Zeta (letter)

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For other uses, see Zeta.

Zeta (uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ) is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 7. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Zayin . Letters that arose from Zeta include the Roman Z and Cyrillic З (Ze).

Unlike the other Greek letters, this letter did not take its name from the Phoenician letter it was derived from - it was given a new name on the pattern of eta and theta. The reason the number associated with this letter doesn't match its alphabetical order is because the archaic letter Digamma used to be the sixth letter, and thus Zeta was the seventh letter.

Pronunciation

The letter is pronounced as IPA [z] in modern Greek.

It is a matter of dispute which phoneme the letter zeta designated in Classical Greek. See also Ancient Greek phonology.

Most handbooks agree on attributing to it the pronunciation [zd] (like Mazda), but some scholars believe that it was an affricate [dz] (like Italian mezzo). In Modern Greek, it is pronounced [z], and this pronunciation was in all likelihood established in the Hellenistic age and was probably a common, if not exclusive, practice already in Classical Attic, considering that it could count as one or two consonants metrically in the Attic drama.

The arguments in favour of [zd]:

IE *zd becomes ζ in Greek (e.g. *sísdō > ἵζω). Contra: these words are rare and it is therefore more probable that *zd was absorbed by *dz (< *dj, *gj, *j).
Without /sd/ there would be an empty space between /sb/ and /sg/ in the Greek sound system (πρεσβύς, σβέννυμι, φάσγανον), and a voiced affricate /dz/ would not have a voiceless correspondent. Contra: a) words with /sb/ and /sg/ are rare; b) there was /sd/ in ὅσδε, εἰσδέχται etc.; and c) there was in fact a voiceless correspondent in Archaic Greek (/ts/ > Attic, Boeotian ττ, Ionic, Doric σσ).
Persian names with zd and z are transcribed with ζ and σ respectively in Classical Greek (e.g. Artavazda = Ἀρτάβαζος / Ἀρτάοζος ~ Zara(n)ka- = Σαράγγαι. Similarly, the Philistine city Ashdod was transcribed as Αζωτος.
ν disappears before ζ like before σ(σ), στ: e.g. *πλάνζω > πλᾰ́ζω, *σύνζυγος = *συνστέλλω > σῠστέλλω. Contra: ν may have disappeared before /dz/ if one accepts that it had the allophone [z] in that position like /ts/ had the allophone [s]: cf. Cretan ἴαττα ~ ἀποδίδονσα (Hinge).
Verbs beginning with ζ have ἐ- in the perfect reduplication like the verbs beginning with στ (e.g. ἔζηκα = ἔσταλται). Contra: a) The most prominent example of a verb beginning with στ has in fact ἑ- < *se- in the perfect reduplication (ἕστηκα; b) the words with /ts/ > σ(σ) also have ἐ-: Homer ἔσσυμαι, -ται, Ion. ἐσσημένῳ.
Alcman, Sappho, Alcaeus and Theocritus have σδ for Attic-Ionic ζ. Contra: The tradition would not have invented this special digraph for these poets if [zd] was the normal pronunciation in all Greek.
The grammarians Dionysius Thrax and Dionysius of Halicarnassus class ζ with the "double" (διπλᾶ) letters ψ, ξ and analyse it as σ + δ. Contra: The Roman grammarian Verrius Flaccus believed in the opposite sequence, δ + σ (in Velius Longus, De orthogr. 51), and Aristotle says that it was a matter of dispute (Metaph. 993a)

Arguments in favour of [dz] are:

The Greek inscriptions almost never write ζ in words like ὅσδε, τούσδε or εἰσδέχται, so there must have been a difference between this sound and the sound of ἵζω, Ἀθήναζε.
It seems improbable that Greek would invent a special symbol for the bisegmental combination /zd/, which could be represented by σδ without any problems. /dz/, on the other hand, would have the same sequence of plosive and sibilant as the double letters of the Ionic alphabet ψ /ps/ and ξ /ks/, thereby avoiding a written plosive at the end of a syllable.
Boeotian, Elean, Laconian and Cretan δδ are more easily explained as a direct development from *dz than through an intermediary *zd. Contra: a) the sound development dz > dd is improbable (Mendez Dosuna); b) ν has disappeared before ζ > δδ in Laconian πλαδδιῆν (Aristoph., Lys. 171, 990) and Boeotian σαλπίδδω (Sch. Lond. in Dion. Thrax 493), which suggests that these dialects have had a phase of metathesis (Teodorsson).
Greek in South Italy has preserved [dz] until modern times.
Vulgar Latin inscriptions use the Greek letter Z for indigenous affricates (e.g. zeta = diaeta), and the Greek ζ is continued by a Romance affricate in the ending -ίζω > Italian. -eggiare, French -oyer.

References

Allen, William Sidney: Vox Graeca: A guide to the pronunciation of Classical Greek. Cambridge University Press 1987, pp. 56-59.
Hinge, George: "Plädoyer für das affrizierte <ζ>", in: Die Sprache Alkmans: Textgeschichte und Sprachgeschichte (Unpublished PhD dissertation), Aarhus 2001, pp. 212-234 = [link]
Méndez Dosuna, Julián: "On <Ζ> for <Δ> in Greek dialectal inscriptions", Die Sprache 35, 1993, pp. 82-114.
Rohlfs, Gerhard: "Die Aussprache des z (ζ) im Altgriechischen", Glotta 8, 1962, pp. 3-8.
Teodorsson, Sven-Tage: "The pronunciation of zeta in different Greek dialects". In: E. Crespo i.a. (ed.): Dialectologia Graeca: Actas del II Coloquio Internacional de Dialectología Griega. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid 1993, pp. 305-321.

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