Ze (Cyrillic)
Template:Short description Template:Distinguish Template:More citations needed Template:Infobox grapheme
Ze (З з; italics: З з or З з; italics: З з) is a letter of the Cyrillic script.
It commonly represents the voiced alveolar fricative Template:IPA, like the pronunciation of Template:Angbr in "zulu".
Ze is romanized using the Latin letter Template:Angbr.
The shape of Ze is very similar to the Arabic numeral three Template:Angbr, and should not be confused with the Cyrillic letter E Template:Angbr.
History and shape
Ze is derived from the Greek letter Zeta (Ζ ζ).
In the Early Cyrillic alphabet its name was Template:Script (zemlja), meaning "earth". The shape of the letter originally looked similar to a Greek letter Ζ or Latin letter Z with a tail on the bottom (Template:Slavonic). Though a majuscule form of this variant (Template:Slavonic) is encoded in Unicode, historically it was only used as caseless or lowercase.<ref name=Ponomar>Ponomar Project. The Complete Character Range for Slavonic Script in Unicode.</ref>
In the Cyrillic numeral system, Zemlja had a value of 7.
Medieval Cyrillic manuscripts and Church Slavonic printed books have two variant forms of the letter Zemlja: з and Template:Slavonic. Only the form Template:Slavonic was used in the oldest ustav (uncial) writing style; з appeared in the later poluustav (half-uncial) manuscripts and typescripts, where the two variants are found at proportions of about 1:1.<ref name=Ponomar /> Some early grammars tried to give a phonetic distinction to these forms (like palatalized vs. nonpalatalized sound), but the system had no further development. Ukrainian scribes and typographers began to regularly use З/з in an initial position, and Template:Slavonic otherwise (a system in use till the end of the 19th century). Russian scribes and typographers largely abandoned the widespread use of the variant Template:Slavonic in favor of з in the wake of Patriarch Nikon's reforms.<ref name=Ponomar /> They still used the older form mostly in the case of two З's in row: Template:Slavonic (the system in use till the mid-18th century).
The civil (Petrine) script knows only one shape of the letter: З/з. This shape is therefore confusing with the number 3, given that the two shapes are very similar to it. However, shapes similar to Z/z can be used in certain stylish typefaces.
In calligraphy and in general handwritten text, lowercase з can be written either fully over the baseline (similar to the printed form) or with the lower half under the baseline and with the loop (for the Russian language, a standard shape since the middle of the 20th century).
Usage
The letter Ze may represent:
- Template:IPA, the voiced alveolar sibilant (Macedonian, Bulgarian, Bosnian, Serbian, Montenegrin, Russian, Ukrainian, Rusyn and Belarusian);
- Template:IPA, if followed by Template:Angbr or any of the palatalizing vowels, as in Russian зеркало Template:IPA ("mirror");
- Template:IPA, the voiceless alveolar sibilant (in final position or before voiceless consonants);
- Template:IPA, if followed by Template:Angbr in final position or before voiceless consonants;
- Template:IPA or Template:IPA (Iron dialect of Ossetian, but Template:IPA in Digoron and Kudairag);
- clusters Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr are pronounced in Russian as if they were Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr, respectively (even if Template:Angbr is the last letter of a preposition, like in Russian без жены "without wife" or из школы "from school");
- cluster Template:Angbr (sometimes also Template:Angbr) is pronounced in Russian as if it was Template:Angbr (рассказчик "narrator", звёздчатый "stellar, star-shaped", без чая "without tea");
- cluster Template:Angbr can be pronounced (mostly in Ukrainian, Rusyn and Belarusian) as the voiced alveolar affricate Template:IPA (Ukrainian дзеркало "mirror") or its palatalized form Template:IPA (Belarusian гадзіннік "clock"), but if Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr belong to different morphemes, then they are pronounced separately. In the standard Iron dialect of Ossetian, this cluster simply stands for Template:IPA; other dialects treat it as the affricate Template:IPA.
- Template:IPA, the voiceless alveolar affricate in Mongolian, similar to German z.
Other related letters and similar characters
- 3 : Digit Three
- Ζ ζ : Greek letter Zeta
- Z z : Latin letter Z
- Ʒ ʒ : Latin letter Ezh
- Ȝ ȝ : Latin letter Yogh
- Ɜ ɜ : Latin letter reversed open E
- Ҙ ҙ : Cyrillic letter Dhe or Ze with descender
- Ӡ ӡ : Cyrillic letter Abkhazian Dze
- Ԑ ԑ : Cyrillic letter Reversed Ze
З-shaped Latin letters
Zhuang
A letter that looks like Cyrillic Ze (actually, a stylization of digit 3) was used in the Latin Zhuang alphabet from 1957 to 1986 to represent the third (high) tone. In 1986, it was replaced by Template:Angbr.