V, v [Called ‘vee’]. The 22nd
LETTER of the Roman
ALPHABET as used for English. It originated, along with
F,
U,
W,
Y, in the Phoenician consonant symbol
waw, which the Greeks adopted first with the form
V, then as Υ (called
upsilon: that is,
Υ-psilón, bare or simple Υ). The Etruscans and then the Romans adopted the first symbol. In
LATIN,
V was a vowel letter, but in Romance languages such as French and Italian its value before a second vowel evolved to the modern consonantal pronunciation /v/. Until the 17c,
v was ambiguous in English, capable of representing the sounds of both
u and
v. Further ambiguity arose with the introduction of the letter
W, which originated as
VV. This prevented the doubling of
v in the same way as other consonants are doubled in English, except in such rare and recent forms as
revving/revved.
Sound value
(1) In English,
v nearly always represents a voiced labio-dental fricative. It occurs word-initially (
valley), medially (
even) and finally, usually supported by a following
e (
active,
drove;
rev). (2) Over centuries, there has been a tendency for medial
v to become a vowel or disappear:
hawk from
OLD ENGLISH heafoc, the
f pronounced /v/,
head from Old English
heafod,
curfew from Anglo-Norman
coeverfu,
kerchief from Old French
cuevre-chef,
lady from Old English
hlæfdige,
laundry from Old French
lavandier,
lord from Old English
hlaford,
manure from Anglo-Norman
mainoverer,
poor from Middle English
povere. (3) The once colloquial and now poetic forms
e'en,
e'er,
ne'er,
o'er mark the omitted
v with an apostrophe.
Word-initial V
(1) In Old English, initial /v/ did not generally occur, and therefore
v was not written word-initially. Latin
vannus was for example respelt
fan, and most words currently spelt with initial
v are of later Romance derivation: for example,
vacant,
vaccine,
vague,
vain,
valley,
value. (2) Exceptions have arisen from dialects in which
f-became
v (
vane,
vat,
vixen) or are exotic loans (
vaishya,
Valhalla,
Vanuatu,
Viking,
Vladimir,
voltaic). (3)
V does not normally occur syllable-initially before other consonants,
vroom representing a conspicuous break with customary spelling patterns.
Word-final V
(1) Except for a few modern slang or clipped forms such as
lav,
rev,
spiv,
gov,
luv,
v does not occur as a final letter in English. (2) Where /v/ occurs as a final sound, as in
have,
give,
live,
love, the present spelling became fixed before the final
e fell silent. Although final
e may indicate a preceding long vowel (
save,
eve,
dive,
rove), that vowel value is often already indicated by a digraph (
waive,
leave,
sleeve,
receive,
believe,
groove), or a modified value is indicated by
r (
starve,
swerve,
curve), and the final
e again serves simply to camouflage final
v.
Double V
Medial
v is found equally in words derived from Old English and Romance sources:
anvil,
envy,
heavy,
marvel,
over. Because
vv was already adopted as an early form of
w, English did not double
v even to indicate a preceding short vowel, as is common with other consonants (compare
comma/coma), and ambiguity as to the length of a preceding vowel letter resulted. The spelling gives no indication of the differing vowel values in:
having/shaving,
seven/even,
driven/enliven,
hover/rover,
lover/mover. More recently coined words not normally used in formal prose are under no such inhibition:
bovver,
navvy,
revving,
skivvy are all written with double
v.
Miscellaneous
(1)
V does not normally occur after
u, since until
u and
v were regularly distinguished, the sequence
uv could equally be read as
vu,
vv,
uu (but note for example
uvular). A preceding
u-sound is therefore commonly written
o, as in
dove,
love,
glove,
cover,
discovery. However, a modern mock-spelling such as
luv for
love doubly flouts the conventions, with preceding
u and final
v. (2) In the 16c,
nevewe was respelt
nephew, and now usually has a spelling pronunciation with /f/ (but compare French
neveu). Similarly,
Stephen/Steven are variants, both with a /v/ pronunciation, and etymological variation between
b and
v occurs in
devil/diabolical. (3) Oral variation between
v/w formerly occurred in COCKNEY: Sam Weller in DICKENS's
Pickwick Papers (1836–7) spells his name
Veller, and his father refers to the letter
v as
we. See,
F,
U,
W.
