U+30F4 "ヴ" Katakana Letter Vu Unicode Character

U+30F4 "ヴ" Katakana Letter Vu is a Japanese katakana character used to represent the sound "vu" in foreign loanwords and transliterations. It is formed by adding a dakuten, or voicing mark, to the standard katakana character ウ (u), which allows it to approximate the English "v" sound, a phoneme not native to traditional Japanese. This character is primarily employed in modern Japanese writing to render words from other languages, such as "ヴィクトル" for Victor or "ヴァイオリン" for violin. While its usage has increased due to globalization, it remains less common than other katakana characters and is often replaced with ブ (bu) in casual or older contexts.