Ze (Cyrillic)

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Cyrillic letter Ze
Phonetic usage:[z], [ts]
Name (Early Cyrillic alphabet):зємл҄ꙗ
Numeric value:7
Derived from:Greek letter Zeta (Ζ ζ)
The Cyrillic script
Slavic letters
АА̀А̂А̄ӒБВГ
ҐДЂЃЕЀЕ̄Е̂
ЁЄЖЗЗ́ЅИІ
ЇЍИ̂ӢЙЈК
ЛЉМНЊОО̀О̂
ŌӦПРСС́ТЋ
ЌУУ̀У̂ӮЎӰФ
ХЦЧЏШЩЪ
Ъ̀ЫЬѢЭЮЮ̀Я
Я̀
Non-Slavic letters
ӐА̊А̃Ӓ̄ӔӘӘ́Ә̃
ӚВ̌ԜГ̑Г̇Г̣Г̌Г̂
Г̆Г̈ҔҒӺҒ̌Ӷ
Д́Д̌Д̈Д̣Д̆ӖЕ̃
Ё̄Є̈ԐԐ̈ҖӜӁЖ̣
ҘӞЗ̌З̣З̆ӠИ̃Ӥ
ҊҚӃҠҞҜК̣Ԛ
Л́ӅԮԒЛ̈Ӎ
Н́ӉҢԨӇҤО̆О̃
Ӧ̄ӨӨ̄Ө́Ө̆ӪԤП̈
Р̌ҎС̌ҪС̣С̱Т́Т̈
Т̌Т̇Т̣ҬУ̃ӲУ̊
Ӱ̄ҰҮҮ́Х̣Х̱Х̮Х̑
Х̌ҲӼӾҺҺ̈ԦЦ̌
Ц̈ҴҶҶ̣ӴӋҸ
Ч̇Ч̣ҼҾШ̈Ш̣Ы̆
Ы̄ӸҌҨЭ̆Э̄Э̇
ӬӬ́Ӭ̄Ю̆Ю̈Ю̄Я̆Я̄
Я̈Ӏʼˮ
Archaic or unused letters
А̨Б̀Б̣Б̱В̀Г̀Г̧
Г̄Г̓Г̆Ҕ̀Ҕ̆ԀД̓
Д̀Д̨ԂЕ̇Е̨
Ж̀Ж̑Џ̆
Ꚅ̆З̀З̑ԄԆ
ԪІ̂І̣І̨
Ј̵Ј̃К̓К̀К̆Ӄ̆
К̑К̇К̈К̄ԞК̂
Л̀ԠԈЛ̑Л̇Ԕ
М̀М̃Н̀Н̄Н̧
Н̃ԊԢН̡Ѻ
П̓П̀
П́ҦП̧П̑ҀԚ̆Р́
Р̀Р̃ԖС̀С̈ԌҪ̓
Т̓Т̀ԎТ̑Т̧
Ꚍ̆ОУУ̇
У̨ꙋ́Ф̑Ф̓Х́Х̀Х̆Х̇
Х̧Х̾Х̓һ̱ѠѼ
ѾЦ̀Ц́Ц̓Ꚏ̆
Ч́Ч̀Ч̆Ч̑Ч̓
ԬꚆ̆Ҽ̆Ш̀
Ш̆Ш̑Щ̆Ꚗ̆Ы̂
Ы̃Ѣ́Ѣ̈Ѣ̆Э̨Э̂
Ю̂Я̈Я̂Я̨
ԘѤѦѪѨ
ѬѮѰѲѴѶ
Ze, from Alexandre Benois' 1904 alphabet book

Ze (З з; italics: З з) is a letter of the Cyrillic script.

It commonly represents the voiced alveolar fricative /z/, like the pronunciation of ⟨z⟩ in "zebra".

Ze is romanized using the Latin letter ⟨z⟩.

The shape of Ze is very similar to the Arabic numeral three ⟨3⟩, and should not be confused with the Cyrillic letter E ⟨Э⟩.

History and shape[edit]

Russian typewriters like this one were manufactured without the digit 3 as the letter Ze could be used instead.

Ze is derived from the Greek letter Zeta (Ζ ζ).

In the Early Cyrillic alphabet its name was землꙗ (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 (). Though a majuscule form of this variant () is encoded in Unicode, historically it was only used as caseless or lowercase.[1]

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 . Only the form 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.[1] 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 otherwise (a system in use till the end of the 19th century). Russian scribes and typographers largely abandoned the widespread use of the variant in favor of з in the wake of Patriarch Nikon's reforms.[1] They still used the older form mostly in the case of two З's in row: ЗꙀ (the system in use till the mid-18th century).

The civil (Petrine) script knows only one shape of the letter: З/з. 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).

Phonetic value[edit]

The letter Ze may represent:

  • /z/, the voiced alveolar sibilant (Macedonian, Bulgarian, Bosnian, Serbian, Montenegrin, Russian, Ukrainian, Rusyn and Belarusian);
  • /zʲ/, if followed by ⟨ь⟩ or any of the palatalizing vowels, as in Russian зеркало [ˈzʲer.kə.ɫə] (“mirror”);
  • /s/, the voiceless alveolar sibilant (in final position or before voiceless consonants);
  • /sʲ/, if followed by ⟨ь⟩ in final position or before voiceless consonants;
  • /ʒ/ or /z̠/ (Iron dialect of Ossetian, but /z/ in Digoron and Kudairag);
  • clusters ⟨зж⟩ and ⟨зш⟩ are pronounced in Russian as if they were ⟨жж⟩ and ⟨шш⟩, respectively (even if ⟨з⟩ is the last letter of a preposition, like in Russian без жены “without wife” or из школы “from school”);
  • cluster ⟨зч⟩ (sometimes also ⟨здч⟩) is pronounced in Russian as if it was ⟨щ⟩ (рассказчик “narrator”, звёздчатый “stellar, star-shaped”, без чая “without tea”);
  • cluster ⟨дз⟩ can be pronounced (mostly in Ukrainian, Rusyn and Belarusian) as the voiced alveolar affricate /dz/ (Ukrainian дзеркало “mirror”) or its palatalized form /dzʲ/ (Belarusian гадзіннік “clock”), but if ⟨д⟩ and ⟨з⟩ belong to different morphemes, then they are pronounced separately. In the standard Iron dialect of Ossetian, this cluster simply stands for /z/; other dialects treat it as the affricate /d͡z/.
  • /t͡s/, the voiceless alveolar affricate in Mongolian, similar to German z.

З-shaped Latin letters[edit]

Zhuang[edit]

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 ⟨j⟩.

Other related letters and similar characters[edit]

Computing codes[edit]

Character information
Preview З з
Unicode name CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER ZE CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER ZE CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER ZEMLYA CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER ZEMLYA
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 1047 U+0417 1079 U+0437 42560 U+A640 42561 U+A641
UTF-8 208 151 D0 97 208 183 D0 B7 234 153 128 EA 99 80 234 153 129 EA 99 81
Numeric character reference З З з з Ꙁ Ꙁ ꙁ ꙁ
Named character reference З з
KOI8-R and KOI8-U 250 FA 218 DA
Code page 855 244 F4 243 F3
Code page 866 135 87 167 A7
Windows-1251 199 C7 231 E7
ISO-8859-5 183 B7 215 D7
Macintosh Cyrillic 135 87 231 E7

External links[edit]

  • The dictionary definition of З at Wiktionary
  • The dictionary definition of з at Wiktionary

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Ponomar Project. The Complete Character Range for Slavonic Script in Unicode.