Ż
Ż, ż (Z with overdot) is a letter, consisting of the letter Z of the ISO basic Latin alphabet and an overdot.
Usage[edit]
Polish[edit]
In Polish language, the letter represents the voiced retroflex fricative ([ʐ]), somewhat similar to the pronunciation of ⟨g⟩ in "mirage".
Its pronunciation is the same as of the digraph Rz, the only difference being that ⟨rz⟩ evolved in Polish from a palatalized ⟨r⟩. Ż represents common Slavic phoneme that originates from a palatalized /ɡ/ or /z/.[1] It can also occasionally devoice to the voiceless retroflex fricative ([ʂ]), particularly in final position.
The letter was originally introduced in 1513 by Stanisław Zaborowski in his book Ortographia[2]
Occasionally, capital Ƶ (Z with horizontal stroke) is used instead of capital Ż for aesthetic purposes, especially in all-caps text and handwriting.
Emilian-Romagnol[edit]
Ż is used in Emilian-Romagnol to represent the voiced dental fricative [ð] (or, in some peripheral dialects, the affricates [dð~dz]), e.g. viażèr ([vjaˈðɛːr], "to travel").
Kashubian[edit]
Kashubian ż is a voiced fricative like in Polish, but it is postalveolar ([ʒ]) rather than retroflex.
Maltese[edit]
In Maltese, ż represents the voiced alveolar sibilant, pronounced like "z" in English "maze".
Computing codes[edit]
| character | Ż | ż | ||
| Unicode name | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z WITH DOT ABOVE |
LATIN SMALL LETTER Z WITH DOT ABOVE | ||
| character encoding | decimal | hex | decimal | hex |
| Unicode | 379 | 017B | 380 | 017C |
| UTF-8 | 197 187 | C5 BB | 197 188 | C5 BC |
| Numeric character reference | Ż | Ż | ż | ż |
| CP 852 | 189 | BD | 190 | BE |
| CP 775 | 163 | A3 | 164 | A4 |
| Mazovia | 161 | A1 | 167 | A7 |
| Windows-1250, ISO-8859-2 | 175 | AF | 191 | BF |
| Windows-1257, ISO-8859-13 | 221 | DD | 253 | FD |
| Mac Central European | 251 | FB | 253 | FD |
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Corbett, Greville; Comrie, Bernard (2003). The Slavonic Languages. Routledge. p. 690. ISBN 978-1-136-86137-6.
The spelling difference reflects the historical difference between a palatalization of /r/ (for rz) and of /g/ or /z/ (for ż).
- ^ Edward Polański. Reformy ortografii polskiej – wczoraj, dziś, jutro. Biuletyn Polskiego Towarzystwa Językoznawczego, vol. 60, p. 31. 2004. Warsaw. Energeia. ISSN 0032-3802.
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