Unlike the otherGreek letters, this letter did not take its name from thePhoenician letter from which it was derived; it was given a new name on the pattern ofbeta,eta andtheta.
The wordzeta is the ancestor ofzed, the name of the Latin letterZ in Commonwealth English.Swedish and manyRomance languages (such asItalian andSpanish) do not distinguish between the Greek and Roman forms of the letter; "zeta" is used to refer to the Roman letterZ as well as the Greek letter.
Most handbooks[who?] agree on attributing to it the pronunciation/zd/ (likeMazda), but some scholars believe that it was an affricate/dz/ (like adze). The modern pronunciation was, in all likelihood, established in the Hellenistic age and may have already been a common practice in ClassicalAttic; for example, it could count as one or two consonants metrically in Attic drama.[where?]
PIE *zd becomes ζ in Greek (e.g. *sísdō >ἵζω).Contra: these words are rare and it is therefore more probable that *zd was absorbed by *dz (< *dj, *gj, *j); further, a change from the cluster /zd/ to the affricate /dz/ is typologically more likely[citation needed] than the other way around (which would violate thesonority hierarchy).
Without[sd] there would be an empty space between[sb] and[sɡ] in the Greek sound system (πρέσβυς, σβέννυμι, φάσγανον), and a voiced affricate[dz] would not have a voiceless correspondent.Contra: a) words with[sb] and[sɡ] are rare, and exceptions in phonological and (even more so) phonotactic patterns are in no way uncommon; b) there was[sd] inὅσδε, εἰσδέχται etc.; and c) there was in fact a voiceless correspondent in Archaic Greek ([ts] > Attic,Boeotianττ,Ionic,Doricσσ).
Persian names withzd andz are transcribed with ζ and σ respectively in Classical Greek (e.g.Artavazda =Ἀρτάβαζος/Ἀρτάοζος ~Zara(n)ka- =Σαράγγαι. Similarly, thePhilistine cityAshdod was transcribed asἌζωτος.
Some inscriptions have -ζ- written for a combination -ς + δ- resulting from separate words, e.g. θεοζοτος for θεος δοτος "god-given".
SomeAttic inscriptions have -σζ- for -σδ- or -ζ-, which is thought to parallel -σστ- for -στ- and therefore to imply a[zd] pronunciation.
ν disappears before ζ like before σ(σ), στ: e.g. *πλάνζω >πλᾰ́ζω, *σύνζυγος >σύζυγος, *συνστέλλω >σῠστέλλω.Contra: ν may have disappeared before /dz/ if one accepts that it had the allophone[z] in that position like /ts/ had the allophone[s]: cf.Cretanἴαττα ~ἀποδίδονσα (Hinge).
Verbs beginning with ζ haveἐ- in the perfect reduplication like the verbs beginning with στ (e.g.ἔζηκα =ἔσταλται).Contra: a) The most prominent example of a verb beginning with στ has in factἑ- < *se- in the perfect reduplication (ἕστηκα); b) the words with /ts/ > σ(σ) also haveἐ-:Homerἔσσυμαι, -ται, Ion.ἐσσημένῳ.
Alcman,Sappho,Alcaeus andTheocritus have σδ forAttic-Ionic ζ.Contra: The tradition would not have invented this special digraph for these poets if[zd] was the normal pronunciation in all Greek. Furthermore, this convention is not found in contemporary inscriptions, and the orthography of the manuscripts and papyri isAlexandrine rather than historical. Thus,σδ indicates only a different pronunciation from Hellenistic Greek[z(ː)], i.e. either[zd] or[dz].
The grammariansDionysius Thrax[2] andDionysius of Halicarnassus class ζ with the "double" (διπλᾶ) letters ψ, ξ and analyse it as σ + δ.Contra: The Roman grammarianVerrius Flaccus believed in the opposite sequence, δ + σ (inVelius Longus,De orthogr. 51), andAristotle says that it was a matter of dispute (Metaph. 993a) (though Aristotle might as well be referring to a[zː] pronunciation). It is even possible that the letter sometimes and for some speakers varied in pronunciation depending upon word position, i.e., like the letter X in English, which is (usually) pronounced [z] initially but [gz] or [ks] elsewhere (cf.Xerxes).
Some Attic transcriptions of Asia Minor toponyms (βυζζαντειον, αζζειον, etc.) show a -ζζ- for ζ; assuming thatAttic value was[zd], it may be an attempt to transcribe a dialectal[dz] pronunciation; the reverse cannot be ruled completely, but a -σδ- transcription would have been more likely in this case. This suggests that different dialects had different pronunciations. (For a similar example in theSlavic languages, cf. Serbo-Croatian(iz)među, Russian между, Polishmiędzy, and Czechmezi, "between".)
The Greek inscriptions almost never write ζ in words likeὅσδε, τούσδε orεἰσδέχται, so there must have been a difference between this sound and the sound ofἵζω, Ἀθήναζε.Contra: a few inscriptions do seem to suggest that ζ was pronounced like σδ; furthermore, all words with written σδ are morphologically transparent, and written σδ may simply be echoing the morphology. (Note, for example, that we write "ads" where the morphology is transparent, and "adze" where it is not, even though the pronunciation is the same.)
It seems improbable that Greek would invent a special symbol for the bisegmental combination[zd], which could be represented by σδ without any problems./ds/, on the other hand, would have the same sequence of plosive and sibilant as the double letters of the Ionic alphabet ψ/ps/ and ξ/ks/, thereby avoiding a written plosive at the end of a syllable.Contra: the use of a special symbol for[zd] is no more or no less improbable than the use of ψ for[ps] and ξ for[ks], or, for that matter, the later invention ϛ (stigma) for[st], which happens to be the voiceless counterpart of[zd]. Furthermore, it is not clear that ζ was pronounced[zd] when it was originally invented.Mycenean Greek had a special symbol to denote some sort of affricate or palatal consonant; ζ may have been invented for this sound, which later developed into[zd]. (For a parallel development, note that original palatalProto-Slavic/tʲ/ developed into/ʃt/ inOld Church Slavonic, with similar developments having led to combinations such as зд and жд being quite common inRussian.)
Boeotian,Elean,Laconian andCretanδδ are more easily explained as a direct development from *dz than through an intermediary *zd.Contra: a) the sound developmentdz >dd is improbable (Mendez Dosuna); b) ν has disappeared before ζ > δδ in Laconianπλαδδιῆν (Aristoph.,Lys. 171, 990) and Boeotianσαλπίδδω (Sch. Lond. in Dion. Thrax 493), which suggests that these dialects have had a phase ofmetathesis (Teodorsson).
Greek in South Italy has preserved[dz] until modern times.Contra: a) this may be a later development from[zd] or[z] under the influence of Italian; b) even if it is derived from an ancient[dz], it may be a dialectal pronunciation.
Vulgar Latin inscriptions use the Greek letter Z for indigenous affricates (e.g.zeta =diaeta), and the Greek ζ is continued by a Romance affricate in the ending-ίζω > Italian.-eggiare, French-oyer. Italian, similarly, has consistently used Z for[dz] and[ts] (Lat.prandium > It.pranzo, "lunch").Contra: whether the pronunciation ofζ was[dz],[zd] or[zː],di would probably still have been the closest native Latin sound; furthermore, the inscriptions are centuries later than the time for which[zd] is assumed.
σδ is attested only in thelyric poetry of the Greek isle ofLesbos and thecity-state ofSparta during theArchaic Age and inBucolic poetry from theHellenistic Age. Most scholars would take this as an indication that the[zd]-pronunciation existed in the dialects of these authors.
The transcriptions fromPersian byXenophon and testimony by grammarians support the pronunciation[zd] inClassicalAttic.
[z(ː)] is attested from c. 350 BC inAttic inscriptions, and was the probable value inKoine.
[dʒ] or[dz] may have existed in some other dialects in parallel.
Zeta has the numerical value 7 rather than 6 because the letterdigamma (ϝ, also called 'stigma' as aGreek numeral) was originally in the sixth position in the alphabet.
A number whose discrete values (eigenvalues) are the positive roots of transcendental equations, used in the series solutions for transient one-dimensional conduction equations
The heat flux across or through a plane (industrial materials technology)
In physical chemistry equilibrium computations (using lower case Zeta (ζ)), the extent of reaction
U+1D795𝞕MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF BOLD ITALIC CAPITAL ZETA
U+1D7AF𝞯MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF BOLD ITALIC SMALL ZETA
^TheMATHEMATICAL symbols are only used in math. Stylized Greek text should be encoded using the normal Greek letters, with markup and formatting to indicate text style.
Of the consonants, three are double:ζ ξ ψ. They are called double because each one of them is composed of two consonants,ζ of σ and δ; ξ of κ and σ, ψ of π and σ.
^Wilkie, Jacqueline; Johnson, Michael; Katebi, Reza (2002).Control engineering: an introductory course. Basingstoke: Palgrave. p. 179.ISBN978-0-333-77129-7.We shall refer to ζ as the damping ratio throughout this text.
^Gallardo-Alvarado, Jaime; Gallardo-Razo, José (2022).Mechanisms: kinematic analysis and applications in robotics. Emerging methodologies and applications in modelling, identification and control. London: Academic Press, an imprint of Elsevier. p. 328.ISBN978-0-323-95348-1.
^Hunter, Robert J. (1988).Zeta potential in colloid science: principles and applications. Colloid science (New paperback ed.). London San Diego: Academic Press. p. 6.ISBN978-0-12-361961-7.It is also possible to correlate the ζ-potential with the sedimentation behaviour of colloidal systems and with the flotation behaviour of mineral ores.
^Padfield, Gareth D. (2007).Helicopter flight dynamics: the theory and application of flying qualities and simulation modeling. AIAA education series (2nd ed.). Reston, Va: American Inst. of Aeronautics and Astronautics. pp. xxxi.ISBN978-1-56347-920-5.
Hinge, George. “Die Aussprache des griechischen Zeta”, inDie Sprache Alkmans: Textgeschichte und Sprachgeschichte. PhD dissertation. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2001, pp. 212–234 =[1]
Méndez Dosuna, Julián. “On <Ζ> for <Δ> in Greek dialectal inscriptions”,Die Sprache 35 (1993): 82–114.
Rohlfs, Gerhard. 1962. “Die Aussprache des z (ζ) im Altgriechischen”,Das Altertum 8 (1962): 3–8.
Teodorsson, Sven-Tage. “On the pronunciation of ancient greek zeta”,Lingua 47, no. 4 (April 1979): 323–32.
Teodorsson, Sven-Tage. “The pronunciation of zeta in different Greek dialects”, inDialectologia Graeca: Actas del II Coloquio internacional de dialectología griega, eds. E. Crespo et al. Madrid: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 1993, pp. 305–321.
