Z

The z (uppercase Z, noun zeta, plural zetas) is the twenty-seventh (and last) letter of the Spanish alphabet, its twenty-second consonant, and the twenty-sixth (and also last) letter of the basic Latin alphabet. The 2010 Orthography strongly discourages the archaic names ceta, ceda and zeda. It should be distinguished from the Greek Ζ, with whose capital letter is homoglyphic.

History

The letter Z comes directly from the Latin alphabet, which is taken from the Greek to transcribe the letter dseda ζ, which comes from the Phoenician zai, whose meaning in Aramaic is weapon. The letter z existed formerly in Latin, but in the time of the censor Appius Claudius, c. 312 BC C., was suppressed; reintroduced mid-century I a. C. to be able to represent the sound "s sonoro" from the Greek language. So it was placed at the end of the alphabet. Probable grapheme evolution:

Proto-Semitic Z	Fellowship Z	Greek Dseta	Etrusco Z	Latin Z

Phoenician

In the Semitic script it was the seventh letter, called zayin, which meant "weapon" or "sword". It represented either the sound /z/ as in English and French, or possibly as /dz/ (as in Italian zeta and zero).

Greek

The Greek Z was a copy of the Zayin Phoenician (), sometimes straight as in Phoenician or in the form of zig-zag. The Greeks changed the name to zeta, a name made in imitation of the two letters that followed it eta (Bolivarian Republic of) and theta (θ).

In the early Greek of Athens and northwestern Greece, the letter seems to have represented /dz/; in Attic Greek, from the IV century BC. C. onwards, seems to have represented /zd/ and /dz/; there is no consensus on this issue. In other dialects, such as Eleas and Crete, it seems to have been used for sounds resembling the Castilian z in its voiced and voiceless versions (AFI /ð/ and /θ/, respectively).. In the common (koine) dialect that succeeded the older dialects, ζ became /z/, as it remains in modern Greek.

Etruscan

The Etruscan letter Z was derived from the Phoenician alphabet, probably via the Greek alphabet used on the island of Ischia. In Etruscan, this letter may have represented /ts/.

Latin

The letter z was part of the most archaic versions of the Latin alphabet, adopted from the Etruscan. Because the /z/ sound in Latin changed to /r/ for Rotacism, in the V century a. C. z was dropped and the 6th position of the alphabet was given to the new letter G. In the I century a. C., z was reintroduced at the end of the Latin alphabet to represent the sound of the Greek zeta /dz /, like the letter y, was introduced to represent the sound of the Greek upsilon /y/.

Before the reintroduction of z, the z sound was written s at the beginning of words and ss in the middle of words. words, as in sōna for ζώνη "belt" and trapessita for τραπεζίτης "banker".

In some inscriptions, z represented a Vulgar Latin sound, probably an affricate, perhaps formed by the fusion of reflexes from Classical Latin /j/, /dj/ and /gj/; for example, zanuariu for ianuariu "January", ziaconus for diaconus "deacon" and oze for hodie "today". Likewise, /di/ sometimes replaced /z/ in words like baptidiare for baptizare "baptize". In modern Italian, z represents /ts/ or /dz/, while reflexes of ianuarius and hodie are written with the letter g (representing /dʒ/ when before i and e): gennaio oggi. In other languages, such as Spanish, there was a greater evolution of sound.

Old English used S only for the voiceless 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 jealous. Both come from a Latin zelosus zelosus derived from imported Greek ζῆλος zêlos. The above form is jealous; its initial sound is [dʒ], which developed into modern French [ʒ]. John Wiclef wrote the word as gelows or ielous.

The Z at the end of a word was pronounced ts, as in English actives, from Old French asez "enough" (assez modern French), from Vulgar Latin ad satis ("until sufficiency").

Use

In Spanish

In most of Spain and Equatorial Guinea, Z can be recognized by an obstrusive, fricative, interdental articulation sound (like the English th in thing), also present when the letter C is followed by the letters E or I. However, in Latin America, as well as in the Canary Islands and in some areas of Andalusia, it is usually articulated as a dentoalveolar deaf fricative consonant. When this happens, the pronunciation of the Z is not distinguished from the S, within a mode of pronunciation known as lisp, which is accepted as correct in the educated norm because it is very widespread. This is not the case with the lisp, which would also match the pronunciations of Z and S, but substituting the sound of the second.

Before voiced consonants, the zeta can represent the allophones [ð] or [z], sometimes debucalized to [ɦ] (as in the surname Guzmán [ɡuðˈman], [ɡuzˈman] or [ɡuɦˈman]). This is the only context in which ⟨z⟩ can represent a voiced sibilant [z] in Spanish, although ⟨s⟩ also represents [z] (or [ɦ] depending on the dialect) in this environment.

Spelling rules

They are written with z:

• The finished verbs in .except theisar, avisar, divisar, decomisarimprovisar, guisarProceedsar and revisar: aterr., channel., izar, sintetizar.
• The Spanish surnames finished in ez, iz and oz: VelázquezLainez, Alvaroez, Narváez, Ortiz, Muñiz, Quiroz, Muñoz.
• Termination azo (coupling or increase), izo, zuela and Plumsy.Less mucussoil: carrazo, scobazo, latigazo, infermizo, firstizozarzuela, orPlumsy..

• Terminations:
  • ez and eza of abstract nouns derived from adjectives: scarceez, widowez, tristeza, perezaof scarce, widowed, sad and lazy, respectively.
  • anza of abstract nouns derived from verbs: adivinanza, andanza, matanza, tardanza to guess, walk, kill and take, respectively.
  • azgo of some nouns, except rAsgo: hallazgoNoviazgoAlmirantazgo, leaderazgo.

• The roots of the first person of the indicative present and all of the present of the subjunctive of the finished verbs in acer, ecer, ocer and ucir: na., nazcan, naI know. (from Nacer), PereI know., pere., pereLet's go. (de pere)cer), Cone.ConezcanConeI know. (sing)cer), lu., luzcan, luLet's go. (sighs)circus).

The z can be replaced by the c in the following words: ácimo, cebra, cedilla, celandés, cenit, cinc. Being in these, the c is more used, except in Zeelander and zinc.

In other languages

The letter Z is generally used to represent sibilant consonants in different languages. For example, the voiced dentoalveolar fricative consonant sound /z/ applies to this letter in the following languages: Portuguese, Catalan, French, Occitan, Romanian, English, Dutch; the Slavic languages written in the Latin alphabet (Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, and Croatian), plus these other languages: Latvian, Lithuanian, Hungarian, and Albanian; in addition to the Turkic languages written in the Latin alphabet (Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen and Uzbek); while in German and sometimes Italian it represents a voiceless dentoalveolar affricate /ts/.

English

In modern English orthography, the letter ⟨z⟩ usually represents the /z/.

Representation /ʒ/ in words like seizure. Although most often this sound appears as ⟨su⟩ ⟨si⟩ on words like measure, decision, etc. In all these words, /ʒ/ developed from / zj/ by coalescence of yod.

Few basic English vocabulary words start with ⟨z⟩ even though it occurs in words starting with other letters. It is the least used letter in written English, with a frequency of approximately 0.08% in words. ⟨z⟩ is more common in British Oxford Spelling than in Standard British English Spelling, as this variant prefers the more etymologically 'correct' endings -ize, which are closer to Greek, rather than -ise, which are closer to French; However, according to Oxford spelling, -yse is preferred over -yze, as it is closer to the original Greek roots in words like analyse. In American English, the endings -ize and -yze are preferred. A native English Germanic word containing 'z' is freeze (past froze, participle frozen) which came to be written that way by convention, although it could have been written with 's& #39; (like choose, chose, chosen).

Other languages

⟨z⟩ represents a voiced alveolar or voiced dental sibilant /z /, in Albanian, Breton, Czech, Dutch, French, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovak and in the International Phonetic Alphabet. Represents /t͡s / in Chinese, Finnish (loanwords only), and German pinyin, and also expresses /ts/ in Old Norse. In Italian, it represents two phonemes, /t͡s/ or /d͡z/. In Portuguese, it represents /z/ in most cases, but also /s/ or /ʃ/ (depending on the regional variant) at the end of syllables. In Basque, it represents the sound /s/.

In Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, ⟨z⟩ usually represents the /s/ sound and therefore shares the value of ⟨s⟩ which normally occurs only in loanwords written with ⟨z⟩ in source languages.

The letter ⟨z⟩ alone represents /z/ in Polish. It is also used in four of the seven officially recognized digraphs: ⟨cz⟩ /t͡ʂ/), ⟨dz⟩ /dz/ or /ts/), ⟨rz⟩ /ʐ / or /ʂ /, sometimes represents a sequence /rz/) and ⟨sz⟩ (/ʂ/), and is the most frequently used consonant in this language. (other Slavic languages avoid digraphs and mark corresponding phonemes with the háček (caron): ⟨č⟩ ⟨ď⟩ ⟨ř⟩ ⟨š⟩ this system has its origin in Czech orthography) ⟨z⟩ can also appear with diacritical marks, namely ⟨ź⟩ and ⟨ż⟩ that are used to represent the sounds /ʑ/ and /ʐ/. They also appear in the digraphs ⟨dź⟩ /d͡ʑ/ or /t͡ɕ/) and ⟨ dż⟩ /d͡ʐ / or /t͡ʂ/).

Hungarian uses ⟨z⟩ in ⟨sz digraphs ⟩ (expressing /s/, as opposed to the normal value of ⟨s⟩ which is ʃ and ⟨zs⟩ (expressing ʒ)

In Scots ⟨z⟩ is used instead of the obsolete letter ⟨ȝ⟩ (yogh) and should be pronounced like g for 'cat'. Although there are some common nouns that use ⟨z⟩ in this way, such as brulzie (pronounced 'brulgey' meaning to roast), z as a substitute for yogh is more common in names of people and places. Names are often mispronounced due to English influence, 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, ⟨z⟩ usually means [z] in the languages of Azerbaijan, Igbo, Indonesia, Shona, Swahili, Tatar, Turkish, and Zulu. ⟨z⟩ represents [dz] in North Sami and Inari Sami. In Turkmen, ⟨z⟩ represents [ ð ]

In the Kunrei-shiki and Hepburn systems of romanization of Japanese, ⟨z⟩ represents a phoneme whose allophones include [ z ] and [ d z ]

As a symbol

Drawing a sleeping cat

Last letter of the alphabet

The expression “from A to Z” means to treat a topic in depth, from beginning to end. Before in English schools, children were taught an alphabet that ended not with Z with " or related typographical symbols. Some Latin alphabets have other additional letters at the end of the alphabet. The last letter for Icelandic, Finnish and Swedish alphabets is Ö, while it is Å for Danish and Norwegian.

Onomatopeya of snoring

Also used z in comics and drawings to represent the act of sleeping (usually using multiple zetas like zz).

At the beginning of the centuryXX. drawings used a wide range of letters to represent human snoring, which were difficult to transcribe.

A thousand trillions (zetta-)

Placed before a unit of measurement, Z represents the second largest order of magnitude among the SI prefixes: zetta, which was assigned in 1991 and represents one thousand trillion (billion million million million).

Zetta follows exa- (E), one trillion, and comes before yotta- (Y), one quadrillion.

UTC time

Due to the influence of the names of the military time zones, in aviation language the Z is used for the UTC reference time zone.

Variants and derived letters

A variant of the Z glyph originating from medieval Gothic minuscules is the "z with tail" (in German geschwänztes Z also Z mit Unterschlinge). In some fonts of the antiqua style this letter is present as an independent letter or in ligatures. Linked with long s (ſ), it is part of the origin of eszett (ß) in the German alphabet. The character ezh (Ʒ) resembles a tailed z, as does yogh (ȝ), with which it became indistinguishable in Middle English writing.

A graphic variant of ⟨z⟩ is the tailed z which has been adopted into the International Phonetic Alphabet as a symbol of the voiced postalveolar fricative.

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  tiny italics z

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  z in a type of letter sans serif

Alternative representations

In the aeronautical phonetic alphabet it is assigned the word Zulu. In Morse code it is: --··

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  Signal flags

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  Semaphor Alphabet

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  Reading Braille

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  Manual Alphabet