, or v, is the twenty-second 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