Ζ

Dseta in a capital letter Etymologicum Magnum (1499).

Dseta (according to the RAE since 2001) or zeta (in capital letters Ζ, lowercase ζ; call in ancient Greek ζῆτα zêta /dzɛ̂ː.ta, zdɛ̂ː.ta/, in modern Greek ζήτα zíta /ˈzi.ta /) is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. Its exact pronunciation in ancient Greek is still a matter of debate as there are those who insist that it was [zd], while others argue that it was [dz] (and there is evidence in favor of both positions), what is clear is that in its evolution ended up having the sound [z], which is what it currently has in modern Greek.

It was adopted as is by the Romans to transliterate words that would carry it in the original Greek. They did it, for example, with Zephyrus, zeugma or zeta (which are in Spanish: céfiro, zeugma, zeta).

Until its 1992 dictionary, the Spanish Royal Academy called ζ and theta zeta to θ; in the 2001 edition, as dseta (Ζ, ζ) and zeta (Θ, θ), which were maintained in subsequent publications.

In the Greek numeral system it has a value of 7 (Ζ΄).

History

Archaic forms

This letter evolved from the lyrics fenicia zayin .

The Greek letter originally followed its Phoenician model and was more like the Latin capital letter I than the current setta. It evolved to its current form in the Ionic alphabet. It was used in most local Greek alphabets, but was missing from the alphabets of Megara, Phliasia, and Ithaca, among others, as well as some Greek settlements in Magna Graecia and the Cyclades islands.

Name

While the name of other Greek letters roughly follows the Phoenician name, for Ζ this is not true and instead of taking a name similar to zai or zayin, the Greeks named it with a name parallel to that of the two letters that followed her: heta and theta.

When the Romans took this letter and placed it at the end of the Latin alphabet, they gave it the same name the Greeks used, zeta. This is the name of the Latin letter also in Spanish and other languages.

In Spanish, the name of this letter used to be written «zeta», due to the inertia of how the Latin Z is pronounced in Latin, in other European languages and in old Castilian. However, this writing can lead to confusion with the letter Θ, which in modern Greek is pronounced with the same sound with which the Latin Z is pronounced in Spanish Spanish. To avoid this, since 1992 the RAE's Dictionary of the Spanish Language lists this letter with the name "dseta".

Epigraphic variants

In archaic epigraphic sources the following variants appear:

Use

The letter ζ represents the voiced alveolar fricative /z/ in Modern Greek.

Despite being the sixth letter, it had a value of 7 in the Greek numeral system (ζʹ). This is because it held the position of the old letter digamma/waw, which originally occupied the sixth place.

Old Pronunciation

The Palestinian city of Ashdod appears transcribed as.ωτος.

However, the sound represented by this letter in pre-400 B.C. C. is discussed, which causes hesitation in the pronunciation of ancient Greek in teaching.

Most manuals give it the pronunciation /zd/ (as in Mazda), but some scholars believe it was an affricate /dz/ (as in adze). The modern pronunciation was established, in all probability, as early as Hellenistic times and may have been a common practice in Classical Attic; for example, it could count as one or two metrical consonants in Attic drama.

• σδ appears only in the lyric poetry of the Greek island of Lesbos and the city-state of Esparta during the archaic era and in the bucolic poetry of the Hellenistic era. Most scholars consider that this indicates that the pronunciation [zd] existed in the dialects of these authors.
• The transcripts of the Jenofonte Persian and the testimonies of the grammar support the pronouncement [zd] in the classic attic.
• [z(11)] is attested from c. 350 a. C. in attic inscriptions, and was the probable value in koiné.
• It is possible that [dō] or [dz] have existed in some other dialects in parallel.

As a symbol

Riemann zeta function

• Riemann zeta function, with applications in physics and statistics
• In mathematics, it sometimes has the role of third coordinated, equivalent to "z".

Unicode

• Greek and Coptic

• Maths