The letter V is the twenty-second letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is pronounced vee .

The letter

In Greek, the letter "upsilon" (Y) was adapted from waw to represent, at first, the vowel /u/ as in "moon" (although in later times, this vowel came to be pronounced /y/, a rounded vowel similar to the German ü).

In Latin, it was borrowed in early times as V (without the stem) to represent the same /u/ sound, and eventually it became slurred, taking on a double nature as consonant and vowel. Thus, num was pronounced "noom" and via was pronounced "oo-i-a", but in a quick pronunciation as two syllables. By about the second century AD, "v" was simplified even further as a /w/ sound, the original sound of Semitic Waw; thus "via" came to be pronounced "wi-a." From the fifth century on, it developed into the modern /v/ sound, as in "vile."

During the late middle ages, two forms of "v" developed, which were both used for modern u and 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 valor and excuse appeared as in modern printing, "have" and "upon" were printed haue and vpon. Eventually, in the 1700s, to differentiate between the consonant and vowel sounds, the "v" form was used to represent the consonant, and "u" the vowel sound, giving us the modern letter "u". Capital "U" appeared at this time; previously, V was used in all cases.

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, 'v' represents the voiced labiodental fricative. See IPA chart for English for pronunciation key.

Codes for computing

The ASCII code for capital V is 86 and for lowercase v is 118; or in binary 01010110 and 01110110, respectively.

The EBCDIC code for capital V is 229 and for lowercase v is 165.

V is a recurring song in the popular Japanese music game beatmania IIDX. Originating on beatmania IIDX 5th style, it has appeared on every single version to follow it, including the consumer versions (except beatmania IIDX11 IIDX RED).

The numeric character references in HTML and XML are "V" and "v" for upper and lower case respectively.

Meanings for V

• V is the official symbol of www.v-generations.com.
• "V is for Victory," as popularized by Winston Churchill during World War II.
• "V" can also mean "Vendetta", a jab at the above slogan, as in the graphic novel and movie V for Vendetta, set in a near-future British dystopia.
• For the novel by Thomas Pynchon, see V. (including the period)
• In astronomy, V stands for a November 1 through 15 discovery, in the provisional designation of a comet (e.g. C/1680 V1, Kirch's Comet) or asteroid (e.g. (3360) 1981 VA).
• In biochemistry, V is the symbol for valine.
• In chemistry, V is the symbol for vanadium.
• In comics, V is the name given by the mysterious protagonist of the 1980s graphic novel V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd and its 2006 film version.
• In communication, V is the name of a hand gesture; see V sign
• In computing,
  • V is an operation on a semaphore, used for process synchronisation.
  • V is the name of an operating system developed at Stanford University.
  • V is an ITU-T series of recommendations on Data communication over the telephone network and used in their names such as V.92. See ITU-T recommendations.
• In electrical engineering, V is the symbol for voltage (also known as electric potential, see below).
• In finance, V is the U.S. ticker symbol for Vivendi Universal.
• In geosciences, V stands for the true geopotential, and V-shaped for sharply eroded valleys
• In grammar, v is an abbreviation for verb.
• In international licence plate codes, V stands for Vatican City.
• In the SI system,
  • V is the symbol for volt, the SI derived unit for electric potential.
• In physics, v is often a variable for speed or velocity.
• As the first letter of a postal code,
  • In Canada, V stands for British Columbia.
• In Roman numerals, V denotes the number five (there are also separate Unicode characters for this number, 0x2164 "Ⅴ" and 0x2174 "ⅴ").
• In set theory, V denotes the universe of all sets.
• In television, V is the name of a 1983 science fiction miniseries / TV series
• In television engineering, particularly in the PAL encoding system, V is one of the two subcarrier-modulated color-difference channels in the YUV colorspace.
• In music,
  • the Roman numeral V is the dominant scale degree, chord, or diatonic function, when distinguished V = major and v = minor.
  • V festival is an annual music festival.
  • V is the name of a band from the United Kingdom; see V (band).
  • V is the name of several albums.
  • Channel ^* is a music-centric television station operated by STAR TV.
• V is the name of a drink produced by Frucor in New Zealand.
• A V engine is an internal combustion engine configuration.
• In Windows, Ctrl-V, and Mac OS, Command-V, pastes the contents of the clipboard at the insertion point.
• V is a commonly used abbreviation in reference to the 1993 anime series Kidou Senshi Victory Gundam by Yoshiyuki Tomino. Also abbreviated VG.
• In Finnish, "the v-word" is an euphemism for the swear word vittu.
• There are several magazines named V, for example V in Finland and V in the USA.
• In Webcomic OotS, V is a common Abbreviation for Varsuuvius, the Elven Wizard.
• V is the tabloid publication of National Vanguard.

See also

Latin letters

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