Ż


Ż, ż is a letter, consisting of the letter Z of the ISO basic Latin alphabet and an overdot.

Usage

Polish

In the Polish language, ż is the final, 32nd letter of the alphabet. It typically represents the voiced retroflex fricative, somewhat similar to the pronunciation of in "mirae"; however, in a word-final position or when followed by a voiceless obstruent, it is devoiced to the voiceless retroflex fricative.
Its pronunciation is the same as that of the digraph, except that also undergoes devoicing when preceded by a voiceless obstruent. The difference in spelling comes from their historical pronunciations: ż originates from a palatalized or, while evolved from a palatalized.
The letter was originally introduced in 1513 by Stanisław Zaborowski in his book Ortographia.
Occasionally, the letter Ƶ ƶ is used instead of Ż ż for aesthetic purposes, especially in all-caps text and handwriting.

Kashubian

ż is a voiced fricative like in Polish, but it is postalveolar rather than retroflex.

Maltese

In Maltese, ż represents the voiced alveolar sibilant, pronounced like "z" in English "mae". This contrasts with the letter, which represents the voiceless alveolar sibilant affricate, like in the word "ha". The corresponding letter in Arabic in this Maltese letter is ز.

Emilian-Romagnol

In Emilian-Romagnol, ż represents the voiced dental fricative, pronounced like "th" in English "is".

Computing codes