Ve, from theAlphabet Book оf the Red Army soldier (1921)
Ve (В в; italics:В в orВ в; italics:В в) is a letter of theCyrillic script. It commonly represents the voiced labiodental fricative/v/, like⟨v⟩ in "vase". It can also represent/ʋ/.
Both Ve and theCyrillic letter Be (Б б) were derived from theGreek letter Beta (Β β), which already represented/v/ in Greek by the time the Cyrillic alphabet was created.[2]
The cursive, handwritten, and italic forms look rounded like the capital letter, or the Greek letterbeta (ϐ). This form is also used in Bulgarian forms.
In standardUkrainian pronunciation (based on thePoltava dialect), Ve usually represents [ʋ] in the word initial position (or preceding most vowels) and a sound like the English W ([w]) when in the word final position. Because of this, it is not uncommon to see words ending in⟨в⟩ transcribed to end in⟨w⟩, for example,Владислав =Vladyslaw forVladislav.
Additionally, some Ukrainians also use this pronunciation in words where the letter is directly preceded by a consonant, while for others all occurrences of the letter Ve denote[w]. In EasternUkraine, the letter Ve may represent a voiceless[f], but this is considered aRussianism, asword-final devoicing does not occur in standard Ukrainian. For example, the standard Ukrainian pronunciation of the wordсказав ([he] said) is/skazaw/. However, in Eastern Ukraine one is likely to hear the Russified[skazaf] (with final devoicing).
InBelarusian, the letter Ve represents only the sound/v/. In the word final position, or if directly proceeded by a consonant, it mutates to the letterShort U (Ў ў), a Belarusian letter representing the sound/w/. E.g., the Belarusian noun "language" isмова (mova), but the adjectival form isмоўны (mowny), and the genitive plural of the noun (formed by removing the final⟨а⟩) isмоў (mow).
InRusyn, the letter Ve represents the sound /v/, or /w/ if it is at the end of the word.
InMacedonian the letter is used for the sound /v/, but if the letter appears at the end of the word then it is pronounced as /f/. An example of this is the word бев [bɛf] ('I was').
