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As stated in this article, American English is the only dialect to pronounce this letter as "zee."
{{otherusesof}}
{{wiktionarypar2|Z|z}}
{{Latin alphabet navbox|uc=Z|lc=z}}
{{IPA notice}}
'''Z''' is the twenty-sixth and last [[Letter (alphabet)|letter]] of the modern [[Latin alphabet]].
In most dialects of [[English language|English]], the letter's name is '''zed''' ({{pronEng|zɛd}}), reflecting its derivation from the [[Greek alphabet|Greek]] ''[[zeta (letter)|zeta]]'' (see below). In [[American English]] dialects, its name is '''zee''' {{IPA|/ziː/}}, deriving from a late 17th-century English dialectal form. Another English dialectal form is '''izzard''' or '''izzed''' {{IPA|/ˈɪzɚd/}}, which dates from the mid-18th century and probably derives from the [[French language|French]] ''et zède'' "and z". This is the predominant form in [[anglophone]] [[South Asia]].
Other [[Indo-European languages]] pronounce the letter's name in a similar fashion, such as ''zet'' in [[Dutch language|Dutch]], [[Romanian language|Romanian]] and [[Czech language|Czech]], ''zède'' in [[French language|French]], ''zäta'' in [[Swedish language|Swedish]], ''zeta'' in [[Italian language|Italian]] and [[Spanish language|Spanish]], and ''zê'' in [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]].
In [[Standard Mandarin|Chinese]] (Mandarin) [[pinyin]] the name of the letter Z is pronounced [tsɛ].
==History==
{| class="wikitable"
|- style="background-color:#EEEEEE; text-align:center;"
! Proto-Semitic Z
! Phoenician Z
! Etruscan Z
! Greek Zeta
|- style="background-color:white; text-align:center;"
|[[Image:Proto-semiticZ-01.png]]
|[[Image:PhoenicianZ-01.png]]
|[[Image:EtruscanZ-01.png]]
|[[Image:Zeta uc lc.svg|64px]]
|}
The name of the [[Semitic symbol]] was ''[[zayin]]'', possibly meaning "weapon", and was the seventh letter. It represented either {{IPA|z}} as in English and French, or possibly more like {{IPA|/dz/}} (as in Italian ''zeta'', ''zero'').
The Greek form of Z was a close copy of the Phoenician symbol <font face="Times New Roman">I</font>, and the Greek inscriptional form remained in this shape throughout ancient times. The Greeks called it ''[[Zeta (letter)|Zeta]]'', a new name made in imitation of ''Eta'' (η) and ''Theta'' (θ).
In earlier Greek of [[Athens]] and Northwest Greece, the letter seems to have represented {{IPA|/dz/}}; in Attic, from the 4th century BC onwards, it seems to have been either {{IPA|/zd/}} or a {{IPA|/dz/}}, and in fact there is no consensus concerning this issue. In other dialects, as Elean and [[Crete|Cretan]], the symbol seems to have been used for sounds resembling the English voiced and unvoiced ''th'' (IPA {{IPA|/ð/}} and {{IPA|/θ/}}, respectively). In the common dialect (κοινη) that succeeded the older dialects, ζ became {{IPA|/z/}}, as it remains in modern Greek.
In [[Old Italic alphabet|Etruscan]], ''Z'' may have symbolized {{IPA|/ts/}}; in Latin, {{IPA|/dz/}}. In early Latin, the sound of {{IPA|/z/}} developed into {{IPA|/r/}} and the symbol became useless. It was therefore removed from the alphabet around 300 BC by the Censor, [[Appius Claudius Caecus]], and a new letter, ''[[G]]'' was put in its place soon thereafter.
In the 1st century BC, it was, like ''[[Y]]'', introduced again at the end of the Latin alphabet, in order to represent more precisely the value of the Greek ''zeta'' — previously transliterated as ''S'' at the beginning and ''ss'' in the middle of words, eg. ''sona'' = ζωνη, "belt"; ''trapessita'' = τραπεζιτης, "banker". The letter appeared only in Greek words, and ''Z'' is the only letter besides ''Y'' that the Romans took directly from the Greek, rather than Etruscan.
In [[Vulgar Latin]], Greek ''Zeta'' seems to have represented (IPA {{IPA|/dj/}}), and later (IPA {{IPA|/dz/}}); d was for {{IPA|/z/}} in words like ''baptidiare'' for ''baptizare'' "baptize", while conversely ''Z'' appears for {{IPA|/d/}} in forms like ''zaconus'', ''zabulus'', for ''diaconus'' "deacon", ''diabulus'', "devil". ''Z'' also is often written for the consonantal ''I'' (that is, ''J'', IPA {{IPA|/j/}}) as in ''zunior'' for ''junior'' "younger".
Until recent times, the [[English alphabet]]s used by children terminated not with ''Z'' but with ''[[Ampersand|&]]'' or related typographic symbols. [[George Eliot]] refers to ''Z'' being followed by ''&'' when she makes Jacob Storey say, "He thought it <nowiki>[Z]</nowiki> had only been put to finish off th' alphabet like; though ampusand would ha' done as well, for what he could see."
=== Blackletter Z ===
A glyph variant of Z originating in the medieval [[Gothic minuscule]]s and the Early Modern [[Blackletter]] typefaces is the "tailed z" (German ''geschwänztes Z'', also ''Z mit Unterschlinge'') In some [[Antiqua]] typefaces, this letter is present as a standalone letter or in ligatures. Together with [[long s]], it is also the origin of the [[ß]] ligature in German orthography.
A graphical variant of tailed Z is ''[[Ʒ|Ezh]]'', as adopted into the [[help:IPA|International Phonetic Alphabet]] as the sign for the [[voiced postalveolar fricative]].
Unicode assigns codepoints for "BLACK-LETTER CAPITAL Z" and "FRAKTUR SMALL Z" in the [[Letterlike Symbols]] and [[Mathematical alphanumeric symbols]] ranges, at U+2128 {{script|Latf|ℨ}} and U+1D537 {{script|Latf|𝖟}}, respectively.
<gallery>
Image:Z-small-VA-64x88.svg|lowercase ''z'' as taught in some German primary schools
Image:Z-small-Variante.svg|Variant of ''z'' in an Antiqua typeface
</gallery>
==Usage==
In Italian, ''Z'' represents two phonemes, namely {{IPA|/ts/}} and {{IPA|/dz/}}; in German, it stands for {{IPA|/ts/}}; in Castilian [[Spanish language|Spanish]] it represents {{IPA|/θ/}} (as English ''th'' in ''thing''), though in other dialects ([[Latin America]]n, [[Andalusia]]n) this sound has merged with {{IPA|/s/}}.
In [[Standard Mandarin|Chinese]] (Mandarin) [[pinyin]] "z" is pronounced [ts] (unaspirated pinyin "c") ("halfway" between be'''ds''' and be'''ts'''). In romanised [[Japanese language|Japanese]] Z stands for both [z] and [dz].
The [[help:IPA|International Phonetic Alphabet]] uses {{IPA|[z]}} for the [[voiced alveolar fricative|voiced alveolar sibilant]]. Early English had used (and to an extent, still does use) ''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 {{IPA|[dʒ]}} which in later French is changed to {{IPA|[ʒ]}}. 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 used in English to represent ({{IPAEng|ʒ}}) in words like ''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''. The IPA character chosen for this sound in the nineteenth century is confused with another, much earlier obsolete character; for which, see [[Yogh]].
Few words in the [[Basic English]] vocabulary begin with Z, though it occurs in words beginning with other letters. It is also the most rarely used letter in the [[English language]].<ref>[http://pages.central.edu/emp/LintonT/classes/spring01/cryptography/letterfreq.html English letter frequencies<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
For the use of "z" in such Scottish names as ''Culzean, Menzies'' or ''Dalziel'', see: [[yogh]].
''Z'' was abolished in [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]] in 1974.
==Codes for computing==
{{Letter
|NATO=Zulu
|Morse=––··
|Character=Z
|Braille=⠵
}}
In [[Unicode]], the [[majuscule|capital]] "Z" is codepoint U+005A and the [[lower case]] "z" is U+007A.
The [[ASCII]] code for capital "Z" is 90 and for lowercase "z" is 122;
<ref name=difcase>
The code values for uppercase and lowercase ''Z''
differ by the value of a blank space, which in
[[ASCII]] has a blank='20'x=32 added, and in [[EBCDIC]],
has a blank='40'x=64 subtracted to get the value of
the lowercase letter.
</ref>
or in [[Binary numeral system|binary]], 01011010 and 01111010,<ref name=difcase/> correspondingly.
The [[EBCDIC]] code for capital "Z" is 233 and for lowercase "z" is 169 (64 less).<ref name=difcase/>
The [[numeric character reference]]s in [[HTML]] and [[XML]] are "<tt>&#90;</tt>" and "<tt>&#122;</tt>" for upper and lower case respectively.
==See also==
{{Commons|Z}}
*[[Zed]]
*[[Zee]]
*[[Ž]]
*[[Ź]]
*[[Ż]]
*[[Ezh]]
*[[Ƶ]]
*[[Zzz]]
*[[Ze (Cyrillic)|З, з - Ze (Cyrillic)]]
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{Latin alphabet}}
[[Category:Latin letters]]
[[af:Z]]
[[als:Z]]
[[ar:Z]]
[[arc:Z]]
[[ast:Z]]
[[az:Z]]
[[bs:Z]]
[[br:Z (lizherenn)]]
[[ca:Z]]
[[cs:Z]]
[[co:Z]]
[[cy:Z]]
[[da:Z]]
[[de:Z]]
[[et:Z]]
[[el:Z]]
[[es:Z]]
[[eo:Z]]
[[eu:Z]]
[[fa:Z]]
[[fr:Z (lettre)]]
[[fur:Z]]
[[gan:Z]]
[[gd:Z]]
[[gl:Z]]
[[ko:Z]]
[[hr:Z]]
[[ilo:Z]]
[[is:Z]]
[[it:Z]]
[[he:Z]]
[[ka:Z]]
[[kw:Z]]
[[sw:Z]]
[[ht:Z]]
[[la:Z]]
[[lv:Z]]
[[lt:Z]]
[[hu:Z]]
[[mzn:Z]]
[[nah:Z]]
[[nl:Z (letter)]]
[[ja:Z]]
[[no:Z]]
[[nn:Z]]
[[nrm:Z]]
[[uz:Z (harf)]]
[[pl:Z]]
[[pt:Z]]
[[ro:Z]]
[[qu:Z]]
[[ru:Z (латиница)]]
[[se:Z]]
[[scn:Z]]
[[simple:Z]]
[[sk:Z]]
[[sl:Z]]
[[fi:Z]]
[[sv:Z]]
[[tl:Z]]
[[th:Z]]
[[vi:Z]]
[[tr:Z (harf)]]
[[uk:Z (латиниця)]]
[[vo:Z]]
[[yo:Z]]
[[zh-yue:Z]]
[[bat-smg:Z]]
[[zh:Z]]