Ve (В, в) is the third letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the sound . It looks exactly like a capital Latin letter B but is pronounced differently.

This letter and б are derived from Greek Beta (Β, β), which was, evidently, already pronounced in Greek by the time the Cyrillic alphabet was created. The old name for в was Vedi and it had numerical value of two. It looks like the capital letter B of the Latin alphabet.

In Russian, its pronunciation is similar to English except word-finally (when it is represents a voiceless ) and before a palatalizing vowel when it represents .

In standard Ukrainian pronunciation (based on the Poltava dialect), B is pronounced like an English W () when in the word final position.

e.g. Владислав (Vladyslaw)

Additionaly some Ukrainians also use such pronunciation when the letter is directly proceeded by a consonant, while others pronounce all occurences of the letter B as . In Eastern Ukraine, the letter B may be devoiced to , but this is considered a Russification, as word final devoicing does not occur in standard Ukrainainian.

e.g. standard Ukrainian pronunciation of the word сказав ('he said') is skazaw. However in Eastern Ukraine one is likely to hear the Russified skazaf (with final devoicing).

In the Belarussian language, the letter B only represents the sound . In the word final position, or if directly proceeded by a consonant it mutates to the letter Ў, a unique Belarussian letter representing the sound .

e.g. the Belarussian noun 'language' is мова (mova), but the adjectival form is моўный (mownyy), and the genitive plural of the noun (formed by removing the final a) is моў (mow).

Code positions

Its HTML entities are: В or В for capital and в or в for small letter.

See also

• Be
• Beta,
• B
• V

В | We (Kyrillisch) | Ve (Ziriliko) | Ve (cyrillique) | Ve (Cirílico) | В | В (Cirillico) | В | В | В | Ve (Cirílico) | В (кириллица) | В (ћириличко) | В | В