spirant

Later, as Latin did not use for the consonant written as v in vis, &c. , was dropped and received a new special value in Latin as representative of the unvoiced labio-dental spirant.

It is classed as a surd spirant, its corresponding sonant spirant being v, which is distinguished from f by being pronounced with voice instead of breath, as may be perceived by pronouncing ef, ev.

G is the soft spirant, not used in English.

We find that b, d, g were used initially to denote the voiced stops, but medially and finally they represent spirants, the voiced stops in this case being denoted by c, p, t.

In Late Latin there was a tendency to this spirant pronunciation which appears as early as the beginning of the 2nd century A.D.; by the 3rd century b and consonantal u are inextricably confused.