Zeta

Template:Short description Template:Other uses Template:More footnotes Template:Greek Alphabet Template:Distinguish Zeta (Template:IPAc-en, Template:IPAc-en;<ref>Template:OED</ref> uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ; Template:Langx, Template:Langx, classical Template:IPA or Template:IPA zē̂ta; Template:IPA zíta) is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 7. It was derived from the Phoenician letter zayin Zayin. Letters that arose from zeta include the Roman Z and Cyrillic З.

Name

Unlike the other Greek letters, this letter did not take its name from the Phoenician letter from which it was derived; it was given a new name on the pattern of beta, eta and theta.

The word zeta is the ancestor of zed, the name of the Latin letter Z in Commonwealth English. Swedish and many Romance languages (such as Italian and Spanish) do not distinguish between the Greek and Roman forms of the letter; "zeta" is used to refer to the Roman letter Z as well as the Greek letter.

Uses

File:NAMA Alphabet grec.jpg

The Greek alphabet on a black figure vessel, with the Phoenician Template:Mono shape of the zeta

Letter Template:Anchor

The letter ζ represents the voiced alveolar fricative Template:IPA in Modern Greek.

The sound represented by zeta in Greek before 400 BC is disputed. See Ancient Greek phonology and Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in teaching.

Most handbooksTemplate:Who agree on attributing to it the pronunciation Template:IPA (like Mazda), but some scholars believe that it was an affricate Template:IPA (like adze). The modern pronunciation was, in all likelihood, established in the Hellenistic age and may have already been a common practice in Classical Attic; for example, it could count as one or two consonants metrically in Attic drama.Template:Where

Arguments for Template:IPA Template:Anchor

PIE *zd becomes ζ in Greek (e.g. *sísdō > Template:Lang). 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 likelyTemplate:Citation needed than the other way around (which would violate the sonority hierarchy).
Without Template:IPA there would be an empty space between Template:IPA and Template:IPA in the Greek sound system (Template:Lang), and a voiced affricate Template:IPA would not have a voiceless correspondent. Contra: a) words with Template:IPA and Template:IPA are rare, and exceptions in phonological and (even more so) phonotactic patterns are in no way uncommon; b) there was Template:IPA in Template:Lang etc.; and c) there was in fact a voiceless correspondent in Archaic Greek (Template:IPA > Attic, Boeotian Template:Lang, Ionic, Doric Template:Lang).
Persian names with zd and z are transcribed with ζ and σ respectively in Classical Greek (e.g. Artavazda = Template:Lang ~ Zara(n)ka- = Template:Lang. Similarly, the Philistine city Ashdod was transcribed as Template:Lang.
Some inscriptions have -ζ- written for a combination -ς + δ- resulting from separate words, e.g. θεοζοτος for θεος δοτος "god-given".
Some Attic inscriptions have -σζ- for -σδ- or -ζ-, which is thought to parallel -σστ- for -στ- and therefore to imply a Template:IPA pronunciation.
ν disappears before ζ like before σ(σ), στ: e.g. *Template:Lang > Template:Lang, *Template:Lang > Template:Lang, *Template:Lang > Template:Lang. Contra: ν may have disappeared before /dz/ if one accepts that it had the allophone Template:IPA in that position like /ts/ had the allophone Template:IPA: cf. Cretan Template:Lang ~ Template:Lang (Hinge).
Verbs beginning with ζ have Template:Lang in the perfect reduplication like the verbs beginning with στ (e.g. Template:Lang = Template:Lang). Contra: a) The most prominent example of a verb beginning with στ has in fact Template:Lang < *se- in the perfect reduplication (Template:Lang); b) the words with /ts/ > σ(σ) also have Template:Lang: Homer Template:Lang, Ion. Template:Lang.
Alcman, Sappho, Alcaeus and Theocritus have σδ for Attic-Ionic ζ. Contra: The tradition would not have invented this special digraph for these poets if Template:IPA was the normal pronunciation in all Greek. Furthermore, this convention is not found in contemporary inscriptions, and the orthography of the manuscripts and papyri is Alexandrine rather than historical. Thus, Template:Lang indicates only a different pronunciation from Hellenistic Greek Template:IPA, i.e. either Template:IPA or Template:IPA.
The grammarians Dionysius Thrax<ref>Template:Quote.</ref> and Dionysius of Halicarnassus class ζ with the "double" (Template:Lang) letters ψ, ξ and analyse it as σ + δ. Contra: The Roman grammarian Verrius Flaccus believed in the opposite sequence, δ + σ (in Velius Longus, De orthogr. 51), and Aristotle says that it was a matter of dispute (Metaph. 993a) (though Aristotle might as well be referring to a Template:IPA 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 that Attic value was Template:IPA, it may be an attempt to transcribe a dialectal Template:IPA 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 the Slavic languages, cf. Serbo-Croatian (iz)među, Russian между, Polish między, and Czech mezi, "between".)

Arguments for [dz] Template:Anchor

The Greek inscriptions almost never write ζ in words like Template:Lang or Template:Lang, so there must have been a difference between this sound and the sound of Template:Lang. 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 Template:IPA, which could be represented by σδ without any problems. Template:IPA, on the other hand, would have the same sequence of plosive and sibilant as the double letters of the Ionic alphabet ψ Template:IPA and ξ Template:IPA, thereby avoiding a written plosive at the end of a syllable. Contra: the use of a special symbol for Template:IPA is no more or no less improbable than the use of ψ for Template:IPA and ξ for Template:IPA, or, for that matter, the later invention ϛ (stigma) for Template:IPA, which happens to be the voiceless counterpart of Template:IPA. Furthermore, it is not clear that ζ was pronounced Template:IPA 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 Template:IPA. (For a parallel development, note that original palatal Proto-Slavic Template:IPA developed into Template:IPA in Old Church Slavonic, with similar developments having led to combinations such as зд and жд being quite common in Russian.)
Boeotian, Elean, Laconian and Cretan δδ are more easily explained as a direct development from *dz than through an intermediary *zd. Contra: a) the sound development dz > dd is improbable (Mendez Dosuna); b) ν has disappeared before ζ > δδ in Laconian Template:Lang (Aristoph., Lys. 171, 990) and Boeotian Template:Lang (Sch. Lond. in Dion. Thrax 493), which suggests that these dialects have had a phase of metathesis (Teodorsson).
Greek in South Italy has preserved Template:IPA until modern times. Contra: a) this may be a later development from Template:IPA or Template:IPA under the influence of Italian; b) even if it is derived from an ancient Template:IPA, 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 Template:Lang > Italian. -eggiare, French -oyer. Italian, similarly, has consistently used Z for Template:IPA and Template:IPA (Lat. prandium > It. pranzo, "lunch"). Contra: whether the pronunciation of Template:Lang was Template:IPA, Template:IPA or Template:IPA, di would probably still have been the closest native Latin sound; furthermore, the inscriptions are centuries later than the time for which Template:IPA is assumed.

Summary

Template:Lang is attested only in the lyric poetry of the Greek isle of Lesbos and the city-state of Sparta during the Archaic Age and in Bucolic poetry from the Hellenistic Age. Most scholars would take this as an indication that the Template:IPA-pronunciation existed in the dialects of these authors.
The transcriptions from Persian by Xenophon and testimony by grammarians support the pronunciation Template:IPA in Classical Attic.
Template:IPA is attested from c. 350 BC in Attic inscriptions, and was the probable value in Koine.
Template:IPA or Template:IPA may have existed in some other dialects in parallel.

Numeral

Zeta has the numerical value 7 rather than 6 because the letter digamma (ϝ, also called 'stigma' as a Greek numeral) was originally in the sixth position in the alphabet.

Mathematics and science Template:Anchor

The uppercase zeta is not used, because it is normally identical to Latin Z. The lower case letter can be used to represent:

The Riemann zeta function in mathematics<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Hurwitz Zeta Function in mathematics<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Weierstrass zeta-function<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The damping ratio of an oscillating system in engineering and physics<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The rotational quantity of angular jerk in physics<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The effective nuclear charge on an electron in quantum chemistry
The electrokinetic potential in colloidal systems<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The lag angle in helicopter blade dynamics<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Relative vorticity in the atmosphere and ocean
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
The height of the surface of a fluid layer

ZETA (fusion reactor) (all uppercase) was an early fusion experiment.

Unicode

Template:Notelist

References

Template:Reflist

General references

Template:Cite book
Hinge, George. “Die Aussprache des griechischen Zeta”, in Die 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.
Sheets, George A. “The Pronunciation of Classical Attic Zeta” Classical Continuum 2023.07.25.
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”, in Dialectologia Graeca: Actas del II Coloquio internacional de dialectología griega, eds. E. Crespo et al. Madrid: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 1993, pp. 305–321.