Z (or z) is the 26th and last
letter
Letter, letters, or literature may refer to:
Characters typeface
* Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet.
* Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...
of the
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...
, used in the
modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its usual names in English are
''zed'' () and
''zee'' (), with an occasional archaic variant ''izzard'' ().
["Z", ''Oxford English Dictionary,'' 2nd edition (1989); ''Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1993); "zee", ''op. cit''.]
Name and pronunciation
In most English-speaking countries, including Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the letter's name is ''zed'' , reflecting its derivation from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
''
zeta
Zeta (, ; uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ; grc, ζῆτα, el, ζήτα, label= Demotic Greek, classical or ''zē̂ta''; ''zíta'') is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 7. It was derived f ...
'' (this dates to Latin, which borrowed Y and Z from Greek), but in
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances i ...
its name is ''zee'' , analogous to the names for B, C, D, etc., and deriving from a late 17th-century English dialectal form.
Another English dialectal form is ''izzard'' . This dates from the mid-18th century and probably derives from
Occitan Occitan may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain.
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France.
* Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...
or the
French , whose reconstructed Latin form would be ''*idzēta'',
perhaps a
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...
form with a
prosthetic
In medicine, a prosthesis (plural: prostheses; from grc, πρόσθεσις, prósthesis, addition, application, attachment), or a prosthetic implant, is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through trau ...
vowel. Its variants are still used in
Hong Kong English
Hong Kong English is a variety of the English language native to Hong Kong. The variant is either a learner interlanguage or emergent variant, primarily a result of Hong Kong's British overseas territory history and the influence of native ...
and
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...
.
Other languages spell the letter's name in a similar way: in
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
,
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
, and
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
, in
Icelandic (no longer part of
its alphabet but found in personal names), in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
, in
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
, in
Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...
, in
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
,
Indonesian,
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
,
Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
*** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...
, and
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
* Czech, ...
, in
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
(capitalised as a noun), in
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
, in
French, in
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
, and in
Vietnamese
Vietnamese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia
** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam.
* Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam
** Overse ...
. Several languages render it as or , e.g. or more rarely in
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
(sometimes dropping the first ''t'' altogether; , or the latter of which is not very commonplace). In
Standard Chinese pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally writte ...
, the name of the letter Z is pronounced , as in "zi", although the English ''zed'' and ''zee'' have become very common. In
Esperanto the name of the letter Z is pronounced .
Under the
NATO spelling alphabet
The (International) Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet, commonly known as the NATO phonetic alphabet, is the most widely used set of clear code words for communicating the letters of the Roman alphabet, technically a ''radiotelephonic spellin ...
, the letter is signified with ''ZULU'', like the
Zulu people
Zulu people (; zu, amaZulu) are a Nguni ethnic group native to Southern Africa. The Zulu people are the largest ethnic group and nation in South Africa, with an estimated 10–12 million people, living mainly in the province of KwaZulu-Nata ...
.
History
Semitic
The
Semitic symbol was the seventh letter, named ''
zayin
Zayin (also spelled zain or zayn or simply zay) is the seventh letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Zayin , Hebrew Zayin , Yiddish Zoyen , Aramaic Zain , Syriac Zayn ܙ, and Arabic Zayn or Zāy . It represents the sound .
The ...
'', which meant "weapon" or "sword". It represented either the sound as in English and French, or possibly more like (as in Italian ', ').
Greek
The Greek form of Z was a close copy of the
Phoenician Zayin
Zayin (also spelled zain or zayn or simply zay) is the seventh letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Zayin , Hebrew Zayin , Yiddish Zoyen , Aramaic Zain , Syriac Zayn ܙ, and Arabic Zayn or Zāy . It represents the sound .
The ...
(
![Phoenician zayin](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Phoenician_zayin.svg)
), and the Greek inscriptional form remained in this shape throughout ancient times. The Greeks called it ''
zeta
Zeta (, ; uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ; grc, ζῆτα, el, ζήτα, label= Demotic Greek, classical or ''zē̂ta''; ''zíta'') is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 7. It was derived f ...
'', a new name made in imitation of ''
eta
Eta (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἦτα ''ē̂ta'' or ell, ήτα ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative in most dialects, ...
'' (η) and ''
theta
Theta (, ; uppercase: Θ or ; lowercase: θ or ; grc, ''thē̂ta'' ; Modern: ''thī́ta'' ) is the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet, derived from the Phoenician letter Teth . In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 9.
Gr ...
'' (θ).
In earlier Greek of
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
and Northwest Greece, the letter seems to have represented ; in Attic, from the 4th century BC onwards, it seems to have stood for and – there is no consensus concerning this issue. In other dialects, such as Elean and
Cretan
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, an ...
, the symbol seems to have been used for sounds resembling the English voiced and voiceless ''th'' (IPA and , respectively). In the common dialect (
koine) that succeeded the older dialects, ζ became , as it remains in modern Greek.
Etruscan
The
Etruscan __NOTOC__
Etruscan may refer to:
Ancient civilization
*The Etruscan language, an extinct language in ancient Italy
*Something derived from or related to the Etruscan civilization
**Etruscan architecture
**Etruscan art
**Etruscan cities
** Etrusca ...
letter ''Z'' was derived from the
Phoenician alphabet
The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization.
The Phoenician a ...
, most probably through the Greek alphabet used on the island of Ischia. In
Etruscan __NOTOC__
Etruscan may refer to:
Ancient civilization
*The Etruscan language, an extinct language in ancient Italy
*Something derived from or related to the Etruscan civilization
**Etruscan architecture
**Etruscan art
**Etruscan cities
** Etrusca ...
, this letter may have represented .
Latin
The letter Z was borrowed from the Greek Zeta, most likely to represent the sound /
t͡s/. At c. 300 BC,
Appius Claudius Caecus
Appius Claudius Caecus ( 312–279 BC) was a statesman and writer from the Roman Republic. The first Roman public figure whose life can be traced with some historical certainty, Caecus was responsible for the building of Rome's first road (t ...
, the Roman
censor, removed the letter Z from the alphabet, allegedly due to his distaste for the letter, in that it "looked like the tongue of a corpse". A more likely explanation is the sound had disappeared from Latin, making the letter useless for spelling Latin words. It is also thought due to
rhotacism
Rhotacism () or rhotacization is a sound change that converts one consonant (usually a voiced alveolar consonant: , , , or ) to a rhotic consonant in a certain environment. The most common may be of to . When a dialect or member of a language ...
, Z became a trilled R sound, /
r/. Whatever the case may be, Appius Claudius' distaste for the letter Z is today credited as the reason for its removal. A few centuries later, after the
Roman Conquest of Greece, Z was again borrowed to spell words from the prestigious Attic dialect of Greek.
Before the reintroduction of ''z'', the sound of zeta was written ''s'' at the beginning of words and ''ss'' in the middle of words, as in ' for "belt" and ' for "banker".
In some inscriptions, ''z'' represented a
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...
sound, likely an
affricate, formed by the merging of the
reflexes of
Classical Latin
Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later period ...
, and : for example, ' for ' "January", ' for ' "deacon", and ' for ' "today". Likewise, sometimes replaced in words like ' for ' "to baptize". In modern Italian, ''z'' represents or , whereas the reflexes of ' and ' are written with the letter ''g'' (representing when before ''i'' and ''e''): ', '. In other languages, such as
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
, further evolution of the sound occurred.
Old English
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
used ''S'' alone for both the unvoiced and the voiced
sibilant. The Latin sound imported through French was new and was not written with ''Z'' but with ''G'' or ''I''. The successive changes can be seen in the
doublet forms ''jealous'' and ''zealous''. Both of these come from a late Latin ', derived from the imported Greek '. The earlier form is ''jealous''; its initial sound is the , which developed to
Modern French
French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in No ...
.
John Wycliffe
John Wycliffe (; also spelled Wyclif, Wickliffe, and other variants; 1328 – 31 December 1384) was an English scholastic philosopher, theologian, biblical translator, reformer, Catholic priest, and a seminary professor at the University of ...
wrote the word as or .
''Z'' at the end of a word was pronounced ''ts'', as in English ''assets'', from
Old French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intellig ...
' "enough" (
Modern French
French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in No ...
'), from
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpa ...
' ("to sufficiency").
Last letter of the alphabet
In earlier times, the
English alphabet
The alphabet for Modern English is a Latin-script alphabet consisting of 26 letters, each having an upper- and lower-case form. The word ''alphabet'' is a compound of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, ''alpha'' and '' beta''. ...
s used by children terminated not with ''Z'' but with ''
&'' or related typographic symbols. In her 1859 novel ''
Adam Bede
''Adam Bede'' was the first novel by Mary Ann Evans ( George Eliot), and was published in 1859. It was published pseudonymously, even though Evans was a well-published and highly respected scholar of her time. The novel has remained in print ...
'',
George Eliot
Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively Mary Anne or Marian), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrot ...
refers to ''Z'' being followed by ''&'' when her character Jacob Storey says, "He thought it
/nowiki> had only been put to finish off th' alphabet like; though ampusand would ha' done as well, for what he could see."
Some Latin based alphabets have extra letters on the end of the alphabet. The last letter for the Icelandic, Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
and Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
alphabets is Ö, while it is Å for Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...
and Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
. In the German alphabet, the umlauts (''Ä/ä'', ''Ö/ö'', and ''Ü/ü'') and the letter '' ß'' (''Eszett'' or ''scharfes S'') are regarded respectively as modifications of the vowels ''a/o/u'' and as a (standardized) variant spelling of ''ss'', not as independent letters, so they come after the unmodified letters in the alphabetical order. The German alphabet ends with ''z''.
Variant and derived forms
A glyph variant of Z originating in the medieval Gothic minuscules and the Early Modern Blackletter typefaces is the "tailed z" (German ', also '). In some Antiqua typefaces, this letter is present as a standalone letter or in ligatures. Ligated with long s
The long s , also known as the medial s or initial s, is an archaic form of the lowercase letter . It replaced the single ''s'', or one or both of the letters ''s'' in a 'double ''s sequence (e.g., "ſinfulneſs" for "sinfulness" and "poſ ...
(ſ), it is part of the origin of the Eszett (ß) in the German alphabet
German orthography is the orthography used in writing the German language, which is largely phonemic. However, it shows many instances of spellings that are historic or analogous to other spellings rather than phonemic. The pronunciation of alm ...
. The character ezh (Ʒ) resembles a tailed z, which came to be indistinguishable from the yogh
The letter yogh (ȝogh) ( ; Scots Language, Scots: ; Middle English: ) was used in Middle English and Older Scots, representing ''y'' () and various velar consonant , velar phonemes. It was derived from the Insular G, Insular form of the letter ...
(ȝ) in Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...
writing.
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
assigns codepoints and in the Letterlike Symbols
Letterlike Symbols is a Unicode block containing 80 characters which are constructed mainly from the glyphs of one or more letters. In addition to this block, Unicode includes full styled mathematical alphabets, although Unicode does not expl ...
and Mathematical alphanumeric symbols
Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols is a Unicode block comprising styled forms of Latin and Greek letters and decimal digits that enable mathematicians to denote different notions with different letter styles. The letters in various fonts ofte ...
ranges respectively.
Image:Z-small-VA-64x88.svg, lowercase cursive ''z''
Image:Z-small-Variante.svg, ''z'' in a sans serif typeface
There is also a variant with a stroke.
Pronunciation and use
English
In modern English orthography
English orthography is the writing system used to represent spoken English, allowing readers to connect the graphemes to sound and to meaning. It includes English's norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation, word breaks, emphasis, and ...
, the letter usually represents the sound .
It represents in words like ''seizure
An epileptic seizure, informally known as a seizure, is a period of symptoms due to abnormally excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain. Outward effects vary from uncontrolled shaking movements involving much of the body with l ...
''. More often, this sound appears as or in words such as ''measure'', ''decision'', etc. In all these words, developed from earlier by ''yod''-coalescence.
Few words in the Basic English
Basic English (British American Scientific International and Commercial English) is an English-based controlled language created by the linguist and philosopher Charles Kay Ogden as an international auxiliary language, and as an aid for teach ...
vocabulary begin or end with , though it occurs within other words. It is the least frequently used letter in written English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
, with a frequency of about 0.08% in words.
is more common in the Oxford spelling of British English than in standard British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
, as this variant prefers the more etymologically 'correct' ''-ize'' endings, which are closer to Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, to ''-ise'' endings, which are closer to French; however, ''-yse'' is preferred over ''-yze'' in Oxford spelling, as it is closer to the original Greek roots of words like ''analyse''. The most common variety of English it is used in is American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances i ...
, which prefers both the ''-ize'' and ''-yze'' endings. One native Germanic English word that contains 'z', ''freeze'' (past ''froze'', participle ''frozen'') came to be spelled that way by convention, even though it could have been spelled with 's' (as with ''choose'', ''chose'' and ''chosen'').
is used in writing to represent the act of sleep
Sleep is a sedentary state of mind and body. It is characterized by altered consciousness, relatively inhibited sensory activity, reduced muscle activity and reduced interactions with surroundings. It is distinguished from wakefulness by a de ...
ing (often using multiple z's, like ''zzzz''), as an onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', '' ...
for the sound of closed-mouth human snoring
Snoring is the vibration of respiratory structures and the resulting sound due to obstructed air movement during breathing while sleeping. The sound may be soft or loud and unpleasant. Snoring during sleep may be a sign, or first alarm, of ob ...
.
Other languages
stands for a voiced alveolar or voiced dental sibilant
The voiced alveolar fricatives are consonantal sounds. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents these sounds depends on whether a sibilant or non-sibilant fricative is being described.
* The symbol for the alveolar sibilant ...
, in Albanian, Breton, Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
* Czech, ...
, Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
, French, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Romanian
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
*** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...
, Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia an ...
, Slovak, and the International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...
. It stands for in Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally writte ...
and Jyutping
Jyutping is a romanisation system for Cantonese developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong (LSHK), an academic group, in 1993. Its formal name is the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong Cantonese Romanization Scheme. The LSHK advocates fo ...
, Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
(occurs in loanwords only), and German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
, and is likewise expressed in Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlemen ...
. In Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
, it represents two phonemes, and . In Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
, it stands for in most cases, but also for or (depending on the regional variant) at the end of syllables. In Basque, it represents the sound .
Castilian Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
uses the letter to represent (as English in ''thing''), though in other dialects (Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
n, Andalusia
Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a "historical nationality". The t ...
n) this sound has merged with . Before voiced consonants, the sound is voiced to or , sometimes debbucalized to (as in the surname ''Guzmán'' , or ). This is the only context in which can represent a voiced sibilant in Spanish, though also represents (or , depending on the dialect) in this environment.
In Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, usually stands for the sound /s/ and thus shares the value of ; it normally occurs only in loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
s that are spelt with in the source languages.
The letter on its own represents in Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
. It is also used in four of the seven officially recognized digraphs: (), ( or ), ( or , sometimes it represents a sequence ) and (), and is the most frequently used of the consonants in that language. (Other Slavic languages avoid digraphs and mark the corresponding phonemes with the (caron) diacritic: , , , ; this system has its origin in Czech orthography
Czech orthography is a system of rules for proper formal writing (orthography) in Czech. The earliest form of separate Latin script specifically designed to suit Czech was devised by Czech theologian and church reformist Jan Hus, the namesake of ...
of the Hussite
The Hussites ( cs, Husité or ''Kališníci''; "Chalice People") were a Czech proto-Protestant Christian movement that followed the teachings of reformer Jan Hus, who became the best known representative of the Bohemian Reformation.
The Huss ...
period.) can also appear with diacritical marks, namely and , which are used to represent the sounds and . They also appear in the digraphs ( or ) and ( or ).
Hungarian uses in the digraphs (expressing , as opposed to the value of , which is ), and (expressing ). The letter on its own represents .
In Modern Scots
Modern Scots comprises the varieties of Scots traditionally spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster, from 1700.
Throughout its history, Modern Scots has been undergoing a process of language attrition, whereby successive generations ...
is used in place of the obsolete letter (yogh
The letter yogh (ȝogh) ( ; Scots Language, Scots: ; Middle English: ) was used in Middle English and Older Scots, representing ''y'' () and various velar consonant , velar phonemes. It was derived from the Insular G, Insular form of the letter ...
) and should be pronounced as a hard 'g'. Whilst there are a few common nouns which use in this manner, such as (pronounced 'brulgey' meaning broil), z as a yogh substitute is more common in people's names and place-names. Often the names are mispronounced to follow the apparent English spelling so Mackenzie is commonly pronounced with a 'z' sound. Menzies, however, still retains the correct pronunciation of 'Mingus'.
Among non-European languages that have adopted the Latin alphabet, usually stands for , such as in Azerbaijani, Igbo
Igbo may refer to:
* Igbo people, an ethnic group of Nigeria
* Igbo language, their language
* anything related to Igboland, a cultural region in Nigeria
See also
* Ibo (disambiguation)
* Igbo mythology
* Igbo music
* Igbo art
*
* Igbo-Ukwu, a ...
, Indonesian, Shona
Shona often refers to:
* Shona people, a Southern African people
* Shona language, a Bantu language spoken by Shona people today
Shona may also refer to:
* ''Shona'' (album), 1994 album by New Zealand singer Shona Laing
* Shona (given name)
* S ...
, Swahili, Tatar
The Tatars ()[Tatar]
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different , Turkish, and Zulu. represents in Northern Sami
Northern may refer to the following:
Geography
* North, a point in direction
* Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe
* Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States
* Northern Province, Sri Lanka
* Northern Range, a ...
and Inari Sami
Inari may refer to:
Shinto
* Inari Ōkami, a Shinto spirit
** Mount Inari in Japan, site of Fushimi Inari-taisha, the main Shinto shrine to Inari
** Inari Shrine, shrines to the Shinto god Inari
* Inari-zushi, a type of sushi
Places
* Inari, ...
. In Turkmen, represents .
In the Nihon-shiki
Nihon-shiki ( ja, 日本式ローマ字, "Japan-style," romanized as ''Nihonsiki'' in the system itself), is a romanization system for transliterating the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. Among the major romanization systems for Japan ...
, Kunrei-shiki
is the Cabinet-ordered romanization system for transcribing the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet. Its name is rendered ''Kunreisiki rômazi'' in the system itself. Kunrei-shiki is sometimes known as the Monbushō system in English bec ...
, and Hepburn romanisations of Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
, stands for a phoneme whose allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
s include and . Additionally, in the Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki systems, is used to represent that same phoneme before , where it's pronounced .
Other systems
A graphical variant of is , which has been adopted into the International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...
as the sign for the voiced postalveolar fricative
A voiced postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Association uses term ''voiced postalveolar fricative'' only for the sound , but it also describes the voiced postalveolar ...
.
Other uses
In mathematics, is used to denote the set of integer
An integer is the number zero (), a positive natural number (, , , etc.) or a negative integer with a minus sign ( −1, −2, −3, etc.). The negative numbers are the additive inverses of the corresponding positive numbers. In the languag ...
s. Originally, was just a handwritten version of the bold capital Z used in printing but, over time, it has come to be used more frequently in printed works too.
In chemistry, the letter ''Z'' is used to denote the Atomic number
The atomic number or nuclear charge number (symbol ''Z'') of a chemical element is the charge number of an atomic nucleus. For ordinary nuclei, this is equal to the proton number (''n''p) or the number of protons found in the nucleus of every ...
of an element (number of protons), such as ''Z''=3 for Lithium
Lithium (from el, λίθος, lithos, lit=stone) is a chemical element with the symbol Li and atomic number 3. It is a soft, silvery-white alkali metal. Under standard conditions, it is the least dense metal and the least dense solid ...
.
In electrical engineering, ''Z'' is used to denote electrical impedance
In electrical engineering, impedance is the opposition to alternating current presented by the combined effect of resistance and reactance in a circuit.
Quantitatively, the impedance of a two-terminal circuit element is the ratio of the com ...
.
In astronomy
Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, g ...
, z is a dimensionless quantity representing redshift.
The Z boson is a particle in nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter.
Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...
.
Z has been used as a military symbol by Russian forces during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. ...
. Russian civilians have used it in support of their government.
Related characters
Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet
* Z with diacritic
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
s: Ź ź Ẑ ẑ Ž ž Ż ż Ẓ ẓ Ẕ ẕ Ƶ ƶ ᵶ Ᶎ ᶎ
The palatal hook () is a type of hook diacritic formerly used in the International Phonetic Alphabet to represent palatalized consonants. It is a small, leftwards-facing hook joined to the bottom-right side of a letter, and is distinguished from ...
Ⱬ ⱬ
* ß : German letter regarded as a ligature of long s
The long s , also known as the medial s or initial s, is an archaic form of the lowercase letter . It replaced the single ''s'', or one or both of the letters ''s'' in a 'double ''s sequence (e.g., "ſinfulneſs" for "sinfulness" and "poſ ...
(ſ) and short s, called ' or '. (In some typefaces and handwriting styles it is rather a ligature of long s and tailed z (ſʒ).)
* Ȥ ȥ: Latin letter z with a hook, intended for the transcription of Middle High German
Middle High German (MHG; german: Mittelhochdeutsch (Mhd.)) is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. Hig ...
, for instances of the letter ''z'' with a sound value of /s/.
* Ɀ ɀ : Latin letter Z with swash tail
Ɀ (lowercase: ɀ) is a Latin letter z with a "swash tail" (encoded by Unicode, at codepoints U+2C7F for uppercase and U+0240 for lowercase) was used as a phonetic symbol by linguists studying African languages to represent a voiced labio-alve ...
* Ʒ ʒ : Latin letter ezh
* Ꝣ ꝣ : Visigothic
The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is kno ...
Z
* Ᶎ ᶎ : Z with hook, used for writing Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...
using the early draft version of pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally writte ...
romanization during the mid-1950s
* IPA-specific symbols related to Z:
* is used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet
The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) or Finno-Ugric transcription system is a phonetic transcription or notational system used predominantly for the transcription and reconstruction of Uralic languages. It was first published in 1901 by Eemil Nes ...
* Modifier letters ᶻ ᶼ ᶽ are used in phonetic transcription
Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets
* 𐤆 : Semitic letter Zayin
Zayin (also spelled zain or zayn or simply zay) is the seventh letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Zayin , Hebrew Zayin , Yiddish Zoyen , Aramaic Zain , Syriac Zayn ܙ, and Arabic Zayn or Zāy . It represents the sound .
The ...
, from which the following letters derive
** Ζ ζ : Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
letter Zeta
Zeta (, ; uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ; grc, ζῆτα, el, ζήτα, label= Demotic Greek, classical or ''zē̂ta''; ''zíta'') is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 7. It was derived f ...
, from which the following letters derive
*** : Coptic letter Zēta
*** 𐌆 : Old Italic Z, which is the ancestor of modern Latin Z
*** : Gothic letter ezec
*** З з : Cyrillic letter Ze
Computing codes
: 1
On the QWERTZ
The QWERTZ or QWERTZU keyboard is a typewriter and keyboard layout widely used in Central Europe. The name comes from the first six letters at the top left of the keyboard: ( ).
Overview
The main difference between QWERTZ and QWERTY is ...
keyboard used in Central Europe the Z replaces the Y of the standard US/UK QWERTY
QWERTY () is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden t ...
keyboard as the sixth letter of the first row.
Other representations
See also
* Bourbaki dangerous bend symbol
The dangerous bend or caution symbol ☡ () was created by the Nicolas Bourbaki group of mathematicians and appears in the margins of mathematics books written by the group. It resembles a road sign that indicates a "dangerous bend" in the roa ...
,
* Z with stroke
Ƶ (minuscule: ƶ) is a letter of the Latin alphabet, derived from Z with the addition of a stroke through the centre.
Use in alphabets
Ƶ is used in the latin version of the Karachay-Balkar alphabet to represent palatalization, with ь as ...
, Ƶ
* Zed
Zed is the pronunciation of the letter ''Z'' in Commonwealth English ("zee" in American English).
Zed or ZED may also refer to:
Entertainment Characters
*Zed (comics), a character from the ''Hellblazer'' comic series
*Zed (Kiba), the main chara ...
* Zee
* Z flag
The Z flag is one of the international maritime signal flags.
International maritime signal flag
In the system of international maritime signal flags, part of the International Code of Signals, the Z flag stands for the letter Z ("Zulu" in the ...
* Z (military symbol)
The Latin-script letter Z ( rus, зет, p=zɛt, r=zet) is one of several symbols (including "V" and "O") painted on military vehicles of the Russian Armed Forces involved in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is speculated that the Z h ...
References
External links
*
*
*
{{Latin script, Z}
ISO basic Latin letters