Poll of the Day > How to pronounce "Z" - Zee or Zed?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Which version do you say?

Zulu

Zee normally but in Power Ranges it's Zed for me.

Do Canadians call a horse with black and white stripes a "zedbra"?

captpackrat posted...

Do Canadians call a horse with black and white stripes a "zedbra"?

We don't, but if you go to Australia or the UK, you will hear them pronounce it as "zeh-bra" rather than "zee-bra".

make sure you cross the road at the zedbruh crossing

darkknight109 posted...

We don't, but if you go to Australia or the UK, you will hear them pronounce it as "zeh-bra" rather than "zee-bra".

I can confirm.

"zebra" is such a strange word. We don't say "dee-og" or "cee-at" or "em-onkey"

other

"say-dah"

What about Dragon Ball Zed

I do in fact call it dragon ball zed.

Damn_Underscore posted...

What about Dragon Ball Zed

That is, essentially, what it's actually called.

The original Japanese is , which is transliterated as doragon boru zetto. They're using the Portuguese "zet" rather than the English "zed" (Portugal was basically Japan's only western trading partner in the middle ages, so a lot of their early loanwords are Portuguese, like "pan" for bread), but both of those are derived from the same root word/pronunciation (the Latin Z, called "zeta", but pronounced as "zeh-ta" not "zay-ta"). The American English "zee" is an anomaly that was first introduced in the 19th century as a way of distinguishing American English from British English.

Also notable: I believe the first English dub of DBZ was Canadian and they did, indeed, call it Dragon Ball Z(ed)

Listen to this, the original Japanese theme song says Zee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSOjj8Q_9b4

Damn_Underscore posted...

Listen to this, the original Japanese theme song says Zee

Take a look at the katakana below the title at 0:14. It's exactly as I spelled it up above there: . Those last three characters are pronounced "zetto" - if it was "zee" (or "zi", if you want the English transliteration of what the Japanese pronunciation of that sound would be), it would be... well, actually much harder to spell out, because Japanese doesn't have that sound natively, but they would either do it as or something like .

Also, I don't know why you think they're saying "zee" - listen at 1:16 and they're saying "ze" (dragged out and it's hard to make out the end of it because of the instruments, but that is the correct Japanese pronunciation).

The or is not pronounced by the singer tbh

Damn_Underscore posted...

The or is not pronounced by the singer tbh

OK. And?

That's being done for lyrical purposes (same way you'll hear words be left unfinished in English songs if the singer is holding a long note and the word ends with a plosive or fricative sound). Vocalizing a sokuon at the end of a held note the way it would have to be done here would be challenging and/or sound awful, so it's just left off. The singer is still singing (ze - rhymes with meh or set), not / (zi - rhymes with bee or tree). The latter would be used for the American pronunciation of "zee", the former for the European "zed/zet".

But who is Zed?

NeoSioType posted...

But who is Zed?

Zeds dead

darkknight109 posted...

That is, essentially, what it's actually called.

The original Japanese is , which is transliterated as doragon boru zetto. They're using the Portuguese "zet" rather than the English "zed" (Portugal was basically Japan's only western trading partner in the middle ages, so a lot of their early loanwords are Portuguese, like "pan" for bread), but both of those are derived from the same root word/pronunciation (the Latin Z, called "zeta", but pronounced as "zeh-ta" not "zay-ta"). The American English "zee" is an anomaly that was first introduced in the 19th century as a way of distinguishing American English from British English.

Also notable: I believe the first English dub of DBZ was Canadian and they did, indeed, call it Dragon Ball Z(ed)

Mangaka use American English spellings for English words.

Revelation34 posted...

Mangaka use American English spellings for English words.

Well, 1) That depends on the mangaka and where they learned English (given that English isn't an official language in Japan, there is no standard guide on whether they should use British or American spellings) and 2) Again, what does that have to do with the topic at hand?

It tends to be regional and I default to "zee"

darkknight109 posted...

Well, 1) That depends on the mangaka and where they learned English (given that English isn't an official language in Japan, there is no standard guide on whether they should use British or American spellings) and 2) Again, what does that have to do with the topic at hand?

I would imagine American-English is vastly more prevalent than British-English in Japan, given both Japan's history and the fact the US is a much larger trading partner with far more influence.

"Zee."

I use both on Words with Friends. The Z is a tricky letter to get rid of, any short word that has it is welcome.

Technically, being Dutch and having been taught English in school based on the country just across the North Sea, zed is the natural pronunciation for me.

Zeus posted...

I would imagine American-English is vastly more prevalent than British-English in Japan, given both Japan's history and the fact the US is a much larger trading partner with far more influence.

More prevalent? In my experience, yes. "Vastly"? Depends on your definition. Keep in mind that Japan is geographically quite close to Australia, India, and China - the former two officially use British English and the latter has heavy UK influence due to their past as an unwilling protectorate of the British empire.

Also, while the US is Japan's second biggest trading partner (behind China), it's not by a huge amount - Australia and the EU collectively have slightly more trade than the US and both use British English (Canada and Hong Kong, who also both use British English, are also major trading partners and account for another about 25% of the US's total).

Really, Japan is kind of a hodge-podge. You won't see a strong overall trend towards American or British English, because Japan isn't really that concerned with the nuances of a foreign language in most applications. It would sort of be like asking whether the US uses Quebecois French or France French - the answer is "neither, formally; individually, it depends on where you are and who you're talking to).

But again I'll ask, what does this side-discussion have to do with the topic at hand? Whether Japan uses American English or British English more commonly (which is going to be difficult to give a firm answer to) isn't relevant to the specific question of whether Dragon Ball Z is pronounced "Zee" or "Zed/Zet" in Japanese, and that has a definite, unambiguous answer.

Zed.

Aussie here

Z.

I speak portuguese

When folk say "Zee" I think of this character.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/b008150e.jpg

Depends on the word it's used in, this is coming from a Brit

When we learned the alphabet as a child it was Zee, in my experience it seems to be if it's just the letter its zee if it's used in a word its zed, i.e ZedX for the Sinclair computers

And, of course, if you inquire whose chopper it is.

Imagine "Rock the Dragon" but it says Dragon Ball Zed.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/f/f829102f.jpg

Revelation34 posted...

Mangaka use American English spellings for English words.

That's where we get the rarely used "Gokou".

"Zed" makes no sense. Most consonants are pronounced as the letter's sound with a vowel in front or behind. Like "Tee" or "Emm". Why is there a random "d" sound in there?

Another thing you need to consider that it's very normal for kids these days to not know about WW2 the same way we wouldn't be able to give a detailed timeline about what happened during WW1.

W (double-ewe) is the one that doesn't make any sense. A W is clearly two V's. It should be "double-vee".

W=VV
WUU

VioletZer0 posted...

Imagine "Rock the Dragon" but it says Dragon Ball Zed.

The Canadian release (at least, the one that was running in ~2000, which is when I became aware of it) did actually get its own OP, but they used "Zee."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAOCnSKz-x8

More closely on-topic: Usually "Zed," but "Zee" in cases where that's specifically part of something's name (DBZ actually being the example I was going to use, but also La-Z-Boy unless I'm being facetious and calling it "La-Zed-Boy").

captpackrat posted...

Do Canadians call a horse with black and white stripes a "zedbra"?

There's no difference in the actual phonics of the letter. Just its pronunciation on its own.

Hejiru posted...

"Zed" makes no sense. Most consonants are pronounced as the letter's sound with a vowel in front or behind. Like "Tee" or "Emm". Why is there a random "d" sound in there?

Not knowing the full history for certain, it's probably from French, where it's also pronounced "Zed." In turn, changing it to Zee in US English was likely a matter of just trying to make it more consistent with other letters.

captpackrat posted...

W (double-ewe) is the one that doesn't make any sense. A W is clearly two V's. It should be "double-vee".

W=VV
WUU

It is actually "double-vee" in French, but I'm not really sure why English went with double-you instead. W is kind of a borderline vowel in that it offers the same articulation you'd get from sticking a long u in front of a vowel. It also just straight up is a vowel in Welsh (filling a similar role to u in English).

W is double vee in Spanish too (doo blay vay) but I think it's only used in foreign words

Nichtcrawler-X posted...

That's where we get the rarely used "Gokou".

This is absolutely not true.

I might underestimate how much it is used, but it is used as an official spelling for Goku.

I could believe "Gouku," but "Goku" and "Gokou" are not phonetically equivalent.

Nichtcrawler-X posted...

I might underestimate how much it is used, but it is used as an official spelling for Goku.

It was merchandise and that wasn't my point anyway. It has absolutely nothing to do with American English.

Nichtcrawler-X posted...

That's where we get the rarely used "Gokou".

I presume you're misremembering here, because "Gokou" is not a valid transliteration of his name and would be pronounced completely different (it would sound like "Goko" to an English ear, rather than "Goku").

His name in Japanese is , pronounced . If you want to be pedantic, the correct transliterations of that are Gok or Gokuu (both are equivalent), but chouon (the Japanese practice of extending vowels for certain words, which are indicated by a double-vowel [or an "ou" for most chouon "o" sounds] in transliterations) are sometimes omitted for English transliterations (for instance, "Tokyo" should actually be Toukyou or Tky, as both o's are chouon vowels, and "Kyoto" should be Kyouto or Kyto, as the first o is a chouon, but not the second). The practice of eliminating double vowels in English transliterations is significantly less common these days, but up until a couple of decades ago it was standard practice, so any words that were commonly transliterated prior to this century often had their sokuon vowels shortened in English transliterations and are now too engrained to change.

adjl posted...

Not knowing the full history for certain, it's probably from French, where it's also pronounced "Zed." In turn, changing it to Zee in US English was likely a matter of just trying to make it more consistent with other letters.

I kind of gave the truncated history above, which is that it was originally a Latin letter (which they borrowed from the Greek letter zeta (/). They kept the name, but changed the pronunciation from zay-ta to zeh-ta.

The Romance languages all used some variant of this (zeta in Italian and Spanish, zet in Romanian, z in Portuguese, and zde in French) and the Germanic languages, upon adopting the Latin alphabet, also named it similarly (for instance, German, Norwegian, and Dutch both used the Romanian "zet/zett", Danish uses zaet, etc.). The English zed was most likely most heavily influenced by the French, particularly around the time of the Norman conquests in the 1100s, which is when French had its biggest influence over English as a language.

"Zee" was an aberration that actually predates the US as a country, but was not widely spoken until the US adopted it and certain linguists (notably including Noah Webster, of Webster's dictionary fame) started promoting its use as a way to differentiate American English from its British counterpart (and also to rhyme the letter with its counterparts B, C, D, E, G, P, T, and V).

I understand the reasoning for using Zed, but I find it incredibly pretentious. Even worse is people calling zombies "Zeds".

Revelation34 posted...

This is absolutely not true.

adjl posted...

I could believe "Gouku," but "Goku" and "Gokou" are not phonetically equivalent.

darkknight109 posted...

I presume you're misremembering here, because "Gokou" is not a valid transliteration of his name and would be pronounced completely different (it would sound like "Goko" to an English ear, rather than "Goku").

Looks like Nicht is correct here (as much as I dislike that Gokou romanization).

From the Wikipedia page for Goku:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a730828c.jpg

SoreChasm posted...

Looks like Nicht is correct here (as much as I dislike that Gokou romanization).

From the Wikipedia page for Goku:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a730828c.jpg

Nicht is absolutely wrong. "It has absolutely nothing to do with American English."

Revelation34 posted...

Nicht is absolutely wrong. "It has absolutely nothing to do with American English."

Im just talking about Gokou being one way of romanizing the characters name.

I use both depending on the language I'm speaking. As a native French speaker, I use Zed the most often because that's how it's pronounced in French. When I speak English, I use Zee despite being Canadian. I'm not really an outlier because American English is actually pretty common in my province. French is enforced here, so a lot of people learn English as a second language by consuming American media and surfing on the Internet. Despite English classes being mandatory starting from grade four and the schoolbooks using British English, teachers don't actually enforce one spelling over the other and many also teach the American one as an alternative.

As a result, spelling is all over the place. Grey is more common than gray because learning colors is one of the first things you learn, and schoolbooks use grey. I actually had to train myself to use gray once I realized that grey was the "wrong" spelling. Color is more common than colour because it's shorter, and defense is more common than defence because it's spelled "dfense" in French. Ironically, mobilise is more common than mobilize because it's also spelled mobilise in French. Perfectionists like me make sure to consistently use only one spelling, and American English is more commonly chosen.

However, I voted Zee because this is an English website.

SoreChasm posted...

Im just talking about Gokou being one way of romanizing the characters name.

It's better than that Gokuh one.

SoreChasm posted...

Looks like Nicht is correct here (as much as I dislike that Gokou romanization).

From the Wikipedia page for Goku:

That is wild. I would love to know where on Earth they came up with that transliteration...

"Zee"