In a writing system , a letter is a grapheme that generally corresponds to a phoneme —the smallest functional unit of speech—though there is rarely total one-to-one correspondence between the two. An alphabet is a writing system that uses letters.
21-779: V , or v , is the twenty-second letter of 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 / ˈ v iː / ), plural vees . 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⟩
42-513: A lowercase form (also called minuscule ). Upper- and lowercase letters represent the same sound, but serve different functions in writing. Capital letters are most often used at the beginning of a sentence, as the first letter of a proper name or title, or in headers or inscriptions. They may also serve other functions, such as in the German language where all nouns begin with capital letters. The terms uppercase and lowercase originated in
63-549: A variety of modern uses in mathematics, science, and engineering . People and objects are sometimes named after letters, for one of these reasons: The word letter entered Middle English c. 1200 , borrowed from the Old French letre . It eventually displaced the previous Old English term bōcstæf ' bookstaff '. Letter ultimately descends from the Latin littera , which may have been derived from
84-424: A voiced labiodental fricative . Special rules of orthography normally apply to the letter ⟨v⟩ : 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⟩
105-590: A more thorough discussion. In Corsican , ⟨v⟩ represents [ b ] , [ v ] , [ β ] or [ w ] , depending on the position in the word and the sentence. In most languages that use the Latin alphabet, ⟨v⟩ represents a voiced bilabial or labiodental sound. In contemporary German , it represents / v / in most loanwords, while in native German words, it always represents / f / . In standard Dutch , it traditionally represents / v / , but in many regions, it represents / f / in some or all positions. In
126-520: A substitute for the close front rounded vowel /y/ , properly written ⟨ü⟩ in both pinyin and Wade–Giles . In the International Phonetic Alphabet , ⟨ v ⟩ represents the voiced labiodental fricative . [REDACTED] Letter (alphabet) A letter is a type of grapheme , the smallest functional unit within a writing system. Letters are graphemes that broadly correspond to phonemes ,
147-467: Is a type of consonantal sound used in a number of spoken languages . The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ f ⟩. Some scholars also posit the voiceless labiodental approximant distinct from the fricative. The approximant may be represented in the IPA as ⟨ ʋ̥ ⟩. Features of the voiceless labiodental fricative: xw Weer Symbols to
168-456: Is considered to be a separate letter from ⟨n⟩ , though this distinction is not usually recognised in English dictionaries. In computer systems, each has its own code point , U+006E n LATIN SMALL LETTER N and U+00F1 ñ LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH TILDE , respectively. Letters may also function as numerals with assigned numerical values, for example with Roman numerals . Greek and Latin letters have
189-438: Is indicated by the existence of precomposed characters for use with computer systems (for example, ⟨á⟩ , ⟨à⟩ , ⟨ä⟩ , ⟨â⟩ , ⟨ã⟩ .) In the following table, letters from multiple different writing systems are shown, to demonstrate the variety of letters used throughout the world. Voiceless labiodental fricative The voiceless labiodental fricative
210-554: 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 . It is one of only two letters (the other being ⟨c⟩ ) that cannot be used this way in the American version. ⟨v⟩ is also the only letter in the English language that is never silent. The letter represents / v / in several Romance languages , but in others it represents
231-645: The Greek diphthera 'writing tablet' via Etruscan . Until the 19th century, letter was also used interchangeably to refer to a speech segment . Before alphabets, phonograms , graphic symbols of sounds, were used. There were three kinds of phonograms: verbal, pictures for entire words, syllabic, which stood for articulations of words, and alphabetic, which represented signs or letters. The earliest examples of which are from Ancient Egypt and Ancient China, dating to c. 3000 BCE . The first consonantal alphabet emerged around c. 1800 BCE , representing
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#1732781026369252-597: The Latinization of the Cherokee syllabary , ⟨v⟩ represents a nasalized schwa, / ə̃ / . In Chinese pinyin , while v is not used, the letter ⟨v⟩ is used by most input methods to enter the letter ⟨ü⟩ , which most keyboards lack ( romanized-input Chinese is a popular method to enter Chinese text). Informal romanizations of Mandarin Chinese use ⟨v⟩ as
273-727: The Phoenicians, Semitic workers in Egypt. Their script was originally written and read from right to left. From the Phoenician alphabet came the Etruscan and Greek alphabets. From there, the most widely used alphabet today emerged, Latin, which is written and read from left to right. The Phoenician alphabet had 22 letters, nineteen of which the Latin alphabet used, and the Greek alphabet, adapted c. 900 BCE , added four letters to those used in Phoenician. This Greek alphabet
294-438: The days of handset type for printing presses. Individual letter blocks were kept in specific compartments of drawers in a type case. Capital letters were stored in a higher drawer or upper case. In most alphabetic scripts, diacritics (or accents) are a routinely used. English is unusual in not using them except for loanwords from other languages or personal names (for example, naïve , Brontë ). The ubiquity of this usage
315-629: The distinct forms of ⟨S⟩ , the Greek sigma ⟨Σ⟩ , and Cyrillic es ⟨С⟩ each represent analogous /s/ phonemes. Letters are associated with specific names, which may differ between languages and dialects. Z , for example, is usually called zed outside of the United States, where it is named zee . Both ultimately derive from the name of the parent Greek letter zeta ⟨Ζ⟩ . In alphabets, letters are arranged in alphabetical order , which also may vary by language. In Spanish, ⟨ñ⟩
336-571: The late 7th and early 8th centuries. Finally, many slight letter additions and drops were made to the common alphabet used in the western world. Minor changes were made such as the removal of certain letters, such as thorn ⟨Þ þ⟩ , wynn ⟨Ƿ ƿ⟩ , and eth ⟨Ð ð⟩ . A letter can have multiple variants, or allographs , related to variation in style of handwriting or printing . Some writing systems have two major types of allographs for each letter: an uppercase form (also called capital or majuscule ) and
357-466: 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⟩ . In English, ⟨v⟩ represents
378-582: The same sound as ⟨b⟩ , i.e. / b / , due to a process known as betacism . Betacism occurs in most dialects of Spanish , in some dialects of Catalan and Portuguese , as well as in Aragonese , Asturleonese and Galician . In Spanish, the phoneme has two main allophones ; in most environments, it is pronounced [ β̞ ] , but after a pause or a nasal it is typically [ b ] . See Allophones of /b d g/ in Spanish phonology for
399-663: The smallest functional units of sound in speech. Similarly to how phonemes are combined to form spoken words, letters may be combined to form written words. A single phoneme may also be represented by multiple letters in sequence, collectively called a multigraph . Multigraphs include digraphs of two letters (e.g. English ch , sh , th ), and trigraphs of three letters (e.g. English tch ). The same letterform may be used in different alphabets while representing different phonemic categories. The Latin H , Greek eta ⟨Η⟩ , and Cyrillic en ⟨Н⟩ are homoglyphs , but represent different phonemes. Conversely,
420-508: Was the first to assign letters not only to consonant sounds, but also to vowels . The Roman Empire further developed and refined the Latin alphabet, beginning around 500 BCE. During the fifth and sixth centuries, the development of lowercase letters began to emerge in Roman writing. At this point, paragraphs, uppercase and lowercase letters, and the concept of sentences and clauses still had not emerged; these final bits of development emerged in
441-439: 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
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