V is the twenty-second letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Like F and the Greek letter Upsilon (also spelled Ypsilon), V evolved from the Phoenician letter Waw. In Etruscan it was simplified to V and had the sound value /u/, but since F came to represent /f/ in Latin rather than /w/, the Romans used V for both /w/ and /u/, as in EQVVS.
In some Roman handwriting styles, it was written as a modern uppercase V, while in others like uncial it resembled modern lowercase u.
With the Mediaeval introduction of the distinction between both casess, the pair was written as V/u, as in Vniuersitas.
In Romance languages, V came to represent /v/ which developed from /w/;
Around the Renaissance, U and V were felt as sounds different enough to warrant their own letters, and a lowercase v and an uppercase U were developed.
A similar evolution happened with I/J. German W (or double u, from VV) originally was pronounced as the English letter – but has been pronounced /v/ since Middle High German times. At the same time, V was pronounced in German as in English, but the German 'Vau' soon stood for /f/ again (the same is probably now happening in Dutch). However, it is still pronounced as /v/ in German words of foreign origin. See IPA chart for English for pronunciation key. Victor represents the letter V in the NATO phonetic alphabet.
Meanings for V
, Atlanta, Georgia In biochemistry, V is the symbol for valine. In chemistry, V is the symbol for vanadium. In communication, V is the name of a hand gesture; see V sign In computer science, *V is an operation on a semaphore, used for process synchronisation.*V is the name of an operating system developed at Stanford University. In electrical engineering, V is the symbol for voltage (also known as electric potential, see below). In financial securities, V is the stock symbol for Vivendi Universal. In grammar, v is an abbreviation for verb. In international licence plate codes, V stands for Vatican City. In the Metric 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. In literature, Thomas Pynchon's first novel is called V (including the period). In television, V is the name of a science fiction TV series In music,*the roman numeral V is the dominant scale degree, chord, or diatonic function, when distinguished V = major and v = minor.*V is the name of a band from the United Kingdom; see V (band).*V is the name of an album released by the band Live in 2001. V is the name of a drink produced by Frucor in New Zealand. A V engine is an internal combustion engine configuration.
See also
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