Editing Z (section)

==History==
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Phoenician<br />[[Zayin]]
! Western Greek<br />[[Zeta]]
! Etruscan<br />Z
! Latin<br />Z
|- style="text-align:center;"
| [[Image:PhoenicianZ-01.svg|class=skin-invert-image|36px]]
| [[Image:Greek Zeta archaic.svg|class=skin-invert-image|45px]]
| [[Image:EtruscanZ-01.svg|class=skin-invert-image|x30px]]
| [[Image:Capitalis monumentalis Z.SVG|class=skin-invert-image|x30px]]
|}

===Semitic===
The [[Semitic symbol]] was the seventh letter, named ''[[zayin]]'', which meant "weapon" or "sword". It represented either the sound {{IPAslink|z}} as in English and French, or possibly more like {{IPAslink|dz}} (as in Italian ''{{lang|it|zeta}}'', ''{{lang|it|zero}}'').

===Greek===
The Greek form of Z was a close copy of the [[Phoenician alphabet|Phoenician]] [[Zayin]] ([[File:Phoenician zayin.svg|class=skin-invert-image|15px|Zayin]]), and the Greek inscriptional form remained in this shape throughout ancient times. The Greeks called it ''[[zeta (letter)|zeta]]'', a new name made in imitation of ''[[eta]]'' (η) and ''[[theta]]'' (θ).

In earlier Greek of [[Athens]] and Northwest Greece, the letter seems to have represented {{IPAslink|dz}}; in Attic, from the 4th century BC onwards, it seems to have stood for {{IPA|/zd/}} and {{IPAslink|dz}} – there is no consensus concerning this issue.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0058%3Aentry%3Dzh%3Dta |author1=Henry George Liddell |author2=Robert Scott |work=An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon |title=ζῆτα |access-date=July 23, 2016 |archive-date=March 6, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200306130356/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0058%3Aentry%3Dzh%3Dta |url-status=live }}</ref> In other dialects, such as Elean and [[Crete|Cretan]], the symbol seems to have been used for sounds resembling the English voiced and voiceless ''th'' (IPA {{IPAslink|ð}} and {{IPAslink|θ}}, respectively). In the common dialect ([[koine Greek|koine]]) that succeeded the older dialects, ζ became {{IPAslink|z}}, as it remains in modern Greek.

===Etruscan===
The [[Etruscan language|Etruscan]] letter ''Z'' was derived from the [[Phoenician alphabet]], most probably through the Greek alphabet used on the island of Ischia. In [[Old Italic alphabet|Etruscan]], this letter may have represented {{IPAslink|ts}}.

===Latin===
The letter ''Z'' existed in more archaic versions of Latin, but at {{circa|300 BC}}, [[Appius Claudius Caecus]], the Roman [[Roman censor|censor]], removed the letter Z from the alphabet, because the appearance while pronouncing it imitated a grinning skull.<ref>Lindsay, Wallace Martin. The Latin Language: An Historical Account of Latin Sounds, Stems and Flexions. United Kingdom: Clarendon Press, 1894. "Martianus Capella tells us that the letter was removed from the alphabet by Appius Claudius Caecus the famous censor of 312 BC adding the curious reason that in pronouncing it the teeth assumed the appearance of the teeth of a grinning skull Mart Cap iii 261 z vero idcirco Appius Claudius detestatur quod dentes mortui dum expri mitur imitatur"</ref> A more likely explanation is that the {{IPAslink|z}} sound that it probably represented had disappeared from Latin after turning into {{IPAslink|r}} due to a [[rhotacism]] process,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Appius Claudius Caecus and the Letter Z |url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/miscellanea/zed.html}}</ref> making the letter useless for spelling Latin words.<ref>The Encyclopaedia Britannica: Franciscans-Gibson. United Kingdom: At the University Press, 1910. pg. 377 "G"</ref> Whatever the case may be, Appius Claudius's distaste for the letter Z is today credited as the reason for its removal. A few centuries later, after the [[Roman conquest of Greece|Roman Conquest of Greece]], Z was again borrowed to spell words from the prestigious Attic dialect of Greek.

Before the reintroduction of ''z'', the sound of zeta was written ''s'' at the beginning of words and ''ss'' in the middle of words, as in ''{{lang|la|sōna}}'' for {{lang|grc|ζώνη}} "belt" and ''{{lang|la|trapessita}}'' for {{lang|grc|τραπεζίτης}} "banker".

In some inscriptions, ''z'' represented a [[Vulgar Latin]] sound, likely an [[affricate consonant|affricate]], formed by the merging of the [[linguistic reconstruction|reflexes]] of [[Classical Latin]] {{IPAslink|j}}, {{IPA|/dj/}} and {{IPA|/gj/}}:{{fix|text=example needed|title=We need an example of /gj/ for completeness.}} for example, ''{{lang|la|zanuariu}}'' for ''{{lang|la|ianuariu}}'' "January", ''{{lang|la|ziaconus}}'' for ''{{lang|la|diaconus}}'' "deacon", and ''{{lang|la|oze}}'' for ''{{lang|la|hodie}}'' "today".<ref>Ti Alkire & Carol Rosen, ''Romance Languages: A Historical Introduction'' (Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]], 2010), 61.</ref><!--Alkire and Roen don't explicitly say that it was {{IPAslink|dʒ}}; they say "a slightly affricated /j/", whatever that is supposed to mean, and state that its medial outcome in Spanish was still /j/.--> Likewise, {{IPA|/di/}} sometimes replaced {{IPAslink|z}} in words like ''{{lang|la|baptidiare}}'' for ''{{lang|la|baptizare}}'' "to baptize". In modern Italian, ''z'' represents {{IPAslink|ts}} or {{IPAslink|dz}}, whereas the reflexes of ''{{lang|la|ianuarius}}'' and ''{{lang|la|hodie}}'' are written with the letter ''g'' (representing {{IPA|/dʒ/}} when before ''i'' and ''e''): ''{{lang|it|gennaio}}'', ''{{lang|it|oggi}}''. In other languages, such as [[Spanish language|Spanish]], further evolution of the sound occurred.

===Old English===
[[Old English]] 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 seen in the [[Doublet (linguistics)|doublet]] forms ''jealous'' and ''zealous''. Both of these come from a late Latin ''{{lang|la|zelosus}}'', derived from the imported Greek {{lang|grc|ζῆλος}} ''{{lang|grc-Latn|zêlos}}''. The earlier form is ''jealous''; its initial sound is the {{IPAblink|dʒ}}, which developed to [[French language|Modern French]] {{IPAblink|ʒ}}. [[John Wycliffe]] wrote the word as {{lang|ang|gelows}} or {{lang|ang|ielous}}.

''Z'' at the end of a word was pronounced ''ts'', as in English ''assets'', from [[Old French]] ''{{lang|fro|asez}}'' "enough" ([[French language|Modern French]] ''{{lang|fr|assez}}''), from [[Vulgar Latin]] ''{{lang|la|ad satis}}'' ("to sufficiency").<ref>{{OED|asset}}</ref>

===Last letter of the alphabet===
In earlier times, the [[English alphabet]]s used by children terminated not with ''Z'' but with ''[[Ampersand|&]]'' or related typographic symbols.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The History of 'Ampersand' |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/the-history-of-ampersand |access-date=2025-04-05 |website=www.merriam-webster.com |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-09-07 |title=What Character Was Removed From The Alphabet? |url=https://www.dictionary.com/e/ampersand/ |access-date=2025-04-05 |website=Dictionary.com |language=en-US}}</ref>

Some Latin based alphabets have extra letters on the end of the alphabet. The last letter for the [[Icelandic orthography|Icelandic]], [[Finnish orthography|Finnish]] and [[Swedish alphabet|Swedish]] alphabets is [[Ö]], while it is [[Å]] for [[Danish orthography|Danish]] and [[Norwegian orthography|Norwegian]]. The German alphabet ends with ''Z'', as the umlauts (''Ä/ä'', ''Ö/ö'', and ''Ü/ü'') and the letter ''[[ß]]'' ({{lang|de|Eszett}} or {{lang|de|scharfes S}}) are regarded respectively as modifications of the vowels ''a/o/u'' and as a (standardized) variant spelling of ''ss'', not as independent letters, so they come after the unmodified letters in the alphabetical order.{{Cn|date=April 2025}}

=== Typographic variants<span class="anchor" id="Variant and derived forms"></span> ===
The [[Z with stroke|variant with a stroke]] {{angbr|Ƶƶ}} and the lower-case [[Ezh|tailed Z]] {{angbr|ʒ}}, though distinct characters, can also be considered to be [[allograph]]s of {{angbr|Z}}/{{angbr|z}}.

Tailed Z (German ''{{lang|de|geschwänztes Z}}'', also ''{{lang|de|Z mit Unterschlinge}}'') originated in the medieval [[Gothic minuscule]]s and the Early Modern [[Blackletter]] typefaces. In some [[Antiqua (typeface class)|Antiqua]] typefaces, this letter is present as a standalone letter or in ligatures. [[Typographic ligature|Ligated]] with [[long s]] (ſ), it is part of the origin of the [[Eszett]] (ß) in the [[German alphabet]]. The character came to be indistinguishable from the [[yogh]] (ȝ) in [[Middle English]] writing, leading to the [[Menzies#Pronunciation|apparently anomalous pronunciation]] of the surname ''Menzies''. 

[[Unicode]] assigns codepoints {{unichar|2128|BLACK-LETTER CAPITAL Z|html=}} and {{unichar|1D537|MATHEMATICAL FRAKTUR SMALL Z|html=}} in the [[Letterlike Symbols]] and [[Mathematical alphanumeric symbols]] ranges respectively.

<div class='skin-invert-image'><gallery widths="64px">
Image:Z-small-VA-64x88.svg|lowercase [[cursive]] ''z''
Image:Z-small-Variante.svg|tailed ''z'' in a sans-serif typeface
</gallery></div>