Dzs


Dzs is the eighth letter, and the only trigraph, of the Hungarian alphabet. Its name is pronounced, and represents the sounds and, like in English jump.

History

Dz and dzs were recognized as individual letters in the 11th edition of Hungarian orthography. Prior to that, they were analyzed as two-letter combinations d+z and d+zs.
Dzs, along with Dz, are rather uncommon letters or sequences mostly used for terms of foreign origin.

Length

In several words, it is pronounced long, e.g.menedzser, bridzs, bridzsel, maharadzsa, lodzsa, rádzsa, hodzsa, dodzsem, tádzsik, Tádzsikisztán, Kudzsiri-havasok
in other ones, short, e.g.tinédzser, büdzsé, Fudzsi
It is short without exception:
  • next to another consonant: lándzsa, findzsa, nindzsa, bendzsó, bandzsa, halandzsa, halandzsázik, mandzsetta, Kilimandzsáró, Azerbajdzsán, Mandzsúria, cup, ninja, banjo, cross-eyed, gibberish, gibberish, cufflink, Kilimanjaro, Azerbaijan, Manchuria", respectively)
  • and at the beginning of the word: dzsóker, dzsungel, dzsem, dzsip, dzsida, dzsihád, dzsigg, dzsigoló, dzseki, dzsentri, dzsámi, dzsembori, dzsessz, dzsinn, dzsogging, dzsömper, dzsörzé, dzsunka, dzsuva, dzsúsz, dzsumbuj, dzsúdó, dzsúdzsicu, Dzsenifer, Dzsesszika, Dzsibuti, Dzsószer, Dzsingisz, Dzsungária, Dzsaváharlál, Dzsaipur, jamboree, jazz, djinn, jogging, jumper, jersey, junk
It is not usually doubled even when it is pronounced long, except when a word with this sound has an assimilated suffix: bridzs + dzsel: briddzsel.

Usage

Usage of this letter is similar to in Slovak or Czech. In Hungarian, even though these three characters are put together to make a different sound, they are considered one letter, and even acronyms keep the letter intact. As one can see from the examples above and below, it is almost exclusively used in foreign loanwords, to represent the voiced postalveolar affricate.

Examples

The following are Hungarian loanwords using the trigraph dzs:
  • nindzsa = ninja
  • dzsem = jam
  • dzsip = jeep
  • bendzsó = banjo
  • dzsungel = jungle
  • dzsessz = jazz
  • lándzsa = lance
  • Dzsibuti = ''Djibouti''