Sound V in Arabic

After Trump tweeted COVFEFE (less than perfect transliteration of Arabic “I will stand up“), Google deleted cov fe’fe and another transliteration of “I will stand up” from its dictionary. “Fact checker” Snopes declared that “Arabic does not use a ‘V’ sound”.

But Merriam-Webster’s Arabic-English Dictionary (HarperCollins, 2010, ISBN 978-0-877779-860-6) clearly shows that Arabic does use V sound:

V sound Arabic Merriam-Webster

Wikipedia on V and P sounds in the Arabic Phonology: “/p, v/ are not necessarily pronounced by all Arabic speakers … The use of both sounds may be considered marginal and Arabs may pronounce the words interchangeably“. Also, see this August 2016 snapshot of this article. A Wikipedia controversy over these consonants predated covfefe.

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