![]() ![]() Z also is often written for the consonantal I (that is, J) as in zunior for junior "younger". In Vulgar Latin the Greek Z seems to have been pronounced as dy and later y 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". In Etruscan, Z probably symbolized /ts/, in Latin, (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 the common dialect (κοινη) which succeeded the older dialects, ζ became a voiced s, as it remains in modern Greek. In other dialects, as Elean and Cretan, the symbol was apparently used for sounds resembling the English voiced and unvoiced th (ð, þ). 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. It is probable that in Greek there was a considerable variety of pronunciation from dialect to dialect. The pronunciation of the Semitic letter was the voiced S, like the ordinary use of Z in English, as in zodiac, raze. Whether, as seems most likely, Zeta was the name of one of the other Semitic sibilants, Zade ( Tzaddi) 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 name of the Semitic symbol was Zayin, but this name, for some unknown reason, was not adopted by the Greeks, who called it Zeta. In Modern Greek, it is pronounced as /z/, as in English and French. In Semitic (Zajin) and Ancient Greek the letter was probably pronounced as /dz/ (as in Italian zeta, zero). The Greek form of Z was a close copy of the Phoenician symbol I, and the Greek inscriptional form remained in this shape throughout. George Eliot refers to the Zs being followed by & when she makes Jacob Storey say, "He thought it had only been put to finish off th' alphabet like though ampusand would ha' done as well, for what he could see." Until recent times the English alphabets used by children terminated not with Z but with & or related typographic symbols. 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 spelt with S at the beginning and ss in the middle of words: sona = ζωνη, "belt" trapessita = τραπεζιτης, "banker". It was therefore removed from the alphabet and G was put in its place. In early Latin the sound represented by Z passed into R, and consequently the symbol became useless. 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. The American English form zee derives from an English late 17th-century dialectal form, now obsolete in England. In Canadian English (as in British English) the letter is pronounced zed and it is a point of national pride and was even featured in Molson's I Am Canadian campaign. the French zède, Spanish and Italian zeta. Other European languages use a similar form, e.g. ![]() In almost all forms of Commonwealth English, the letter is named zed, reflecting its derivation from the Greek zeta (see below). Template:AZ Z is the twenty-sixth and last letter of the English alphabet. ![]()
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