Is V in Morse code • • • − because the main theme of Beethoven's V Symphony is short-short-short-long?

Question

I am reading Craig Wright's Listening to Music. On page 222, he states:

No wonder that during World War II (1939-1945) both sides, Fascists as well as Allied, used the music of [Beethoven's fifth] symphony to symbolize triumph — in Morse code, short-short-short-long is the letter "V", as in "Victory"

But it also stands for V as in 5, which is the symphony referenced above.

My Question:

Is V in Morse code • • • − because the main theme of Beethoven's V Symphony is short-short-short-long? Or is this just a really really weird coincidence?

This question should be off topic, as it is about the origins of Morse Code, not music (Beethoven's Fifth came first). — user3169, Apr 07 '15 at 00:20
The letter v in morse code is used in groups of three (VVV), recurring, to allow a receiver to be finely tuned to the transmitted frequency — Thomas McGill, Mar 24 '19 at 21:22
@Brahadeesh In any case, I think some research by the OP would have been nice. I could not find any reference to "V" being used for the The Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, either in German https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/5._Sinfonie_(Beethoven) nor English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._5_(Beethoven) nor other numbered symphonies. Without that, I don't thing you can make a case for this, unless it was Morse's imagination. — user3169, May 15 '20 at 17:43

score 11 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 06 '15 at 21:32

According to Matthew Guerrieri:

No one has ever been able to determine whether Samuel F.B. Morse—or Alfred Vail, Morse's more technically adept assistant, who did the bulk of the work in developing what came to be called Morse Code—had Beethoven in mind when the encoding of the alphabet reached V, the Roman numeral of the symphony it seems to echo.

(The First Four Notes: Beethoven's Fifth and the Human Imagination, p. 212-213)

It's generally accepted that Vail used letter frequency to assign codes, but of course, he might still have taken the opportunity. I don't suppose we can ever know.

Is V in Morse code • • • − because the main theme of Beethoven's V Symphony is short-short-short-long?

1 Answers1