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Ze (Cyrillic)

Ze (З, з) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the consonant /z/. It's easily confusable with the figure three (3), as in the stages of the N1 rocket. It can also be confused with the Russian letter Э, which represents a sound like in bad.

The pronunciation of з is exactly like z in the Latin alphabet, except word-finally and before voiceless consonants, when it represents a voiceless [s] or followed by ь or any of the palatalizing vowels, when it represents /zʲ/ as in Russian зеркало [ˈzʲɛr.kə.lə] ('mirror').

Cyrillic ze is derived from the Greek letter Zeta (Ζ, ζ).

Early Cyrillic alphabet usage

The Early Cyrillic alphabet used Zemlya (Majuscule: Ꙁ, Miniscule: ꙁ) and was removed with this letter later on. The shape looked like a latin Z with a tilde on the bottom.

Zhuang

З was used in Zhuang's Latin alphabet from 1957 to 1986 to represent the third (high) tone because of its similarity to the numeral 3. In 1986, it was replaced by J.

Montenegrin

A proposed version of the Latin alphabet for the Montenegrin language includes the letter З to represent the phoneme /dz/.

See also

• Ƨ ƨ
• Ч ч
• Ƽ ƽ
• Ƅ ƅ

similar characters

• Ѯ ѯ
• Ҙ ҙ
• Ȝ ȝ