V with Accent: Ṿilna in Library Catalogues, CṼ in Phonology
A v with accent rarely means an English v. In library records ṿ is the Hebrew or Yiddish letter vav, so ALA-LC rules give Ṿilna for Vilna. In phonology the capital Ṽ stands for any nasal vowel, as in the syllable shape CṼ. As a letter, ṽ belongs to Maskelynes, a language of Vanuatu.
How do you type ṿ on a keyboard or phone?
On a Mac, ṿ is Fn/Globe+E, then search "latin small letter v with dot below", then ṿ; on Windows it is Win+., then Symbols, then ṿ. Each row below gives the documented method for one device or app; the vendor help pages they come from are linked under the table.
| Device or app | Keys |
|---|---|
| Mac | Fn/Globe+E, then search "latin small letter v with dot below", then ṿ How to type accents on a Mac |
| Windows | Win+., then Symbols, then ṿ How to type accents on Windows |
| Microsoft Word | 1e7f, then Alt+X How to type accents in Word |
| Google Docs | Insert, then Symbols, then Special characters, then search "latin small letter v with dot below" How to type accents in Google Docs |
Sources:Mac (Apple) (opens in a new tab)Windows (Microsoft) (opens in a new tab)Microsoft Word (Microsoft) (opens in a new tab)Google Docs (Google) (opens in a new tab)
- ṿ v with dot below
- Ṿ capital v with dot below
- ṽ v with tilde
- Ṽ capital v with tilde
What are all the v letters with accents?
Every v with an accent mark on AccentPad, lowercase then capitals. Tap one to copy it:
Which v with accent is in front of you?
The v with accent you are looking at is decided by who wrote it, not by the mark. Unicode's NamesList.txt (opens in a new tab) gives ṽ and ṿ no usage note at all, only their decompositions into v plus a tilde or a dot below. The uses come from catalogues, phonology and a few alphabets, and they have nothing in common.
The rows below are from the Library of Congress Hebrew and Yiddish table (opens in a new tab), Wiktionary's entries for ṿ (opens in a new tab), Ṽ (opens in a new tab), ṽ (opens in a new tab), v̌ (opens in a new tab) and v̄ (opens in a new tab), and Apple's guide to Pinyin - Simplified (opens in a new tab).
| Where you met it | The form | What it stands for |
|---|---|---|
| A library record of a Hebrew or Yiddish book | ṿ, Ṿ | the letter vav, ו or װ, used as a consonant |
| A syllable formula in a linguistics paper | Ṽ, a capital | any nasal vowel |
| A text in Maskelynes, spoken in Vanuatu | ṽ, Ṽ | /βʷ/ |
| An Inari Sami dictionary | ṿ | a half-long v |
| A Uralic Phonetic Alphabet transcription | v̌ | the fricative [v]; a bare v there is an approximant |
| A Maore Comorian text | v̄ | /β/ |
| A Chinese pinyin keyboard | the v key | ü, which Full Pinyin types as v |
The v̌ and v̄ rows are not single characters: each is a v followed by a separate mark. The last row has no mark at all. The pinyin row is a keyboard habit, covered on the u with umlaut page.
Why does the Library of Congress write Vilna as Ṿilna?
The Library of Congress writes Vilna as Ṿilna because its table gives the Hebrew letter vav its own Latin form. In ALA-LC romanization, whose table (opens in a new tab) Hebrew and Yiddish share, the library writes ו and the Yiddish double vav װ as ṿ, "only if a consonant". The letter ב without its inner dot gets a plain v, written b in Yiddish.
Authority records apply the rule to real names. The forms below are from the Library of Congress name authorities, read through its search pages for Vaad ha-lashon (opens in a new tab), Vilnius (opens in a new tab) and Abraham ben Elijah (opens in a new tab). The everyday column is Wiktionary's, from ועד (opens in a new tab), וילנה (opens in a new tab) and אברהם (opens in a new tab).
| Name or word | Wiktionary romanizes it | Library of Congress form |
|---|---|---|
| וַעַד, council | vá'ad | Ṿaʻad ha-lashon ha-ʻIvrit be-Erets Yiśraʼel |
| וילנה, Vilnius in Hebrew | vílna | Ṿilnah (Lithuania) |
| ווילנע, Vilnius in Yiddish | Vilne, by its Yiddish table | Ṿilne (Lithuania) |
| הגאון מווילנה, the Gaon of Vilna | haga'ón mivílna | Gaʼon, mi-Ṿilna |
| אַבְרָהָם, Abraham | Avrahám | Avraham ben Eliyahu, mi-Ṿilna |
Read the last row closely. Avraham keeps a bare v, because that v is ב. Vilna gets the dot, because its first letter is ו. The Yiddish cell for ווילנע is our letter-by-letter reading of Wiktionary's Yiddish table (opens in a new tab), which writes the double vav as v.
Not every Ṿ form is the main heading. Ṿilnah and Ṿilne are cross-references under the heading Vilnius (Lithuania), so either form leads to the same record. Ṿaʻad ha-lashon ha-ʻIvrit be-Erets Yiśraʼel is a heading in its own right. So is Ṿilner trupe (opens in a new tab), filed with the Yiddish ווילנער טרופע beside it.
Why do Israeli road signs write v where library records write ṿ?
Israeli road signs follow the UN system, which merged the two v letters in 2007. The UN report on Hebrew (opens in a new tab) says the amended system is applied in Israel to names on maps and road signs, and that its 1977 version had romanized ו as w. Today both ו and ב without a dagesh come out as v. The report admits the cost: its romanization is not fully reversible.
The Library of Congress keeps the pair apart with the dot, and does the same for other letters the UN merges. The UN and ISO 259 columns are from KNAB's Hebrew sheet (opens in a new tab); the ALA-LC column is from the Library of Congress table.
| Hebrew letters | UN system, maps and signs | ALA-LC, libraries | ISO 259, per KNAB |
|---|---|---|---|
| ב without dagesh, ו | v, v | v, ṿ | b, w |
| כּ with dagesh, ק | k, k | k, ḳ | k̇, q |
| ת, ט | t, t | t, ṭ | t, ṭ |
| ס, שׂ | s, s | s, ś | s, ś |
| כ without dagesh, ח | kh, ẖ | kh, ḥ | k, ḥ |
The pattern is plain in the ALA-LC column. The second letter of each pair carries the mark: a dot below on ṿ, ḳ, ṭ and ḥ, an acute on ś. A reader of a catalogue knows that the Ṿ of Ṿilna is ו. A reader of a map cannot tell which letter the V of Vilna was.
Wiktionary's Hebrew entry guidelines (opens in a new tab) take a third route. Their modern column writes both letters v, as the UN does. Their scholarly column writes ו as w and the softened ב as ḇ, which the b with accent page covers. Vav as a vowel letter, ẇ in ISO 259, is on the w with accent page.
What does Ṽ mean in a syllable formula like CṼ?
Ṽ in a syllable formula means any nasal vowel. Linguists describe syllable shapes with capitals that stand for whole classes of sounds. Wiktionary's entries for C (opens in a new tab), V (opens in a new tab) and N (opens in a new tab) define them as wildcards for a consonant, a vowel and a nasal consonant. Its Ṽ (opens in a new tab) entry adds the tilde: Ṽ is the wildcard for a nasal vowel.
| Formula | Read it as | Example syllable |
|---|---|---|
| CV | a consonant, then a vowel | ta |
| CVN | a consonant, a vowel, then a nasal consonant | tan |
| CṼ | a consonant, then a nasal vowel | tã |
The example column is ours, built from the definitions. Wiktionary's usage example for Ṽ is Hadza, whose largest syllable it says is analysed either as CVN or as CṼ. That is a real disagreement about the language, and the tilde carries it.
Here the tilde means what it means on the IPA chart (opens in a new tab), where it marks a nasalized sound. The capital matters. A phonologist writes Ṽ, U+1E7C. The small ṽ is a letter of Maskelynes, which reads the same tilde another way.
Which alphabet writes ṽ, and what does its tilde do?
Maskelynes, a language of Vanuatu, is the alphabet with ṽ, and its tilde marks rounded lips rather than a nasal. Wiktionary's ṽ (opens in a new tab) gives the Maskelynes letter as /βʷ/. Its entries for b̃ (opens in a new tab), m̃ (opens in a new tab) and p̃ (opens in a new tab) show that the tilde forms a series.
| Maskelynes letter | IPA in Wiktionary | Single character in Unicode? |
|---|---|---|
| b̃ | /ᵐbʷ/ | no: b + U+0303 |
| m̃ | /mʷ/ | no: m + U+0303 |
| p̃ | /pʷ/ | no: p + U+0303 |
| ṽ | /βʷ/ | yes: U+1E7D |
Every value ends in a raised w, the sign the IPA chart lists for labialized sounds. So a Maskelynes ṽ is a β said with rounded lips, not a nasal v. The tilde that makes Ṽ a nasal vowel in phonology does a different job here.
The last column is our own test. On 2026-10-13, under Node.js v26.0.0 with ICU 78.3, NFC turned v plus a combining tilde into the single ṽ and left b, m and p with the tilde as two code points. That is why ṽ is the only one of the four with a tile above. The standard grammar is Healey's 2013 Grammar of Maskelynes (opens in a new tab), listed in Glottolog.
Is ʋ, the v with hook, a v with accent?
No. ʋ is a separate letter, not a v with a mark, and the same goes for most v shapes that turn up in search. In UnicodeData.txt (opens in a new tab) only ṽ and ṿ decompose into v plus an accent.
We checked the other marks ourselves on 2026-10-13. Under NFC, a v followed by an acute, caron, macron, dot above, overline, grave, circumflex or diaeresis kept the mark as a second code point. The same run turned e plus an acute into é, so the test can compose when Unicode allows it.
| Shape | Code point | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| ʋ Ʋ | U+028B, U+01B2 | IPA voiced labiodental approximant; NamesList calls it script v and notes African use |
| ⱱ | U+2C71 | IPA labiodental flap |
| ⱴ | U+2C74 | an obsolete symbol for the same flap |
| ᶌ | U+1D8C | a pre-1989 IPA symbol for a palatalized v, now vʲ |
| ỽ Ỽ | U+1EFD, U+1EFC | Middle Welsh letter for u, v or w, usually transcribed w |
| ꝟ Ꝟ | U+A75F, U+A75E | a scribe's abbreviation: virgo in Medieval Latin, ver in Old Galician-Portuguese |
| v̇ | v + U+0307 | an abbreviation of ver in early modern Portuguese, as in v̇dadeiro |
The meanings are from Wiktionary's ʋ (opens in a new tab), ⱱ (opens in a new tab), ⱴ (opens in a new tab), ᶌ (opens in a new tab), ỽ (opens in a new tab), ꝟ (opens in a new tab) and v̇ (opens in a new tab) entries, with the note on ʋ from NamesList. The flap letters sit in the Latin Extended-C chart (opens in a new tab), ꝟ in Latin Extended-D (opens in a new tab), and ṽ and ṿ in Latin Extended Additional (opens in a new tab). Wiktionary's variations of v (opens in a new tab) gathers them in one list.
The dot below is easy to lose. In the same test, removing the combining marks turned Ṿilnah into Vilnah. ICU's English rules at base strength found ṿ equal to v, but told them apart at accent strength. A search that ignores accents will match both. A strict comparison will not.
How to type v with accent, step by step
Step 1: Microsoft Word: the hex code, then Alt+X
Put the cursor after 1e7f and press Alt+X, and Word replaces those four characters with ṿ. Use 1e7d for ṽ, and 1e7e or 1e7c when a capital starts the name.
Step 2: Mac: find the letter by name in Character Viewer
Fn/Globe+E opens Character Viewer. Its search field takes the Unicode name, latin small letter v with dot below or latin small letter v with tilde, and a double-click places the match.
Step 3: Windows: Win+. and the Symbols tab
Win+. brings up the emoji panel. Open its Symbols section and pick ṿ or ṽ from the Latin letters there.
Step 4: Google Docs: Special characters search
In a Google document the Insert menu holds Special characters under Symbols. Searching for v with dot below or v with tilde narrows the grid to the letter you need.
Step 5: Check who the letter is for
Use ṿ only in a Library of Congress style romanization of Hebrew or Yiddish; a map or road-sign spelling of the same name has a plain v. Use the capital Ṽ in a syllable formula, and the small ṽ only for Maskelynes.
What is the Unicode code for ṿ?
ṿ is U+1E7F, LATIN SMALL LETTER V WITH DOT BELOW, added in Unicode 1.1 in 1993. In UTF-8 it is stored as the bytes E1 B9 BF, and the table gives every escape a developer needs.
| Code point | U+1E7F |
|---|---|
| Name | LATIN SMALL LETTER V WITH DOT BELOW |
| Added in | Unicode 1.1 (1993) |
| UTF-8 bytes | E1 B9 BF |
| HTML | ṿ ṿ |
| CSS | \1E7F |
| JavaScript | \u1E7F |
| Python | \u1e7f |
| URL | %E1%B9%BF |
If a page shows ṿ instead of ṿ, its UTF-8 bytes are being read as Windows-1252. Serve the page as UTF-8 (<meta charset="utf-8">) to fix it.
Which letters are related to v with accent?
These letter pages share an accent mark or a language with ṿ Ṿ ṽ Ṽ, the most shared languages first.
Every letter with the same mark, on one page, for ṽ: Tilde.
ṿ Ṿ ṽ Ṽ have no Alt code: Windows cannot type them that way.
Need a letter other than ṿ?
Frequently asked questions about v with accent
Do I have to type ṿ to find a Hebrew book in a library catalogue?
Not in our test. On 2026-10-13 we searched the Library of Congress name authorities at id.loc.gov for Vaad ha-lashon ha-Ivrit, typed with no marks at all, and for Ṿaʻad ha-lashon ha-ʻIvrit, typed with them. Both returned the same set of records, among them the heading Ṿaʻad ha-lashon ha-ʻIvrit be-Erets Yiśraʼel. Copy the dot when you cite the heading, not when you search for it.
Why is there no dot under the v of Avraham in the same heading as Ṿilna?
Because they are different Hebrew letters. In the Library of Congress table, ב without its inner dot is v, while ו, vav, is ṿ when it is a consonant. The authority record for Abraham ben Elijah of Vilna lists the form Avraham ben Eliyahu, mi-Ṿilna, which holds both: the v of Avraham is ב, and the Ṿ of Vilna is ו.
Is the capital Ṽ in CṼ a letter of any alphabet?
Not there. In a formula like CṼ the capital is a placeholder. Wiktionary lists V as the linguists' wildcard for a vowel and Ṽ as the one for a nasal vowel, and gives the example that Hadza syllables are analysed as CVN or CṼ. The small ṽ is different: Wiktionary records it as a letter of Maskelynes, said /βʷ/.
Does YIVO spelling write the Yiddish double vav as ṿ?
No. Wiktionary's Yiddish transliteration, which it bases on the YIVO standard, gives the double vav as a plain v and a single vav as u. KNAB's Yiddish sheet agrees on v. The dotted ṿ comes from the Library of Congress table, which uses it for both ו and װ when they are consonants, so it marks a library record, not Yiddish spelling.
How do I write ṿ or ṽ in HTML or a URL?
Write ṿ for ṿ and ṽ for ṽ, because HTML gives neither letter a name of its own. Web addresses carry their UTF-8 bytes in percent form, %E1%B9%BF for ṿ and %E1%B9%BD for ṽ. For the capitals, take one off the code point: Ṿ is U+1E7E and Ṽ is U+1E7C.