Indian alphabets have spread to Tibet, Cambodia, Java and Korea.
This letter corresponds to the second symbol in the Phoenician alphabet, and appears in the same position in all the European alphabets, except those derived, like the Russian, from medieval Greek, in which the pronunciation of this symbol had changed from b to v.
The form C which it takes in the alphabets of Naxos, Delos and other Ionic islands at the same period is difficult to explain.
In Phoenician itself and in the other Semitic alphabets the position of the middle legs of the W is altered so that the symbol takes such forms as or V or w, ultimately ending sometimes in a form like K laid sideways, he.
Some connexion between Babylonia and China is generally admitted, and all Indian alphabets seem traceable to a Semitic original borrowed in the course of commerce from the Persian Gulf.