Editing Z (section)

==Name==
[[File:Zebra 2.jpg|thumb|The [[Zebra|z''ebra'']] is sometimes used as a memorization aid in English education.]]
In most English-speaking countries, including Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom, the letter's name is ''zed'' {{IPAc-en|z|ɛ|d}}, reflecting its derivation from the [[Greek alphabet|Greek]] letter ''[[zeta]]'' (this dates to Latin, which borrowed Y and Z from Greek), but in [[American English]] its name is ''zee'' {{IPAc-en|z|iː}}, analogous to the names for B, C, D, etc., and deriving from a late 17th-century English dialectal form.<ref>One early use of "zee": {{cite book |last1=Lye |first1=Thomas |title=A new spelling book, 1677 |url=https://archive.org/details/newspellingbook100lyet |url-access=registration |year=1969 |publisher=Menston, (Yorkshire) Scolar Press |orig-year=2nd ed., London, 1677 |page=[https://archive.org/details/newspellingbook100lyet/page/n11 24] |quote=Zee Za-cha-ry, Zion, zeal |lccn=70407159}}</ref>

Another English dialectal form is ''izzard'' {{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɪ|z|ər|d}}. This dates from the mid-18th century and probably derives from [[Occitan language|Occitan]] {{lang|oc|izèda}} or the [[French language|French]] {{lang|fr|ézed}}, whose reconstructed Latin form would be ''*idzēta'',<ref name="Oxford English Dictionary 1989"/> perhaps a [[Vulgar Latin]] form with a [[prosthesis (linguistics)|prosthetic]] vowel. Outside of the anglosphere, its variants are still used in [[Hong Kong English]] and [[Cantonese]].<ref>{{cite web |author=Chugani |first=Michael |date=2014-01-04 |title=又中又英——Mispronunciations are prevalent in Hong Kong |url=http://news.stheadline.com/dailynews/headline_news_detail_columnist.asp?id=270572&section_name=wtt&kw=-1 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170427102932/http://news.stheadline.com/dailynews/headline_news_detail_columnist.asp?id=270572&section_name=wtt&kw=-1 |archive-date=2017-04-27 |access-date=2017-04-26 |publisher=[[Headline Daily]]}}</ref>

Other languages spell the letter's name in a similar way: {{lang|it|zeta}} in [[Italian language|Italian]], [[Basque language|Basque]], and [[Spanish language|Spanish]], {{lang|is|seta}} in [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]] (no longer part of [[Icelandic orthography|its alphabet]] but found in personal names), {{lang|pt|zê}} in [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]], {{lang|sv|zäta}} in [[Swedish language|Swedish]], {{lang|da|zæt}} in [[Danish language|Danish]], {{lang|nl|zet}} in [[Dutch language|Dutch]], [[Indonesian language|Indonesian]], [[Polish language|Polish]], [[Romanian language|Romanian]], and [[Czech language|Czech]], {{lang|de|Zett}} in [[German language|German]] (capitalized as a noun), {{lang|no|zett}} in [[Norwegian language|Norwegian]], {{lang|fr|zède}} in [[French language|French]], {{Nihongo|''zetto''|ゼット}} in [[Japanese language|Japanese]], and {{lang|vi|giét}} in [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]] (not part of [[Vietnamese alphabet|its alphabet]]). Several languages render it as {{IPAslink|ts}} or {{IPAslink|dz}}, e.g. {{lang|fi|tseta}} {{IPA|/ˈtsetɑ/}} or more rarely {{lang|fi|tset}} {{IPA|/tset/}} in [[Finnish language|Finnish]] (sometimes dropping the first ''t'' altogether; {{IPA|/ˈsetɑ/}}, or {{IPA|/set/}} the latter of which is not very commonplace). In [[Standard Chinese]] [[pinyin]], the name of the letter Z is pronounced {{IPA|[tsɨ]}}, as in "zi", although the English ''zed'' and ''zee'' have become very common. In [[Esperanto orthography|Esperanto]] the name of the letter Z is pronounced {{IPA|/zo/}}.