W

One of the more recent additions to the canonical Latin alphabet, the letter W arose as a digraph VV (but at a time preceding the estabilishment of U as separate from V).

It is almost universally used to represent a labial-velar approximant, but as always, ANADEW…

• One sound change later, German, Polish, old Swedish etc. use it for /v/, the voiced labiodental fricative.
  • Or /ʋ/ (the labiodental approximant), depending on your analysis. At least some varieties of Dutch contrast <w> /ʋ/ and <v> /v/.
  • The bilabial counterpart [β] also makes an appearence occasionally.
• Thanks to its vocalic origin, values such as [u] still occur in Welsh.
• w also naturally lends itself to be used as a labialization diacritic.
• Actually, this isn't really "except worse". Values such as /ə/ in Tyl Sjok are definitely farther off than anything I can think of here. Dang.