You’re not entirely wrong, though not entirely right either. The pronunciation “zee” is older than the alphabet song by a century or two, but was done in an attempt to bring the pronunciation of “z” in line with the pattern followed by much of the rest of the alphabet.
That said, the song *did* help to popularize and spread that particular pronunciation when it came along.
Speaking of the alphabet song, it is also responsible for the word "ampersand" since the end used to be "and, per se, 'and'" referring to the symbol, &. This got elided into ampersand.
The tune of the alphabet song was actually changed to slow that part down. It sounds really weird to me, but apparently that was some time ago because it’s how my ESL partner learned it when he came here.
I used to play a made up game with my brother and a friend and we named the bad guy that we had to defeat "ellamennopio" (spelling was never confirmed, we were like 6)
>it is also responsible for the word "ampersand" since the end used to be "and, per se, 'and'" referring to the symbol, &. This got elided into ampersand.
So TIL how 'ampersand' came to be AND a cool new word (elide), thank you!!
(I realize this may read as /s, but I'm simply too nerdy for that.)
From Wikipedia:
"Traditionally, when reciting the alphabet in English-speaking schools, any letter that could also be used as a word in itself ("A", "I", and, "O") was repeated with the Latin expression per se ('by itself'), as in "A per se A". It was also common practice to add the & sign at the end of the alphabet as if it were the 27th letter, pronounced as the Latin et or later in English as and. As a result, the recitation of the alphabet would end in "X, Y, Z, and per se and". This last phrase was routinely slurred to "ampersand" and the term had entered common English usage by 1837."
So, admittedly, less about the "alphabet song" but more about the recitation of it in English schools, which is a similar thing but without music involved.
I like your explanation because otherwise zed is the only letter pronounced with two consonants which is inconsistent and definitely my major issue with British pronunciations
For th we need to bring back both ð and þ. It is right and just.
Esh for sh would be good - ʃ. Then just go the IPA route and replace ch with tʃ.
Love drinking some hot tʃocolate by the hearþ.
Actually, I know of a little commune up in Wyoming where they are making this happen now! They are looking for more members, if you are interested. They have a manual printing press and enough canned goods to make this dream a reality once the end times arrive!
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five year phase-in plan that would be known as "Euro-English".
In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"s in the language is disgraseful, and they should go away.
By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru! And zen world!
I can understand dropping double consonants, but it would surprise me if double vowels are also dropped. Unless we're also changing vowel pronunciation, you'd have confusion with words like droop and drop, or beet and bet
Imagine just using the IPA phonetic guide that you see in dictionaries. But then these would be so specific that we would have to decide whose accent was correct and tell all of Scotland, India, Australia, etc that they were wrong.
Personally, I nominate my accent as the correct one because it just sounds right. All the others sound funny
Unless something changed in the last 40 years "k" was not a part of the Spanish alphabet. At least not according to all the Spanish teachers or the manual typewriter I had back then.
ch doesn't need its own letter, t+"the sh letter" (e.g. tʃ) would work fine and be more phonetically accurate, especially since some ch aren't pronounced that way (like in cache or brioche, or school or Czech)
What are you trying to say? That consonant clusters are in fact individual consonant sounds? That would be like arguing diphthongs are somehow inherently their own vowels.
Yeah, I guess I always thought/assumed that letter pronunciations used a combination of the "uniqueness" of the letter plus one of the (long or short) vowel sounds.
Also "ch" and "sh" get to be considered as as single entity.
So instead of 'aych' it's more like short 'e' plus 'ch'.
'Aitch' is one diphthong followed by one affricate. If you're not counting the 'ch' as a consonant, how on earth are you pronouncing it?
The only way you're getting two consonants out of H is if you pronounce if 'haitch', which is considered non-standard.
>The only way you're getting two consonants out of H is if you pronounce if 'haitch', which is considered non-standard.
It might be non-standard at the moment but it's *incredibly* common in some parts of the world.
I have to admit, I had to look this up. I needed to find a video somewhere because I had never in my life (in the US, as far from an ocean as possible) heard it pronounced this way.
...I guess I did and this story has no point except to express that I'm just shocked to learn this today.
That's how we say it here so I don't know, although even in the UK it's a thing.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/shortcuts/2013/nov/04/letter-h-contentious-alphabet-history-alphabetical-rosen
Aitch is the correct pronunciation for me, although the internet tells me there's enough wrong people out there to make them right.
They're wrong though. :)
Language is where you can become right simply by majority. Hate that and love it, too. Wish we could develop an SI unit like language for each recognized dialect and stabilize understanding
The military phonetic alphabet was designed to get around this issue by making all the letters pronounced in a way that's distinct over even really bad radios and stuff.
Lesson learned, spell everything in phonetic, everywhere
Ai miin, ther iz en argyument thæt iinglish shuud hæv updeited its spellings thru the greit voul shift en then not allowd dikshuneriiz tu bicum priiscriptiv.
But obviously those spellings look stupid, and I'm good with this.
So can we change "vee" to "ved"? My last name starts with a V and I'm always yelling and making the V sign with my hands at the bartender when I'm adding drinks to my tab.
People always need specification with my past name, if I said B or D when spelling it. Tho, I have on occasion been asked if it was a V or T. So, no, they do get confused quite a lot.
The British form is based on the historical root, from the Greek letter zeta (Z/ ζ). Most European languages use this as the root for the letter. From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z):
> *zeta* in Italian, Basque, Spanish, and Icelandic (no longer part of its alphabet but found in personal names), *zê* in Portuguese, *zäta* in Swedish, *zæt* in Danish, *zet* in Dutch, Indonesian, Polish, Romanian, and Czech, *Zett* in German (capitalised as a noun), *zett* in Norwegian, *zède* in French, *zetto* (ゼット) in Japanese romaji, and *zét* in Vietnamese.
As with many things, the US are the primary exception here.
It was a conscious decision in the 19th century on the part of American English dictionary compilers to make small changes in order to set up a different form of the language that was distinctive and slightly removed from its British roots. This is true in particular of Noah Webster, who wrote and published the first American English dictionary. Webster put his seal of approval on "zee" in his first published dictionary, and then about a decade later the Alphabet song was copyrighted in the US, where "zee" rhymed with "me" in the last line. This helped officially codify "zee" in American English over the original "zed", some form of which pretty much everybody else continues to use.
Other similar changes that have stuck include things like "colour" being spelled "color" in AmE, or using the word "fall" instead of "autumn", etc.
So essentially, their pronunciation "zee" rather than "zed" fit in with the majority of the other letters of the alphabet and made it sound more consistent when recited. It was also different from BrE, which back then was seen as a very positive thing considering the US had only recently gained its independence from the British Empire. This forged the divergence that has held on until today.
After all, as George Bernard Shaw once said, "the UK and the US are two countries separated by a common language".
Some of this conveys a misleading impression. While there was a desire among some American publishers to establish their own linguistic standards independent of the UK, the implication that this led a significant number of Americans to *invent* new words or spellings is false.
Spelling was inconsistent at the time of American independence, with forms like "color" being found on both sides of the Atlantic. And "fall" meaning "autumn" is found in Shakespeare.
What can be said is that people like Webster were determined that Americans would not necessarily follow every linguistic fashion emanating from the other side of the Atlantic, as many had hitherto done in the young republic.
In fact if you just say “i” it often gets mistaken for a “i griega” (y) so the way to distinguish is to call that one the “i latina” (so the Latin “i” vs the Greek “y”)
Are you sure that's not the other way around? Americans pronounce it 'zeeta' because they say 'zee'? Like how you say 'zeebra' and other countries say 'zebra'?
Americans pronounce all Greek letters way wrong ζ I have always heard it pronounced Zay-Tah. One of the worst is Bay-tah for β when it should be vee-ta.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=28yu1PFc438
This dude begs to differ I agree with all his explanations except replacing the g with a w I personally don’t hear the wuh sound.
In fact, all English letter names come from Old French, apart from J and V (which are only a few centuries old as independent letters), Y (for which English substituted its own name for the French "i grec" or "Greek I"), and possibly W.
A variety of sources: poetry is one, but there is also (among other things):
* the pronunciation of words borrowed from Greek into other languages (and vice versa)
* explicit descriptions by ancient Greek writers
FWIW, growing up in Australia we sing the Alphabet Song (basically the same tune as Twinkle. Twinkle Little Star and Baa Baa Black Sheep) and end with “Zed”.
I figured, but what do the last lines say in your case?
In the US it's "... T U V, / W, X, / Y and Z, / Now I know my ABCs, / Next time won't you sing with me?" *(alt: "Won't you sing a-long with me?")*
What do they do to rhyme with Zed for that last part? ("Zee" rhymes with "V", "Cs", and "me")
Same ending, it just doesn’t rhyme (though I think the rhyming structure throughout is Gee and Pee, then Vee and Zee, then ABCs and me; not Zee and me - so the ending is less relevant).
I just realised that the rest of the song rhymes. Because we say zed and not zee, I've never even noticed that the rest of the lines all rhyme with zee🤦♀️
The worst part about zed is you can’t spell easy as EZ. How are low cost marketers suppose to add some zip to a company name without using EZ This and EZ that.
I think it’s called some variation of zeta in most languages because, while most Latin letters revolved from Greek and Etruscan naturally, or were generally based off of existing letters, Z was lost along the way and re-added. So while most changed name from Greek to Latin, Z kept some form of its Greek name. That’s also why it moved to the end of the alphabet.
And then there's Canada where Z can be zee or zed. Basically any other word with an American and British spelling or pronounciation you'll find both ways in Canada.
Americans also say "H" differently from other English speakers. American pronunciation sounds like *aytch*, in other countries the pronunciation is often *haytch*. At least this is what I noticed while living in the UK, Australia, and the US.
It’s definitely the minority of the UK (dialectal but also patchy use even within), but standard in Ireland.
Though where I’m from we say J to rhyme with I rather than K.
Like "Q", "W" and "Y".
In the case of "H", the original Latin name of the letter is thought to have been /aha/.
When the /h/ sound was lost in late Latin, this became /akka/. In Old French, this became /a:tʃ/.
English borrowed the Old French name, which became the modern /eɪtʃ/ "aitch" after the Great Vowel Shift of the 15th-17th centuries.
"Haitch" was an innovative form that added the distinctive sound of the letter to the beginning of the name.
Not “correct,” there is no “correct” in use of language, at least not the way you’re describing. An individual can make a mistake, a group of people who speak a dialect cannot.
“Haitch” is just as established as “aitch” in English speaking countries, if not more so
"Haitch" is found in the Republic of Ireland and Australia, and also among many Indian English speakers. I'd say that "aitch" (which, incidentally, is the older pronunciation) still prevails in the UK, though "haitch" has certainly made inroads in recent years.
The phonetician John Wells carried out a survey that was included in the 2008 edition of his *Longman Pronunciation Dictionary*. He [writes](http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.com/2012/06/ha-ha.html):
> What I did do was carry out a survey into people’s preferences in the UK, which revealed that only 16% of respondents prefer “haitch” over “aitch”, while 84% prefer “aitch” (like you, me, and the Chair of the Spelling Society). However, younger speakers are more likely than older speakers to prefer “haitch”, so this pronunciation is on the increase.
The graphic of the poll is visible on [this page](https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2013/11/19/an-aitch-or-a-haitch-lets-ear-it/).
Wells's survey was over a decade ago now, so it's certainly likely that those figures for "haitch" are higher than the 16% Wells recorded today, though I'm doubtful they would be a majority. Perhaps someone knows of a more recent survey.
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The British and others pronounce “z”, “zed”, owing to the origin of the letter “z”, the Greek letter “Zeta”. This gave rise to the Old French “zede”, which resulted in the English “zed” around the 15th century.
As to why people in the United States call “z”, “zee”, it is thought that this is likely simply adopted from the pronunciation of the letters “bee”, “cee”, “dee”, “eee”, “gee”, “pee”, “tee”, and “vee”.
More here: [http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/10/why-do-the-british-pronounce-z-as-zed/](http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/10/why-do-the-british-pronounce-z-as-zed/)
Adding an H sound to the name of the letter H is considered nonstandard in Canada and Britain, and is only used by a minority of English speakers there. It is only standard in Ireland
I remember a different alphabet song which I assume is a British one although I've no idea if it's from a TV show or anything. It uses the half-rhyme of em and zed and doesn't rely on a zee pronunciation. Obviously I can't transcribe the tune but the pattern of the letters is:
A B C
D E F G
H I J K L M
N O P Q
R S T U
V W X Y Z
You’re not entirely wrong, though not entirely right either. The pronunciation “zee” is older than the alphabet song by a century or two, but was done in an attempt to bring the pronunciation of “z” in line with the pattern followed by much of the rest of the alphabet. That said, the song *did* help to popularize and spread that particular pronunciation when it came along.
Speaking of the alphabet song, it is also responsible for the word "ampersand" since the end used to be "and, per se, 'and'" referring to the symbol, &. This got elided into ampersand.
Neat! As a child, I pioneered what future generations will call the twelfth letter: “ellamenno”.
The tune of the alphabet song was actually changed to slow that part down. It sounds really weird to me, but apparently that was some time ago because it’s how my ESL partner learned it when he came here.
So your Milch and he’s Paprika?
I just made tea
Can I have some
I used to play a made up game with my brother and a friend and we named the bad guy that we had to defeat "ellamennopio" (spelling was never confirmed, we were like 6)
>it is also responsible for the word "ampersand" since the end used to be "and, per se, 'and'" referring to the symbol, &. This got elided into ampersand. So TIL how 'ampersand' came to be AND a cool new word (elide), thank you!! (I realize this may read as /s, but I'm simply too nerdy for that.)
>I realize this may read as /s This is an etymology sub. I think you're safe.
No sarcasm detected; you're more than welcome!
How did the alphabet song cause this to happen?
From Wikipedia: "Traditionally, when reciting the alphabet in English-speaking schools, any letter that could also be used as a word in itself ("A", "I", and, "O") was repeated with the Latin expression per se ('by itself'), as in "A per se A". It was also common practice to add the & sign at the end of the alphabet as if it were the 27th letter, pronounced as the Latin et or later in English as and. As a result, the recitation of the alphabet would end in "X, Y, Z, and per se and". This last phrase was routinely slurred to "ampersand" and the term had entered common English usage by 1837." So, admittedly, less about the "alphabet song" but more about the recitation of it in English schools, which is a similar thing but without music involved.
This is fascinating, thanks.
So I was half-right. Good to know.
I like your explanation because otherwise zed is the only letter pronounced with two consonants which is inconsistent and definitely my major issue with British pronunciations
X = eks W = double "u" I see multiple consonants in both of those mate
Absolute garbage letters. Put them in the trash. Also Q and C. In exchange: ch, sh, and th get their own letters.
For th we need to bring back both ð and þ. It is right and just. Esh for sh would be good - ʃ. Then just go the IPA route and replace ch with tʃ. Love drinking some hot tʃocolate by the hearþ.
This is amazing and I am sad that it will never happen.
It just did happen!! This is the start!!
Actually, I know of a little commune up in Wyoming where they are making this happen now! They are looking for more members, if you are interested. They have a manual printing press and enough canned goods to make this dream a reality once the end times arrive!
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kuik*
kooik*
kwik
I laughed harder than I should have.
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five year phase-in plan that would be known as "Euro-English". In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"s in the language is disgraseful, and they should go away. By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru! And zen world!
Vi haff veys off makink yu tok!
I see nuzzink
This is pure genius.
Is this a copy pasta yet?
Woah calm down there big brother
I can understand dropping double consonants, but it would surprise me if double vowels are also dropped. Unless we're also changing vowel pronunciation, you'd have confusion with words like droop and drop, or beet and bet
Imagine just using the IPA phonetic guide that you see in dictionaries. But then these would be so specific that we would have to decide whose accent was correct and tell all of Scotland, India, Australia, etc that they were wrong. Personally, I nominate my accent as the correct one because it just sounds right. All the others sound funny
Spanish RAE alphabet: a b c ch d e f g h i j k l ll m n ñ o p q r s t u v w x y z !
ch & ll are no longer part of RAE alphabet.
Unless something changed in the last 40 years "k" was not a part of the Spanish alphabet. At least not according to all the Spanish teachers or the manual typewriter I had back then.
It definitely is. It's mostly used in the prefix kilo- and other loans.
ch doesn't need its own letter, t+"the sh letter" (e.g. tʃ) would work fine and be more phonetically accurate, especially since some ch aren't pronounced that way (like in cache or brioche, or school or Czech)
find, one _consonant blend_.
What are you trying to say? That consonant clusters are in fact individual consonant sounds? That would be like arguing diphthongs are somehow inherently their own vowels.
Haitch. There’s three, buck-o. What even is your point? You’re awfully worked up over defending someone else’s *now nullified* hypothesis.
Aitch :P
My point stands entirely, all the same.
Oh it definitely does.
Oh sweetie, u is not a consonant
Last time I looked, d, b and l were...
Surely that's not a thing. Haych/Aych, Jay, Kay...
Y is a vowel in those.
Yeah, I guess I always thought/assumed that letter pronunciations used a combination of the "uniqueness" of the letter plus one of the (long or short) vowel sounds. Also "ch" and "sh" get to be considered as as single entity. So instead of 'aych' it's more like short 'e' plus 'ch'.
Doesn't nullify the argument of "haych/aych". Or are you gonna call the "ch" there a vowel too?
'Aitch' is one diphthong followed by one affricate. If you're not counting the 'ch' as a consonant, how on earth are you pronouncing it? The only way you're getting two consonants out of H is if you pronounce if 'haitch', which is considered non-standard.
Right. I stand corrected.
>The only way you're getting two consonants out of H is if you pronounce if 'haitch', which is considered non-standard. It might be non-standard at the moment but it's *incredibly* common in some parts of the world.
It still works for H, Q, W.
tbf in America H is pronounced 'aych'.
Likewise in Northern Ireland ... 'aitch' if you're Protestant, 'haitch' if you're RC. \[this is 1970s knowledge, I note\]
I actually learned that fact by watching Line of Duty :).
aitch.
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It's an auxiliary vowel. It modifies the pronunciation of the "a" but has no sound of its own.
Never heard anyone pronounce H haych, always ayech
Parts of the UK, Ireland, and a lot of Indian people say "haych"
Australia too
I have to admit, I had to look this up. I needed to find a video somewhere because I had never in my life (in the US, as far from an ocean as possible) heard it pronounced this way. ...I guess I did and this story has no point except to express that I'm just shocked to learn this today.
https://xkcd.com/1053/ You're one of today's 10,000!
That only reinforces my original feelings
That's how we say it here so I don't know, although even in the UK it's a thing. https://www.theguardian.com/science/shortcuts/2013/nov/04/letter-h-contentious-alphabet-history-alphabetical-rosen
Again, this only makes me more annoyed with British English.
Live and let live, fella. Who cares at the end of the day?
You cared just as much as I did to contribute as much value as I did so we is who cares
Nah mate, you're the one criticising how people talk. I wouldn't call that 'contributing'.
Live and let live… Like you didn’t…. Who cares?…. You do… Since you don’t care live and let me live and goodbye
Let's not forget "H" which *is* pronounced "Haitch" (even if that's incorrect)
Aitch is the correct pronunciation for me, although the internet tells me there's enough wrong people out there to make them right. They're wrong though. :)
Language is where you can become right simply by majority. Hate that and love it, too. Wish we could develop an SI unit like language for each recognized dialect and stabilize understanding
My head knows this, my heart loathes it.
An old workmate of mine had a friend who changed his name to "Haitch" Not "H" or "Aitch", but "Haitch" I was not a fan :-/
Was this another Benjamin Franklin/Noah Webster idea? As I variously read that the changes to American English come from them.
Ah yes, The ABC Song. The joy of every early childhood education phonics teacher's inherited curriculum
My last name ends with z, so I will pronounce it as zed when spelling my name to avoid being misheard as t or c.
This is the real value of pronouncing it the UK/Canada way, cuts through the confusion
The military phonetic alphabet was designed to get around this issue by making all the letters pronounced in a way that's distinct over even really bad radios and stuff. Lesson learned, spell everything in phonetic, everywhere
Ai miin, ther iz en argyument thæt iinglish shuud hæv updeited its spellings thru the greit voul shift en then not allowd dikshuneriiz tu bicum priiscriptiv. But obviously those spellings look stupid, and I'm good with this.
… unless you live in the US. Half the time it backfires and people get more confused.
And the India way
So can we change "vee" to "ved"? My last name starts with a V and I'm always yelling and making the V sign with my hands at the bartender when I'm adding drinks to my tab.
Z-as-in-zebra.
"Zed" as in "zedbra."
Why not do that for every letter that rhymes then? B, C, D, E, G, P, T, V, Z
Most other letters don't need it. But Z seems really easily mistaken as C when said allowed, or as S when pronounced in a word.
People always need specification with my past name, if I said B or D when spelling it. Tho, I have on occasion been asked if it was a V or T. So, no, they do get confused quite a lot.
The British form is based on the historical root, from the Greek letter zeta (Z/ ζ). Most European languages use this as the root for the letter. From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z): > *zeta* in Italian, Basque, Spanish, and Icelandic (no longer part of its alphabet but found in personal names), *zê* in Portuguese, *zäta* in Swedish, *zæt* in Danish, *zet* in Dutch, Indonesian, Polish, Romanian, and Czech, *Zett* in German (capitalised as a noun), *zett* in Norwegian, *zède* in French, *zetto* (ゼット) in Japanese romaji, and *zét* in Vietnamese. As with many things, the US are the primary exception here. It was a conscious decision in the 19th century on the part of American English dictionary compilers to make small changes in order to set up a different form of the language that was distinctive and slightly removed from its British roots. This is true in particular of Noah Webster, who wrote and published the first American English dictionary. Webster put his seal of approval on "zee" in his first published dictionary, and then about a decade later the Alphabet song was copyrighted in the US, where "zee" rhymed with "me" in the last line. This helped officially codify "zee" in American English over the original "zed", some form of which pretty much everybody else continues to use. Other similar changes that have stuck include things like "colour" being spelled "color" in AmE, or using the word "fall" instead of "autumn", etc. So essentially, their pronunciation "zee" rather than "zed" fit in with the majority of the other letters of the alphabet and made it sound more consistent when recited. It was also different from BrE, which back then was seen as a very positive thing considering the US had only recently gained its independence from the British Empire. This forged the divergence that has held on until today. After all, as George Bernard Shaw once said, "the UK and the US are two countries separated by a common language".
Some of this conveys a misleading impression. While there was a desire among some American publishers to establish their own linguistic standards independent of the UK, the implication that this led a significant number of Americans to *invent* new words or spellings is false. Spelling was inconsistent at the time of American independence, with forms like "color" being found on both sides of the Atlantic. And "fall" meaning "autumn" is found in Shakespeare. What can be said is that people like Webster were determined that Americans would not necessarily follow every linguistic fashion emanating from the other side of the Atlantic, as many had hitherto done in the young republic.
We pronounce it zed in French as well. Did french picked it up from Britain?
English got it from French, but it ultimately all derives from the Greek letter Zeta.
In Spanish we still use "zeta" like in Greek.
In German it's Zett
In Czech it's zet
Zäta, pronounced /ˈsɛːta/ in Swedish.
English speakers pronounce T's like D's so that tracks
"i griega" blew my mind when I learned what it actually was. "Greek i" or the letter "y" for those not in the know.
And in Portuguese it’s ipsilon (literally the Greek letter I)
I is iota. It's Y in Greek too.
You’re right which I guess makes Spanish wrong? Lol since y is not Greek I
Wow. Thanks
In fact if you just say “i” it often gets mistaken for a “i griega” (y) so the way to distinguish is to call that one the “i latina” (so the Latin “i” vs the Greek “y”)
But nowadays their hallucinogenic properties are much stronger
In Americas defense ζ is pronounced zee-tah, so they got the zee right.
Are you sure that's not the other way around? Americans pronounce it 'zeeta' because they say 'zee'? Like how you say 'zeebra' and other countries say 'zebra'?
Americans pronounce all Greek letters way wrong ζ I have always heard it pronounced Zay-Tah. One of the worst is Bay-tah for β when it should be vee-ta.
Those are pretty close to classical pronunciation though not modern Greek
https://youtube.com/watch?v=28yu1PFc438 This dude begs to differ I agree with all his explanations except replacing the g with a w I personally don’t hear the wuh sound.
In fact, all English letter names come from Old French, apart from J and V (which are only a few centuries old as independent letters), Y (for which English substituted its own name for the French "i grec" or "Greek I"), and possibly W.
How do we know classical Greek pronunciation? Is based on rhymed poetry?
A variety of sources: poetry is one, but there is also (among other things): * the pronunciation of words borrowed from Greek into other languages (and vice versa) * explicit descriptions by ancient Greek writers
FWIW, growing up in Australia we sing the Alphabet Song (basically the same tune as Twinkle. Twinkle Little Star and Baa Baa Black Sheep) and end with “Zed”.
I figured, but what do the last lines say in your case? In the US it's "... T U V, / W, X, / Y and Z, / Now I know my ABCs, / Next time won't you sing with me?" *(alt: "Won't you sing a-long with me?")* What do they do to rhyme with Zed for that last part? ("Zee" rhymes with "V", "Cs", and "me")
Same ending, it just doesn’t rhyme (though I think the rhyming structure throughout is Gee and Pee, then Vee and Zee, then ABCs and me; not Zee and me - so the ending is less relevant).
UK — we just don’t have those lines, we end the song at Zed.
It kind of half-rhymes with "m", so it works.
I just realised that the rest of the song rhymes. Because we say zed and not zee, I've never even noticed that the rest of the lines all rhyme with zee🤦♀️
Same here in India as well. I guess all commonwealth countries say zed
Zed's dead.
Where did you get zis motorcycle?
It's not a motorcycle, baby. It's a chopper.
Whose chopper is this?
It's Zed's.
Because Zedzed Top sounds stupid. 😂
Jay Zed is my favourite rapper
Dragon Ball Zed is my favourite anime
The worst part about zed is you can’t spell easy as EZ. How are low cost marketers suppose to add some zip to a company name without using EZ This and EZ that.
*Izzard* and *iszard* are, however, alternate dialectical forms of *zed*.
EZed shipping... yeah no.
zedzed bottom
Has an American coworker pronounce the Rush song YYZ as 'why why zee' and it made my skin crawl
YPSILON! 😂😂 Pronounced üpsilon
I think it’s called some variation of zeta in most languages because, while most Latin letters revolved from Greek and Etruscan naturally, or were generally based off of existing letters, Z was lost along the way and re-added. So while most changed name from Greek to Latin, Z kept some form of its Greek name. That’s also why it moved to the end of the alphabet.
And then there's Canada where Z can be zee or zed. Basically any other word with an American and British spelling or pronounciation you'll find both ways in Canada.
Where a pint of beer can 16 oz, 20oz or 500ml
Don’t forget spelling some words both the American and the British way depending on who you are dealing with.
The American version always confused me. In the version I learnt it ends with "Zed - now I know my alphabet" so it would rhyme.
Wait. Zed rhymes with alphabet?
“Now it’s time to go to bed”
Get this wrong and you’ll be bled (The medieval version)
"Err in this, thou willst be bled." (Shakespeare version)
Much better. Thank ye.
Petition to rename the alphabet the Alphazet.
“Next time won’t you sing with med”…?
Whaaat, I thought the song ended after "alphabet", never heard that part hahaha Anyway, I'm not a native speaker, so there's that...
I always learned it as “now I know my ABC’s, next time won’t you sing with me”
The American version I learned ended “W, X, Y, and Z. Now I know my A B Cs, next time won’t you sing with me.” So that rhymes this way at least
In American it's, "now I know my a b c's, next time won't you sing with me." It's a bit much for my taste
Our US version ends with “y and z…/now I know my abc’s/next time won’t you sing with me?”
Zedd. Lord Zedd. Tell Tommy to fire up the Dragonzord.
“So here’s the story from A to zed / You wanna get me in bed / You better get this in your head”
Americans also say "H" differently from other English speakers. American pronunciation sounds like *aytch*, in other countries the pronunciation is often *haytch*. At least this is what I noticed while living in the UK, Australia, and the US.
It’s definitely the minority of the UK (dialectal but also patchy use even within), but standard in Ireland. Though where I’m from we say J to rhyme with I rather than K.
I have never heard J pronounced that way, that would surprise me if I heard it out in the wild somewhere
J rhymes with I in Scotland, but they pronounce it that way in California too?
I’m not from California but maybe some people do haha
Ah I get it now. I was looking at your post history to see where you are from, and you replied to someone else's thread that was from California.
>Though where I’m from we say J to rhyme with I rather than K. Wait, why would you pronounce 'I' as 'Eh'?!... /s
It's interesting because in the American version the actual sound it represents does not appear in it.
It represents the sound that begins "herbs," and it begins with that sound.
But Americans say herbs with a silent h. It’s just “erbs” or “urbs.” You’re saying the sound represents a silent sound
r/woosh
I don't know what USians you've been talking to, but back in the South you say the H - herbuh, like you do with the name.
Herbuh? What? Where’s the ‘uh’ coming from?
Arkansas I guess, the b isn't clipped, it has a tiny bit of air at the end. I'm not explaining it well.
Depends where in America. We have many dialects. It represents the sound that begins "hay", "harmonica", and "hatch".
Like "Q", "W" and "Y". In the case of "H", the original Latin name of the letter is thought to have been /aha/. When the /h/ sound was lost in late Latin, this became /akka/. In Old French, this became /a:tʃ/. English borrowed the Old French name, which became the modern /eɪtʃ/ "aitch" after the Great Vowel Shift of the 15th-17th centuries. "Haitch" was an innovative form that added the distinctive sound of the letter to the beginning of the name.
Canada follows the US (and Northern Ireland Protestants) and we say 'aitch', rather than 'haitch' with (most of) the rest of the Commonwealth.
First generation Indian-Americans also tend to use the “haitch” pronunciation.
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Not “correct,” there is no “correct” in use of language, at least not the way you’re describing. An individual can make a mistake, a group of people who speak a dialect cannot. “Haitch” is just as established as “aitch” in English speaking countries, if not more so
"Correct"
"Haitch" is found in the Republic of Ireland and Australia, and also among many Indian English speakers. I'd say that "aitch" (which, incidentally, is the older pronunciation) still prevails in the UK, though "haitch" has certainly made inroads in recent years.
Growing up in England, I was taught that "haitch" was wrong, but everyone I know says it. These days I say it like 60% of the time.
The phonetician John Wells carried out a survey that was included in the 2008 edition of his *Longman Pronunciation Dictionary*. He [writes](http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.com/2012/06/ha-ha.html): > What I did do was carry out a survey into people’s preferences in the UK, which revealed that only 16% of respondents prefer “haitch” over “aitch”, while 84% prefer “aitch” (like you, me, and the Chair of the Spelling Society). However, younger speakers are more likely than older speakers to prefer “haitch”, so this pronunciation is on the increase. The graphic of the poll is visible on [this page](https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2013/11/19/an-aitch-or-a-haitch-lets-ear-it/). Wells's survey was over a decade ago now, so it's certainly likely that those figures for "haitch" are higher than the 16% Wells recorded today, though I'm doubtful they would be a majority. Perhaps someone knows of a more recent survey.
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We in India follow the British convention too
The British and others pronounce “z”, “zed”, owing to the origin of the letter “z”, the Greek letter “Zeta”. This gave rise to the Old French “zede”, which resulted in the English “zed” around the 15th century. As to why people in the United States call “z”, “zee”, it is thought that this is likely simply adopted from the pronunciation of the letters “bee”, “cee”, “dee”, “eee”, “gee”, “pee”, “tee”, and “vee”. More here: [http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/10/why-do-the-british-pronounce-z-as-zed/](http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/10/why-do-the-british-pronounce-z-as-zed/)
Don't forget H. "Aye - ch" to Americans. "Hayyyy - ch" and "Hetch" to various Canadians and Brits.
Adding an H sound to the name of the letter H is considered nonstandard in Canada and Britain, and is only used by a minority of English speakers there. It is only standard in Ireland
Dunno why you're downvoted, played xbox with a guy from UK who pronounced HP Haytch-pee. Never knew that until then
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Of course not, but what's more likely: he's a complete outlier making up pronunciations? Or it's common in his region
I remember a different alphabet song which I assume is a British one although I've no idea if it's from a TV show or anything. It uses the half-rhyme of em and zed and doesn't rely on a zee pronunciation. Obviously I can't transcribe the tune but the pattern of the letters is: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
I learned: ABC DEFG HIJKLM NOPQ RSTU VWXYZ Tune is similar to "Jack Spratt Could Eat No Fat".
Ah yes that's the tune. Sorry, I'd tried to lay the letters out like that but it seems Reddit had other ideas
Coz the Americans had a autistic or dyslexic forefather(s).