Zeta ( UK : / ˈ z iː t ə / , US : / ˈ z eɪ t ə / ; uppercase Ζ , lowercase ζ ; Ancient Greek : ζῆτα , Demotic Greek : ζήτα , classical [d͡zɛ̌ːta] or [zdɛ̌ːta] zē̂ta ; Greek pronunciation: [ˈzita] zíta ) 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 .
4-727: Zeta ( Ζ or ζ ) is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. Zeta or ZETA may also refer to: Zeta Unlike the other Greek letters , this letter did not take its name from the Phoenician letter from which it was derived; it was given a new name on the pattern of beta , eta and theta . The word zeta is the ancestor of zed , the name of the Latin letter Z in Commonwealth English. Swedish and many Romance languages (such as Italian and Spanish ) do not distinguish between
8-521: The Greek and Roman forms of the letter; " zeta " is used to refer to the Roman letter Z as well as the Greek letter. The letter ζ represents the voiced alveolar fricative IPA: [z] in Modern Greek . The sound represented by zeta in Greek before 400 BC is disputed. See Ancient Greek phonology and Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in teaching . Most handbooks agree on attributing to it
12-433: The letter digamma (ϝ, also called ' stigma ' as a Greek numeral ) was originally in the sixth position in the alphabet. The uppercase zeta is not used, because it is normally identical to Latin Z . The lower case letter can be used to represent: ZETA (fusion reactor) (all uppercase) was an early fusion experiment. These characters are used only as mathematical symbols. Stylized Greek text should be encoded using
16-559: The pronunciation /zd/ (like Mazda ), but some scholars believe that it was an affricate / dz / (like adze). The modern pronunciation was, in all likelihood, established in the Hellenistic age and may have already been a common practice in Classical Attic ; for example, it could count as one or two consonants metrically in Attic drama. Zeta has the numerical value 7 rather than 6 because
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