Ve (Cyrillic)

Ve (В в; italics: В в or В в; italics: В в) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. It commonly represents the voiced labiodental fricative /v/, like ⟨v⟩ in "vase". It can also represent /ʋ/.

The capital letter Ve looks the same as the capital Latin letter B but is pronounced differently.

Ve is commonly romanized by the Latin letter V (as described by ISO 9), but sometimes the Latin letter W is used instead, such as in Polish,^{[citation needed]} or by the German Duden transcription.

Both Ve and the Cyrillic letter Be (Б б) were derived from the Greek letter Beta (Β β), which already represented /v/ in Greek by the time the Cyrillic alphabet was created.

In the Early Cyrillic alphabet, its name was вѣдѣ (vědě), meaning "I know". In the old Russian alphabet the name was vedi.

In the Cyrillic numeral system, it had the value of 2.

The cursive, handwritten, and italic forms look rounded like the capital letter, or the Greek letter beta (ϐ). This form is also used in Bulgarian forms.

In Russian and Bulgarian, Ve generally represents /v/, but at the end of a word or before voiceless consonants, it represents the voiceless [f]. Before a palatalizing vowel or soft sign, it represents /vʲ/.