V

V, the twenty-second letter of our alphabet, related to F as the voiced to the voiceless labio-dental consonant. It was the original form of U, and it is only lately that the two letters have been strictly appropriated to different uses. In Anglo-Saxon and Early English the sounds of both V and F are represented by F, which is voiced in the middle, voiceless at the beginning of a word. It is almost certain that the Latin V had the sound of W. This transformation from the labial to the labio-dental took place in the course of the formation of the Romance languages. V is also a labial consonant in Old Norse or Icelandic. When initial in modern German it is a symbol for the sound F.