal. The elemental metal is rarely found in nature, but once isolated artificially, the formation of an oxide layer ( pas ...
or
chromium
Chromium is a chemical element with the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in group 6. It is a steely-grey, lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal.
Chromium metal is valued for its high corrosion resistance and hardne ...
.
v, v., and vs can also be used as an abbreviation for the word
versus
Versus (Latin, 'against') may refer to:
Film and television
* ''Versus'' (2000 film), a Japanese zombie film
* ''Versus'' (2016 film), a Russian sports drama film
* ''Versus'' (2019 film), a French thriller film
* Versus (TV channel), form ...
when between two or more competing items (Ex:
Brown v. Board of Education
''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregat ...
).
See also
*V to mean the number
5, in
Roman numerals
Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, eac ...
*, in music theory
*
VEE (disambiguation)
VEE or Vee may refer to:
* V, a letter
* VEE, an IC power-supply pin label
* Vee, Estonia, a village
* Vee (surname), including a list of people with the name
* Vee belt, a type of mechanical belt
* VEE Corporation, now VStar Entertainment Gro ...
*∨,
* (✓)
* (✌ or 🖔)
Notes
References
External links
*
*
*
{{Latin alphabet, V}
ISO basic Latin letters