The letter V ultimately comes from the Phoenician letter waw by way of U. See U for details.
During the Late Middle Ages, two minuscule glyphs of U developed which were both used for sounds including /u/ and modern /v/. The pointed form "v" was written at the beginning of a word, while a rounded form "u" was used in the middle or end, regardless of sound. So whereas "valour" and "excuse" appeared as in modern printing, "have" and "upon" were printed as "haue" and "vpon". The first distinction between the letters "u" and "v" is recorded in a Gothic script from 1386, where "v" preceded "u". By the mid-16th century, the "v" form was used to represent the consonant and "u" the vowel sound, giving us the modern letter V. U and V were not accepted as distinct letters until many years later. The rounded variant became the modern-day version of U, and the letter's former pointed form became V.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, /v/ represents the voiced labiodental fricative. See Help:IPA.

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