Z

Z is the twenty-sixth and last letter of the Latin 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 (the letter rhymes 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.

History

Proto-Semitic Z	Phoenician Z	Etruscan Z	Greek Z
			File:GreekZ-01.png

The name of the Semitic symbol was zayin, possibly meaning "weapon", and was the seventh letter. It was either pronounced /z/ as in English and French, or possibly more like /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 ancient times. The Greeks called it Zeta, a new name made in imitation of Eta (η) and Theta (θ).

In earlier Greek of Athens and Northwest Greece, the pronunciation seems to have been /dz/; in Attic, from the 4th century BC onwards, it seems to have been as English /z/. In other dialects, as Elean and Cretan, the symbol seems to have been used for sounds resembling the English voiced and unvoiced th (IPA /θ/ and /ð/, respectively). In the common dialect (κοινη) that succeeded the older dialects, ζ became /z/), as it remains in modern Greek.

In Etruscan, Z may have symbolized /ts/; in Latin, /dz/. In early Latin, the sound of /z/ developed into /r/, and 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 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 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".

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

Until recent times, the English alphabets used by children terminated not with Z but with & or related typographic symbols. George Eliot refers to Z 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."

Usage

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.

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 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. The IPA character chosen for this sound in the nineteenth century is confused with another, much earlier obsolete character; for which, 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.

Codes for computing

class="template-letter-box | 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

Z (Zed) is a formal specification notation, useful for describing computer based systems, is based on Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory and first order predicate logic.

Meanings for Z

• In mathematics,
  • Blackboard bold $\mathbb {Z}$ 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 denotes the UTC time zone.
• 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 the automotive business, the Z is a sports car manufactured by Nissan.
• In physics:
  • In particle physics, Z is the symbol for the Z boson.
  • In electrical engineering, Z is the variable for impedance.
  • The Z machine is the world's largest X-ray generator, designed to test materials in conditions of extreme temperature and pressure.
• 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.
  • Z is 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 link

• "Zee" versus "Zed" in the southern Ontario Public School System
• The Zed formal specification notation