The letter Z, often known as z, is the twenty-sixth and last letter of the contemporary English alphabet as well as the ISO basic Latin alphabet. Its common English names are zed (pronounced /zd/) and zee (pronounced /zi/), with the archaic form izzard (pronounced /zrd/).

Pronunciation and name

The letter’s name is zed /zd/ in most English-speaking countries, including Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, reflecting its derivation from the Greek zeta (this dates to Latin, which borrowed X, Y, and Z from Greek, along with their names), but it is zee /zi/ in American English, analogous to the names for B, C, D, and so on, and deriving from a late 17

Izzard (/zrd/) is another dialectal variant of English. This is from the mid-eighteenth century, and it most likely comes from Occitan izèda or French ézed, whose reconstructed Latin form would be *idzta, perhaps a Vulgar Latin form with a prosthetic vowel. Its variations are still used in Cantonese and English in Hong Kong.

Other languages spell the letter’s name in a similar way: zeta in Italian, Basque, Spanish, and Icelandic (no longer in use but still used in personal names), zê in Portuguese, zäta in Swedish, zt in Danish, zet in Dutch, Indonesian, Polish, Romanian, and Czech, zê in Portuguese, zäta in Swedish, zt in Danish, zet in Dutch, Indonesian, Polish, Romanian, and Czech In German, zett is capitalized as a noun; in Norwegian, zett is capitalized as a noun; in French, zède is capitalized as a verb; in Japanese romaji, zetto () is capitalized as a verb; and in Vietnamese, zét is capitalized as a verb. Several languages transcribe it as /ts/ or /dz/, such as zeta /tseta/ or, very infrequently, /tseta/ in Finnish (occasionally deleting the initial t entirely; /seta/, or /set/, the latter of which is not often used). Although the English zed and zee have become quite widespread, the letter Z’s name is pronounced as in “zi” in Standard Chinese pinyin. The letter Z’s name is pronounced /zo/ in Esperanto.

Semitic

The Semitic sign for “weapon” or “sword” was zayin, the seventh letter, which denoted “weapon” or “sword.” It might have signified the sound /z/, like in English and French, or something closer to /dz/. (as in Italian zeta, zero).

Greek

The Greek inscriptional form of Z was a close replica of the Phoenician Zayin (Zayin), and it stayed in this shape throughout antiquity. It was given the name zeta by the Greeks, who modeled it after the Greek letters eta () and theta ().

The letter appears to have represented /dz/ in older Greek of Athens and Northwest Greece; in Attic, from the 4th century BC onwards, it appears to have stood for /zd/ and /dz/ – there is no unanimity on this subject. The sign appears to have been used for sounds similar to the English voiced and voiceless th (IPA / and //, respectively) in other dialects such as Elean and Cretan. /z/ became /z/ in the common dialect (koine) that replaced the earlier dialects, as it does in modern Greek.

Semitic

The Semitic sign was the letter zayin, which meant “weapon” or “sword” in Semitic. In both English and French, it signified the sound / z /, or maybe more accurately, / dz /. (as in Italian zeta, zero).

Greek

The Greek form of Z was a near-identical duplicate of the Phoenician Zayin, and the Greek version with an inscription has remained unchanged since antiquity. It was given the name zeta by the Greeks, who modeled it after the Greek letters eta () and theta ().

The letter appears to have represented / dz / in Greek before Athens and Northwestern Greece; it appears to have represented / zd / and / dz / in Attica beginning in the 4th century BC – there is no unanimity on this subject. The sign appears to have been used for sounds comparable to the English voiced and voiceless (IPA / / and / /, respectively) in other dialects such as Elean and Cretan. The general dialect (koine), which followed the previous dialects, became / z /, which it still is in contemporary Greek.

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