Z

Latin alphabet Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz

Z is the twenty-sixth and last letter of the English alphabet.

In almost all forms of Commonwealth English, the letter is named zed, reflecting its derivation from the Greek zeta (see below). Other European languages use a similar form, e.g. the French zède, Spanish and Italian zeta, and Dutch zet. The American English form zee derives from an English late 17th-century dialectal form, now obsolete in England (although it allows the letter to rhyme with "V" in the "Alphabet song" nursery rhyme). Another English dialectal form is izzard, which dates from the mid 18th-century, probably deriving from French et zède meaning and z, or else from s hard.

In early Latin the sound represented by Z passed into R, and consequently the symbol became useless. It was therefore removed from the alphabet and G was put in its place. In the 1st century BC it was, like Y, introduced again at the end, in order to represent more precisely than was before possible the value of the Greek Z or zeta, which had been previously spelled with S at the beginning and ss in the middle of words: sona = ζωνη, "belt"; trapessita = τραπεζιτης, "banker".

Until recent times the English alphabets used by children terminated not with Z but with & or related typographic symbols. George Eliot refers to the Zs being followed by & when she makes Jacob Storey say, "He thought it [Z] had only been put to finish off th' alphabet like; though ampusand would ha' done as well, for what he could see."

The Greek form of Z was a close copy of the Phoenician symbol I, and the Greek inscriptional form remained in this shape throughout. In Semitic (Zayin) and Ancient Greek the letter was probably pronounced as [dz] (as in Italian zeta, zero). In Modern Greek, it is pronounced as [z], as in English and French.

The name of the Semitic symbol was Zayin, but this name, for some unknown reason, was not adopted by the Greeks, who called it Zeta. Whether, as seems most likely, Zeta was the name of one of the other Semitic sibilants — Tsade — transferred to this by mistake, or whether the name is a new one, made in imitation of Eta (η) and Theta (θ), is disputed. The pronunciation of the Semitic letter was the voiced S (IPA [z]), like the ordinary use of Z in English, as in zodiac, raze.

It is probable that in Greek there was a considerable variety of pronunciation from dialect to dialect. In the earlier Greek of Athens, Northwest Greece and Lesbos the pronunciation seems to have been zd; in Attic from the 4th century BC onwards it seems to have been only a voiced s, and this also was probably the pronunciation of the dialect from which Latin borrowed its Greek words. In other dialects, as Elean and Cretan, the symbol was apparently used for sounds resembling the English voiced and unvoiced th (IPA [θ] and [ð] respectively). In the common dialect (κοινη) which succeeded the older dialects, ζ became a voiced s (IPA [z]), as it remains in modern Greek.

In Etruscan, Z probably symbolized [ts], in Latin, [dz] (in Latin, the letter appeared only in Greek words, and Z is the only letter besides Y that the Romans took over directly from the Greek, and unlike all other letters not via Etruscan).

In Vulgar Latin the Greek Z seems to have been pronounced as dy (IPA [dj]) and later y (IPA [j]); di being found for Z in words like baptidiare for baptizare "baptize", while conversely Z appears for di in forms like zaconus, zabulus, for diaconus "deacon", diabulus, "devil". Z also is often written for the consonantal I (that is, J, IPA [j]) as in zunior for junior "younger".

In Italian, Z represents two phonemes, namely [ts] and [dz]; in German, it stands for [ts]; in Castilian Spanish it represents [θ] (as English th in thing), though in other dialects (Latin American, Andalusian) it is pronounced as [s] (and word-finally, [s], [x], [h] or Ø), making haz, has and even ha homophones.

Besides the above Latin forms, there was a more cultured Vulgate pronunciation of Z as [dz], which passed through French into Middle English.

The International Phonetic Alphabet uses [z] for the voiced alveolar sibilant. Early English had 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 well seen in the double forms from the same original, jealous and zealous. Both of these come from a late Latin zelosus, derived from the imported Greek ζηλος. Much the earlier form is jealous; its initial sound is the [dʒ] which in later French is changed to [dʒ]. It is written gelows or iclous by Wycliffe and his contemporaries; the form with I is the ancestor of the modern form. At the end of words this Z was pronounced ts as in the English assets, which comes from a late Latin ad satis through an early French assez "enough". See English plural.

Z is also frequently used in English to represent written zh (IPA [ʒ]), in azure, seizure. But this sound appears even more frequently as s-before-u, and as si before other vowels as in measure, decision, etc., or in foreign words as G, as in rouge. For the "inverted ε" (Ȝ) representing G and Y in Scottish proper names, see Yogh.

No words in the Basic English vocabulary begin with Z, but it occurs in words beginning with other letters.

(See IPA chart for English for the meaning of all the above phonetic symbols.)

In Shakespeare's King Lear Z is used as an insult. A character is called "Thou whoreson zed! Thou unnecessary letter!" (II.ii), intimating that Z (in Shakespearean English at any rate) is a useless letter, like the person on the receiving end of the insult.

Alternative representations

Zulu represents the letter Z in the NATO phonetic alphabet.

In international Morse code the letter Z is DahDahDitDit: - - · ·

In Braille the letter Z is represented as ⠵ (in Unicode), the dot pattern:

X.
.X
XX

Computing

In Unicode the capital Z is codepoint U+005A and the lowercase z is U+007A.

The ASCII code for capital Z is 90 and for lowercase z is 122; or in binary 01011010 and 01111010, correspondingly.

The EBCDIC code for capital Z is 233 and for lowercase z is 169.

The numeric character references in HTML and XML are "Z" and "z" for upper and lower case respectively

Meanings for Z

• In mathematics,
  • Blackboard bold denotes the set of all integers.
  • z represents the third unknown quantity (after x and y).
  • z denotes a complex variable.
• In cartoons, Z denotes the sound of sleeping or snoring, often represented as "zzz...".
• In chemistry and atomic physics, Z is the symbol for atomic number.
• In computer science, Z is a formal specification language used for computing systems; see Z notation.
• In date and time, Z UTC timezone.
• In film and literature,
  • Z is a film by Costa-Gavras
  • Z is the lead character (Z or Zed) in the movie Zardoz.
  • Z is the protagonist in Antz.
  • Z is the mark of Zorro.
  • Z is the nickname of Zefram Cochrane in Star Trek: First Contact.
  • Zee is the love interest of the character Link in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions movies.
  • Zed is a character in the movie Pulp Fiction.
  • Zed is a character in the Police Academy series.
  • Zed is a character in the motion picture Men in Black.
• In television, Zed is an "open source" television show where users can contribute arts and entertainment submissions online, which may be broadcast on the CBC in Canada. [1]
  • Lord Zedd is a fictional villain from the TV series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
  • Zed was a fictional robot in The Ed and Zed Show
• In genetics Z denotes the Z chromosome.
  • ZZ denotes male in the WZ sex-determination system.
• In international licence plate codes, Z stands for Zambia.

• In the SI system,
  • z, zepto, is an SI prefix meaning 10^-21.
  • Z, zetta, is an SI prefix meaning 10²¹.
• In military science, Z refers to the zero-meridian time zone UTC or GMT, leading to the expression "zulu time".
• In music,
  • Zed is a band from New Zealand
  • Z is an album by My Morning Jacket
• In astronomy, z is used to denote redshift.
• In physics:
  • In particle physics, Z is the symbol for the Z boson.
  • In electrical engineering, Z is the variable for impedance.
• In set theory, Z is the name of a system with Zermelo's first five axioms plus foundation.
• In video games, Z is:
  • the name of a strategy game for PC and the PlayStation.
  • Naoki Maeda's pseudonym for the Dance Dance Revolution song "MAXX UNLIMITED". Fans typically pronounce this "zeta" since his pseudonym for its predecessor, "MAX 300", is Ω (omega).
    • Naoki's pseudonym for the DDR song "The legend of MAX" consists of ΖΖ — two zetas overlapping. Fans typically pronounce this "double zeta".
• Z Communications is a politically progressive left-wing, journalism-intensive, media group, founded in 1987 by Michael Albert.
• The letter Z followed by a question mark: Z?, is often found in various works by Jhonen Vasquez. It originates from comic Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, where he talks about "Questioning Sleep". Hence, "Z?" means "Question Sleep".

See also

• Ž
• Ź
• Ż
• Ezh

External links

"Zee" versus "Zed" in the southern Ontario Public School System