This article is ratedB-class on Wikipedia'scontent assessment scale. It is of interest to the followingWikiProjects:

Writing systemsLow‑importance This article falls within the scope ofWikiProject Writing systems, aWikiProject interested in improving the encyclopaedic coverage and content of articles relating towriting systems on Wikipedia. If you would like to help out, you are welcome to drop bythe project page and/or leave a query atthe project’s talk page.Writing systemsWikipedia:WikiProject Writing systemsTemplate:WikiProject Writing systemsWriting system Low This article has been rated asLow-importance on theproject's importance scale.

Reading the intro paragraph, the bit about Canadian English seems very out of place (considering there is already a Commonwealth English mention before this)  At the very least, the bit about the Molson ad campagin should probably be removed.  This has been in the article for a few months now (originated by 69.193.143.69 on 14 March 2005) so I am reluctant to just pull it out.Al biglan 8 July 2005 07:40 (UTC)

Does anyone have the last volume of the 1911 EB handy? Those Greek words don't match their transliterations, and I don't know whether the Greek or the Latin alphabet versions are more reliable.Vicki Rosenzweig

The Greek for banker is "trapezistés"; the Greek written in the article is "tarpeztés"; the Latin written in the article is "tarpessita"; and the Latin in my Latin dictionary is "trapezîta". I have no idea where the tar comes from. -phma

I have the hard copy EB1911 before me. The Greek for "belt" is rendered as in our article.   The other word appears to be wrong in the Wikipedia version.  Pardon my ASCII, but the EB spells it tau-rho-alpha-pi-epsilon-zeta-iota-tau-eta-sigma.  

Both articles were inconsistent in treatment of individual letters in text.  I have attempted a consistent markup.  On the theory that words as themselves are italicized, I italicized all the letters as themselves as well.  Since the lowercase letters looked too small and the uppercase ones looked fine, I then went back and changed all of them to uppercase.  So, the result is like this: "The letterZ is pronounced likeG orI, ifI is reallyJ"Ortolan88 01:58 Nov 27, 2002 (UTC)

Is it just me or is the bottom of the rightmost z missing in the image?Rmhermen00:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's how it's supposed to be; you can tell because the top of the rightmost z is as thin as the bottom.Christophernandez21:45, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The American Heritage Dictionary says in Semitic Roots that Zeta is an alteration influenced by eta of something like "zen".Georgia guy22:12, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Zeta (Greek) is the 6th letter of the (Greek)2601:680:8300:3870:D810:567:A288:3C99 (talk)18:37, 8 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I frequently hear people pronounce Z as "zey" (rhymes with hay or say) in Manila, Philippines. I haven't heard it pronounced this way in any other Philippine City (the usual pronounciation in the Phil is the American one). Is this pronunciation used in other places as well?--Nino Gonzales02:45, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Weirdly this article, and even the correspondingz article on Wiktionary before I edited that, has zero mentions of Filipinos calling this letter ‹zey›. That's so odd.

(Especially considering I have fond memories of readingWindowsproduct keys and making my dad confused between this letter andthe third letter of the alphabet.)

A cursory web search (

• wp
• g
• b

) reveals only threads on Reddit and WordPress blog from Pinoys discussing this exact phenomenon — certainly none of that, on their own, is RS material.

Philippine English § Consonants does mention it though, while also passingly adding thatJamaican English also calls the last letter "zey". (That article itself doesn't mention how it calls Zz either.)

I suppose this is time for me to be bold and start typing. ✍️ —UndueMarmot (talk)14:15, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@UndueMarmot This is 2006 post, welp. As a Filipino, I can attest to this pronunciation but I only heard this in older generations, city or province. But zi is more common as that is the standard US English pronunciation and Philippines usually follows US English with letter pronunciations. For my experience, I have never heard it being thought as "zey" in schools and people can detect /z/ with /s/ with z and c.

The reddit thread seems to agree with my experience that zey people are also the etch people.

For the zed one, only rich people, from the alphabet, w,x, y and zed

anyway editing this tooYsrael214 (talk)17:22, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WHY do they draw Z's when someone is snoring? Where did this originate? 

that is a really good question. i'd love to know --Dylan210615:53, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's some old comic symbolism, stemming from American comics and cartoons. Someone probably thought that the buzzing sound sounded similar to a snore.惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ *11:16, 17 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, now when I think about it, an English zzzzz actually sounds somewhat like an exhaling puff after an inhaling snore...惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ *11:24, 17 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Errr, how does anEnglish Z sound anything like "an exhaling puff after an inhaling snore..."  Zed-zed-zed-zed-zed --124.149.55.164 (talk)04:52, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Or is it because Z is the last letter in the alphabeth. The last letter in the greek alphabeth "Omega" is a symbol of "The End", also used in biblical terms Alpha and Omega - the beginning and the end. Then perhaps the english Z means "the End" of being awaken, like you have no more words...."Zzzzz"....(just an idea I've got)80.212.17.157 (talk)00:04, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have some trouble with this section: 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. Such a view illustrates the difference  in usage of the letter between British English and American English which uses the letter "z" much more often,  whereas the British would commonly use the letter "s" instead in some common words  (e.g. "globalization" vs. "globalisation"), apart from those following Oxford spelling.The connection seems far-fetched, there's a straight line drawn between Shakespeare and two language variants/dialects that didn't really exist at the time the play was written. (Modern British English isn't the same language as Shakespeare's English.)惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ *11:28, 17 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This article seems to make no mention of the fact that some people 'cross' their Z's (in much the same way some people cross their 7's). Are there any sources to use to add a reference?69.177.214.184 (talk)13:04, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are you referring to this:(article here)? Even thatunreferenced article doesn't provide aname for that character so that we can search for information about it.--Mumia-w-18 (talk)19:03, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not as a seperate chatacter, but that does work. I'd mention the letter and use that glyph in the article but I cannot seem to find any sources :(69.177.214.184 (talk)16:29, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I had the same question about this article.  I always cross my Z's to distinguish them from 2's, in much the way that some put a slash through their zeroes to distinguish them from the letter O.  The article on zero discusses this sort of convention.  Maybe this article should mention something similar.  —Precedingunsigned comment added by69.6.140.238 (talk)22:00, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's U-01B5, in Wikipedia we type: "&#x1b5;", and we get Ƶ. Definitely needs to be mentioned; studying mathematics I use it exclusively. I doubt it even needs  a reference to be mentioned; any person can realise that a hand written z will look like a 2.  —Precedingunsigned comment added byDarnedfrenchman (talk •contribs)19:30, 21 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In opening sentence is written:Z is the 26th letter of the modern Latin alphabet.So this would mean that all other Latin alphabets (that are not English) are not modern?I think it should be written that Z is 26th letter ofEnglish alphabet.--Irić Igor -- Ирић Игор  -- K♥S (talk)16:20, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article shows how the letter is pronounced in different languages...well how the name is spelt to be exact.  I don't know how zède or zäta is supposed to be said. Shouldn't they be rendered in IPA?  —Precedingunsigned comment added by71.34.105.194 (talk)01:43, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think there could be more on the tailed z. In primary school I was taught to write it likeƷ, I believe from reading wikipedia that this isD'Nealian script. I have asked around regarding this and seen it used a lot; it appears to be very common in Australia at least.114.76.62.185 (talk)05:47, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have lived in Australia all my life and never Z written that way2405:6E00:625:574E:54F3:D4D7:26AC:35E8 (talk)00:41, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I speak French and come from Quebec, Canada and we say zed. Why would someone say "and zed"? We only say it when saying the whole alphabet in order which is normal since et(and) is an addition and zed is the last letter in the alphabet(obviously). I think someone should take a look at this. If it is not meant to mean this, it should be rewritten in order to make it sound better.  —Precedingunsigned comment added byforbore (talk)01:47, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No mention of the difference between English and British English  —Precedingunsigned comment added by81.110.247.31 (talk)07:42, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry—what? "Between English and British English"? Where do you think it comes from?Jonchapple (talk)—Precedingundated comment added11:06, 6 April 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Perhaps it meant "between English English and British English"? ;) —Tamfang (talk)19:42, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The IP seems to be from South England, so it's quite confusing.F. F. Fjodor (talk)20:07, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the Usage section of this page seems very confusing and disorganized. In particular, the section about English was very hard to understand, and it never actually says that the letter usually represents IPA /z/ in English. I think the whole usage section could use a little cleanup.162.83.174.71 (talk)00:52, 7 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How is the "z" distiguished from "c" in the american spelling? --85.180.194.11 (talk)22:27, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The same way that "zap" is distinguished from "cap".66.87.4.18 (talk)03:25, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The names of the letters are pronounced /zi:/ and /si:/. —Tamfang (talk)03:49, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Which can be heard so similarly on the phone. Sometimes if you're on the phone you're going to have to use special names such as those atNATO phonetic alphabet.Georgia guy (talk)18:32, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In the paragraph on Polish in the section 'Use in Other Languages' I added the use of z with diacritical marks not in a digraph. I 'cut-and-pasted' from the Polish language article, which is referenced in this section. But I couldn't figure out how to make the phonetic symbols appear, and the ones currently in the section here appear on my screen as little empty boxes. I don't know if that's because I don't have my computer set up to handle them, or if you all see them that way. If it's not me, can someone fix it? --Richardson mcphillips (talk)16:55, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The symbols look fine on my browser.FallingGravity (talk)19:17, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"the edit you made to Z, did not appear to beconstructive'' and has been reverted or removed"

adjective

1.constructing or tending to construct; helping to improve; promoting further development or advancement (opposed to destructive ):constructive criticism.

Encyclopedia noun1.a book, set of books, optical disc, mobile device, or online informational resource containing articles on various topics, usually in alphabetical arrangement, covering all branches of knowledge or, less commonly, all aspects of one subject.

Adding correct and verifiable information is at its core Constructive in that is helps to complete the over all descriptors of that being defined, please, share with me what your obections to my addition actually are.

Z Police----— Precedingunsigned comment added byZ Police (talk •contribs)20:54, 8 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The material is non-encyclopedic fan trivia, sourced only to a pair of parts catalogs. This fails multiple Wikipedia content guidelines, includingWP:RS andWP:NOR. ---Barek(talk •contribs) -21:51, 8 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

§Variant and derived forms says, with no references, thatƷ in some sans serif fonts is a form ofz, and has a graphic from Deja Vu Sans. I find this assertion extremely dubious and am deleting it. See discussion atWikipedia talk:WikiProject Writing systems § Antiqua "Z" identical with "3"??. --Thnidu (talk)19:00, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I remember reading that the Greek fascist military dictatorship in the late 60s and early 70s banned the letter Z due to its use as a resistance symbol. Why isn't this mentioned here?99.195.72.186 (talk)03:14, 1 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If anything, they banned the Greek letterZeta, not the Latin letterZ. They banned it as graffiti, anyway, obviously they couldn't and didn't ban it from any writing since it's a widely used letter in Greek.LjL (talk)14:22, 1 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Screen shots needed to display game play from 1to 5 screen shots.Mikedeepskip (talk)07:48, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The article says:

The letter z was part of the earliest form of the Latin alphabet, adopted from Etruscan. Because the sound /z/ in Latin changed to /r/ by rhotacism in the fifth century BC, z was dropped and its place given to the new letter g.

This statement needs to be fixed. It implies that zeta had the non-affricate z sound in early Latin, not the ts or dz affricate. Anyone able to improve it??Georgia guy (talk)20:38, 2 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I can't edit because of protection. Please change these two sentences:

"It stands for /t͡s/ in Chinese pinyin, Finnish (occurs in loanwords only), and German, and it likewise expressed /ts/ in Old Norse. In Italian, it represents two phonemes, /t͡s/ and /d͡z/."

Certainly, German is the most relevant of these and should be mentioned first. Another language that behaves like Italian isMaltese. Thus please make it:

"It stands for /t͡s/ in German, Chinese pinyin, Finnish (occurs in loanwords only), and historically in Old Norse. In Italian and Maltese, it represents two phonemes, /t͡s/ and /d͡z/."

I think the current order is alphabetical, but we don't need to be so slavish as to stick to alphabetic order when there are just four languages mentioned, do we? Certainly, the default way of ordering things in all contexts of life is by relevance. And we only deviate from this when the number of items is so big as to cause confusion.2.203.201.61 (talk)01:00, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Why is German more relevant than Chinese and Finnish? —Granger (talk·contribs)05:26, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Long time ago, I learned to write z, as as a 'z with a bar'. I use this style now for over 15 years, mostly during mathematics, to not confuse with 2. i.e. 2z, would be 2ƶ, which 2/z, would be 2/ƶ, and 2 + z would be 2 + ƶ. There is a Wikipedia article on that,Z with stroke mentioning it is commonly used by mathematicians, scientists and engineers, for the same reason. But once a person learns it, they use it everywhere. So, I think it is worth mentioning in this article maybe somehow?2A02:168:2000:5B:1903:1E00:B3BB:B0DD (talk)16:25, 15 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It is mentioned atZ#Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet.(CC)Tbhotch^™21:46, 15 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thisedit request has been answered. Set the|answered= parameter tono to reactivate your request.

Please remove

United Kingdom, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Zambia, and Australia

and add

Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and Zambia

It would look better if the countries were in alphabetical order. It's not ordered by the prominence of the country, since Australia tends to be much more prominent than Zambia, and it's not geographical, since India isn't located between the UK and Ireland.64.203.186.69 (talk)20:08, 11 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 Done —xaosflux^Talk20:42, 12 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thisedit request has been answered. Set the|answered= parameter tono to reactivate your request.

Please add underhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z#Other_uses (mathematics):

• Z = {...,−2,−1,0,1,2,...} :the set of all integers
• Z+ = {z∈Z | z>0} :the set of all positive integers

— Precedingunsigned comment added by81.191.116.205 (talk •contribs)

Its use to denote the set of integers is written in that section already. If you mean we should be using mathematical set notation, that would be inappropriate for an article about a letter of the English language. If you just mean we should addℤ⁺ as well, I don't think that's a particularly meaningful addition, the "ℤ" here means the same thing in either contexts, it's fine as is.Volteer1 (talk)12:26, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thisedit request has been answered. Set the|answered= parameter tono to reactivate your request.

Request to remove the sentence, "American English does use "zed" for certain special purposes, such as on the radio, or as a nickname for a person whose name starts with Z.", as it is incorrect and inaccurate. There is no source for it, as well as I used to manage radio ad accounts and all the US stations with Z in them are pronounced "zee", and no one calls anyone "Zed" in the US. If their name started with Z then they MAY be called "Z" (pronounced "zee") but even that is no more common than calling anyone by just the first letter of their first name, which again, can happen, but it's rare. Please have contributor for this cite any sources or remove. Thank youStraex (talk)00:15, 6 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 Done. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk)08:10, 6 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In the pronunciation chart,Scots pipes to the page onScottish Gaelic. Unless I’m misunderstanding, these are very different languages. I would fix this myself, but I’m not sure which language is actually correctly being referred to in the chart. Can someone with more experience clarify?HappyWithWhatYouHaveToBeHappyWith (talk)01:51, 13 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So, I usedWikiBlame to find out and inthis editUser:Starbeam2 changed it to point to Scottish Gaelic. I'm not sure if that decision was correct so I'll ask them about it on their talk page. I will say, the page onScottish Gaelic orthography doesn't mention Z as a letter, andModern Scots mentions Z as a substitute for the olderYogh which could represent /j/.Erinius (talk)09:18, 13 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just changed the link to point to Modern Scots.Erinius (talk)09:25, 13 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Starbeam2 clarified that the link should point to Scots rather than Scots Gaelic, they set it to Scottish Gaelic by mistake.Erinius (talk)17:22, 13 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! --HappyWithWhatYouHaveToBeHappyWith (talk)19:51, 13 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The article says:

The letter Z was borrowed from the Greek Zeta, most likely to represent the sound /ts/. At c. 300 BC, Appius Claudius Caecus, the Roman censor, removed the letter Z from the alphabet.

This is totally unclear! Did Caesus replaced "z" by "ts" in all words, like English "zapper" to "tsapper"?

Or maybe all Zs already disappeared from Latin just before Caesus, so he literally removed it from all words, like English "zapper" to "apper"?

We need a few examples of same words before and after Appius Claudius Caecus.Ufim (talk)14:47, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My spoof alarm went off but it seems to have support. Seehttps://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/miscellanea/zed.html

So for your forfeit, you get to be the one who fixes the problem!𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk)18:22, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The letter Z is almost unattested in archaic Latin inscriptions. Its presumed existence in the Old Latin alphabet is inferred from later authors' works. It occurs inCarmen Saliare as quoted by Varro, but in a mysterious wordcozeulodorieso interpreted variously by different scholars (osculo dolori ero?cucūlō oriēre?). And there is a ceramic plate of the 3rd century BC showing Z at the seventh place in the Latin alphabet:[1].Burzuchius (talk)21:52, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Then the"most likely to represent the sound /ts/" statement is groundless too.Ufim (talk)14:27, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As of now, it seems that the only evidence even suggesting the existence of an Old Latin equivalent of <Z> consists of a remark by Martianus Capella about censor Appius Claudius Caecus "removing" the letter from the alphabet (allegedly because of its resemblance to a dead man's teeth), and a controversial spelling originating in later copies of Marcus Terentius Varro'sDe lingua latina, mentioning fragments of theCarmen saliare.
Is this really enough to have the article include the letter in the Old Latin alphabet? The known corpus of Old Latin inscriptions seems to have no trace of anything like that. Looks like a case where there's really no basis for it. As in, the letter's presence at that time should at best be mentioned as a claim not supported by actual evidence. ——GianWiki (talk)14:12, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• B-Class Writing system articles
• Low-importance Writing system articles