Ž

The grapheme Ž (minuscule: ž) is formed from Latin Z with the addition of háček. It is used in various contexts, usually denoting the voiced postalveolar fricative IPA|/ʒ/, including phonetic transcription. This sound is similar to English "g" in "genre" or Portuguese and French "j".

Apart from Estonian and Turkmen, Ž is the final letter of most alphabets.

Origin

The symbol originates with the 15th century Czech alphabet as introduced by the reforms of Jan Hus. It was also used for the closely related Slovak language. From Czech, it was adopted into the Croatian alphabet by Ljudevit Gaj in 1830, and then into Slovenian and Bosnian alphabets.

Uses

Slavic languages

It is the 42nd letter of the Czech, the 46th letter of Slovak, the 25th letter of the Slovenian alphabet, the 30th letter of the Croatian and Bosnian scripts. It is also used in both Sorbian languages.

In addition, the character is typically used as a transliteration of Cyrillic Ж in Serbian (30th position), Macedonian (in 31st position), occasionally in Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian and even less freqently in Bulgarian.

For most languages it represents voiced postalveolar fricative IPA|/ʒ/ except in Russian transliterations of Ж where it represents voiced retroflex fricative IPA|/ʐ/.

Baltic languages

It is the 32nd letter of the Lithuanian and 33rd letter of the Latvian alphabets.

Finno-Ugric languages

It is the 19th letter of the Estonian and the 29th letter of the Northern Sami alphabet. It also features occasionally in Finnish but is not part of the regular alphabet.

Other languages

It is the 13th letter of the Turkmen and Laz alphabets. In Turkmen it is pronounced IPA|/ʤ/.

ee also

* Ż
* Rz (digraph)
* Ź

References

*cite book |last=Pullum |first=Geoffrey K. |authorlink=Geoffrey K. Pullum |coauthors=Ladusaw, William A. |year=1996 |title=Phonetic Symbol Guide |publisher=University of Chicago Press |pages=203